Sundays Wishlist

Hope everyone had a good weekend. 

Mine was pretty good I must say. I went shopping with Clare and now I'm daydreaming of lots of goodies that I saw but didn't purchase. 

My brother in law brought me a big massive can of pumpkin and bags of marshmallows.

Everton DIDN'T lose. 

We went and saw Skyfall. A bit overrated but good. 

Now every weekend in November is filled with exciting things. 

Next weekend we are going to Milton Keynes to see our friends. 

The following weekend we are going to Germany to visit my family. 

Weekend commencing that is my TWENTY FIFTH birthday. 

How is ^ even possible? I remember just turning 16 and going for a drive in my new car that I'd been staring at since I was 15 and wanting to drive while it waited patiently for me to turn 16 in our driveway. 

My oh my next think you know I'm going to be 86. lol 

I like getting older though. I'm not really that upset, more nostalgic than anything.

Here nor there. 

What's on YOUR weekend wish list? What have you been lusting over? 

How is it already Sunday night? 

Pfff bring on November.

I'm a Sweet Tooth; Rice Crispy Treats

 Now that Halloween is approaching I've been finding myself turning to child hood favourites. Now I know basically being American this recipe everyone knows. So this is more of a little recipe for my non  American lovelies.

It's beyond simple you will actually wonder why you've never made them before. Too be honest as well, the English version is actually a bit healthier. Which means its totes ok to demolish basically a whole pan with your husband right? Maybe not but hey you only live once.

Ingredients:
4 cupsTesco's Own Rice Snaps ( the reason I say healthier because this version is no added sugar, so unlike the Rice Krispy brand of cereal which has I think like 9 or 10g of sugar to the Tesco's 2g) I know this is a sweet treat but it's always good to try and cut out added sugar as much as possible where you can.
1 cup Peanut butter
1 cup Marshmallow Puff ( YESSSSS THEY SELL THIS IN THE UK NOW!!!!!!) Also a no added sugar version. It's still very sweet.  Generally I'd probably use a bag of Marshmallows but I'm sorry to break it to you English folks, your marshmallows are garbage compared to the US's. Yes the American version probably has so much more additives and refined things that is what makes it sweeter and better but hey.... in Murica

Yes 3 ingredients. Now you really are wondering where this recipe has been all your life.

*I'd like to add that if you do not like peanut butter you can omit this and add extra marshmallow.

You could also add melted chocolate instead or as a bonus. Again, this is such a versatile easy recipe.

Melt the mallow and peanut butter mix together place over the rice crispy and mix. (shown above)
Then place in a lightly greased cooking pan and just evenly place in the pan with a spatula. Let cool in fridge so it can all set and bind together. Give an hour and basically dig in.

Autumn Nights

1 //.2 // 3 // 4 //5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9




 Hello all! It's FRIDDDDAAAAAY. My second favourite F word. Ha. 
How has everyone been? 
Are we enjoying the weather changes or hating them?
I'm as much as I'm cold weather's least favourite fan am loving Autumn. 
I loove when the leaves are falling and the different colours of the trees. 
The days are starting dark and ending even darker.Autumn brings Halloween, Thanksgiving, 
pumpkin carving, sugar cookies and comfort foods. 

Has anyone tried the Jack Daniels Honey whiskey? OH MY GOODNESS. Talk about scrumptious. 
David and I purchased it on a whim last weekend and have now been having a small glass here and there 
during the week for a little night cap. 

Christmas is upon us you guys. 
I don't know whether I'm excited or not just yet.
I have an excited feeling which is quite unlike myself. 
(aka Scrooge as my husband once called me when we were dating)

Have a lovely Friday. 
Hope your weekend is filled with lots of fun.

Make your own Chai Spice

Right so I've been using Chia a lot when baking whether its the Chia Tea bags or the Chia Latte Spice mix. I ALWAYS use Cinnamon in everything. So I thought why not cable my own little mix together to cut out a step when baking. So I thought I would share my little spice mix. It is quite strong with the Nutmeg and Cloves so I would just test it out and then add more cinnamon or more tea to your liking.

