Raw Love

Recently Sainsbury's introduced me to the and I mean THE most delicious salad I've had in a long time, Edamame bean salad. So refreshing, so light, heavenly. So here share the love 

Drroooool

The other thing that I was introduced to this year was raw food, in particular raw chocolate 

and raw 'cheesecake'

Oh boy am I now hungry!

Christmas

OK, so it's like October and you're thinking what the hell?! But I can't help it I am stupidly excited about Christmas. I do this every year. I see the cards and sweets and gift wrap in the shop and I just want to put my classic Christmas CD in the stereo and bake some mince pies.

Generally Christmas has not been as exciting as I hope for since I was above the age of about 13 but for me now it's all about the food. The moist turkey, pigs in blankets, crispy roast potatoes, sprouts and chestnuts *drool*...

So here are some Christmas recipes to get people salivating as much as me!

Unbelieveaby easy mince pies, guaranteed to be awesome:

Easy Christmas pud, I don't normally like Christmas pud but this was delicious when I made it 

Good, tastey, not over done sprouts

I will also be posting some great homemade Christmas pressie ideas, at some point. Well you know me I say these things then disappear!

Merry Almost Christmas!

Eating myself better

Hello, well I should explain the reason I can blog at the moment is that I am laid on the sofa poorly sick, feeling a little sorry for myself as the boy is in Italy, it's just me and Gaga.

So I have been trying to think of easy things to cook to make me feel better, feed a cold and all that and quite fancy one of my favourite Chinese soups Crab and sweetcorn.

I also want my other favourite French onion soup 

Followed by this cake from this months Sainsburys food magazine 

If any of you want to just nip to Sheffield and make me these things that would be awesome, could you just grab a loaf of bread on the way too?  :)

Vienna Part two

Well once we left the museum we were able to see alot in a couple of hours. We went to a market that was mahoooosive, with plenty of my favourite things, antiques, food and vintage clothes. Why oh why did I not pack lightly!

 It was pretty busy, this was at 9am!

 Not quite the vintage clothing I had hoped for...

 I think I just walked into cheese heaven

 The big wheel at Prater  

People were having candle lit dinners in cabins on here as it went round at night. It struck me as probably one of the most romantic ways to propose. Other than how the Boy proposed to me, a story for another time.

  A water ride at prater, this was the best night we had. The fair was amazing, like a theme park of tacky, whacky fun.

On the way to the airport we went for a little walk and a coffee in one of the many cafes. We didn't realise that everything except cafes closed on a Sunday. Whilst it was a little annoying that none of the museums were open I was really happy to see there was a day where people had to spend time relaxing and hang out with their families.

This was the parliament building which at the time had a circus outside. Finally we popped into an old church that was being renovated. It was so lovely inside but there was a service on so I restrained myself from taking too may pics, all tourist stylie 

It also had a vending machine of church material which made us laugh, oh the 21st century!

If you ever get the chance to go to Vienna do it. It was so lovely. The people were nice, the city was lovely with art and public spaces everywhere, and the food was surprisingly cheap this cost 10 euros which was pretty awesome for a massive steak, it literally was the size of the plate and cooked to perfection! Sorry it's a little blurry, I see it as the haze of yumminess!

So where the devil have I been?!

Indeed where have I been? I start a blog and then disappear...well where do I begin?

Christmas was manic, I mean really manic. The boy and I had the genius idea to invite any of our friends who couldn't get home for Christmas for dinner at our insey, teeny, weeny flat. So with us, 8 people needed to be crammed in to our living room which was already being largely taken up by a humongous, yet twinkley, Christmas tree.

On top of this we also had to visit all our family in both Wales and Birmingham in the snow

I cooked for two days! TWO whole days. The meal included a large turkey, a ham (bought from Joe's, the best butchers in the world and based in Bala, North Wales), a mushroom wellington for the vegetarian, a wide variety of veg, stuffing, home made cranberry sauce, and then all the usual things like mince pies, cakes and cheeses. In the end I was so exhausted (little did I know the full reason for this at the time) I didn't take any pics of the sumptuous meal that we made.

Then I got ill.

To cheer me up whilst I was poorly sick the Boy surprised me with a bunch of sweet pink carnations!

New year came and went in a fevered state. We watched the original Star Wars trilogy and pretty much went to bed.

On New Years day I woke up feeling more human and the Boy, being the sweetie that he is, made me fresh bread for breakfast mmmm. 

As I was feeling more like my old self I decided it was time to take up some knitting and began making the obligatory scarf, which is currently laid to one side with the suspicion that I have messed it up and may need to start again. I just don't think I have enough patience...

Other lovely things we managed to do over the holiday period were to go to see Swan Lake which was looovely (and has inspired me to look for adult ballet classes) and spent a day thrifting and bunting making in an attempt to look like we are proactively planning the wedding (due to take place in just over 6 months!).

I found some lovely fabrics, plates and some clothes (not for really for the wedding but clearly a necessary purchase!)

And for some it the entire holiday season was all too much...