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Chapter 3 of our self-build story: Going up
It’s been over a year since I wrote the last feature on our house build; at the time we were just up to the first floor and things had progressed rapidly. So, did something go horribly wrong, as you might have expected if you’ve ever watched Grand Designs, or has it just been a very busy last 12 months and blogging’s taken a back seat…? Well I’m very pleased to report that it’s the latter of those two option: With the house build, moving in, Christmas, a demanding new job, Covid and a couple of new furry additions, writing for fun sadly hasn’t had much of a look in, but…
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Homemade Christmas wreath
Soooo last week James and I may have put our Christmas tree up. We had a mixed reaction when I shared this information to the masses on social media, some have judged, others have praised. Perhaps premature however I am determined to get in the festive spirit early this year. I say this most years and fail miserably, but it’s my first Christmas with James, a child at heart just like me so it’s bound to be a lot of fun. I also love food that comes in pastry parcels and they are always flowing at Christmas. Right, so the tree is up – check. Next we need a wreath…
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Christmas prep begins with Sloe Gin
James’ parents have a lovely farm on the beautiful west coast of Pembrokeshire in Wales. Visiting is the perfect opportunity to escape from the hustle and bustle of city life for a couple of days, go for long walks, not worry about what time it is and just relax. The end of one of their fields is home to a considerable number of blackthorn trees, which bear the sloe berry. And we all know the only reason sloe berries grow is so that we can pick them and make a delicious gin aperitif from them. When we returned home, sloes in hand, we removed any unwanted bits of twigs, leaves etc…
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Vegetarian inspired baking with HomeSense
Once upon a time before Quorn mince, substitute veggie chicken and tofu there was Sosmix. A popular meat alternative for vegetarians that could be used to make up sausages, burgers, pies etc. Since then it has slowly gone out of fashion and is increasingly difficult to get your hands on. Which I discovered to be a true tradegy after James and I made up some spectacular sausages rolls with the stuff. With this I got to use some of my new HomeSense baking buys that helped along the way. The store has a whole host of equipment for all your baking and cooking needs. Frequently I’ll find something I didn’t know I…
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Recipe: Great British Bake Off inspired Vanilla Cream Eclairs
I’m a huge fan of the Great British Bake Off, drooling over the food, the innocent innuendo, Mel and Sue and of course Mary Berry’s jackets. The only problem is that I sit craving cake for the whole hour and then for the rest of the evening. In last week’s episode the contestants were tasked with perfecting pastry and creating some show stopper éclairs. I caught the episode on Sunday so with a little extra time than a Wednesday evening I decided to give it a go myself. I took the recipe from Paul Hollywood himself, however I made a couple of changes and had to compensate for not being…
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Pizza night. Guess which one is made of cauliflower.
Instead of going out this weekend, I suggested to Alan we make some homemade pizzas. Cheaper than takeaway and more fun than buying one from the supermarket. I love how creative you can be with the toppings and you know exactly what is going into them. We popped by Waitrose and picked out our ingredients. Using cauliflower as a pizza base is pretty old news now, especially in the ‘blogging world’ but I had yet to try it. So as well as making two normal pizzas, we made an extra cauliflower based one. The first pizza was topped with yellow pepper, courgette, pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, red onion and goats cheese.…