4x Chia Tea bags torn open and placed in a bowl (I used Twining Chai)
4 Tbsp Cinnamon
3 Tbsp Nutmeg
3 Tbsp Cloves
1/2 Vanilla pod

Mix it all together and store in a jar to add to coffee, sprinkle a little in your oatmeal instead of sugar, over cut apples warmed up in the microwave, freeze a banana blend the next day sprinkle some of this up for non dairy freeze treat. Boil with some milk and add to your coffee for a fall-ish blend. Place with ice, milk, coffee in a blender for your own frozen coffee. The options are endless :)

Have a Happy Saturday!

I'm a Sweet Tooth; Chocolate Chip Banana Pumpkin Bread

Well, I haven't been able to find pumpkin ANYWHERE. Not like an actual pumpkin but canned pumpkin you know the kind to make, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bread, pumpkin risotto, pumpkin quinoa, baked pumpkin oatmeal you know the list goes on and on of things I want to be trying to bake and cook for you right now. I broke down and bought a can off Amazon. It was £2 and shipping was £8. Yes I was that desperate. 

It's freaking fall people. What is fall without pumpkin? 

Clearly here fall is still fall. Not in my book though. 

Anyways so last week after putting the pumpkin in the cupboard to maybe save it for a rainy day. 

That lasted about half a day and I gave in and started baking. 

Hey England can play in your favour. Thank you rain. :) Now go away.

Moving on. So I wanted to make something comforting but not cake or cookies. 

So what we have here is my mothers banana bread recipe altered a little bit. 

What you'll need:

2 cups spelt flour

4 tbsp semolina

1/2 cup soft brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda (bicarbonate soda)

1 to 2 ripe bananas (chopped)

1/3 cup margarine

1/3 cup pumpkin

2 eggs

1 tsp of cinnamon

1/3 cup chocolate chip morsels (gotta satisfy my husbands chocolate cravings)

Handful of walnuts

1 tbsp Chai Latte Spice 

(England you can buy in Tesco here or in the states I buy this )

Mix the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the pumpkin. Add one egg in at a time. Mix the dry ingredients together. Let wet and dry meet. Spray a baking pan I used a rectangular loaf pan. 

After putting the mix in I kind of shook it and let it hit the counter to get all the air sockets out of it. 

Placed it in the oven and 45 minutes later we have Chocolate Chip Banana Pumpkin bread that lasted no longer than a day and a half. 

I apologise for the lack of images and quality of the ones I have. This is what happens when you get home and its basically already dark. 

Oh yeah and I just remembered I sprinkled a little brown demera sugar on the top mid bake just for a bit of a crumbly top.

Enjoy! 

Anniversary Weekend 35mm Black and White Prints

 Thursday July 26th I woke up by my husband to tell me that I wasn't going into work nor was I the next day we were going to head down to Somerset for Farm Festival ( a music festival). We were going camping and traveling for our one year anniversary. I couldn't have been happier. Live music, cider, cuddling, wellies, just the two of us just sounded like a good time. He had called my boss and booked the two days off for me. Everyone in work had kept it a secret. We headed down on the Friday and it was the most amazing weekend. We saw loads of really amazing bands, ate lots of fudge, drank lots of cider, fell asleep OUTSIDE of our tent staring at the stars talking about our dreams and how we want to make them happen. Then on the Sunday we decided since we were already down South we would go to Stonehenge as we both have always wanted to go and then have a little stop off in Bath.

Here are the film pictures I've finally received back (Apparently printing black and white film is going out of style so therefore they have to send it off and then wait patiently as your images are being printed.) I love every single one of these images. I love the imperfections the blurriness and just the real moments captured.

 Bath, England

    At the Roman Baths

  Bath, England

 Bath, England

 Stone Henge

 I love this. 

 Farm Festival 2012

 Farm Fone 

 I'm so lucky to live the rest of my life with this handsome face. This is probably one of my favourite pictures of him. 

Pale is the new Tan

Well the weather is getting colder, the skies are getting greyer and our tans are fading. With trying to keep our nice glows people are probably going to start hitting the tanning beds. I'm going to cut straight to the chase and say DON'T.

Now let me fill you in with a nasty little secret. I used to tan in tanning beds. Like everyday of the week. I once tanned in the morning, laid out in the sun and then tanned that evening as well. Just even typing that makes me feel sick. I'm not proud of it but I'm just saying I to know how hard it is to go from the summer heat to nasty grey weather and fading tans. I will never ever be able to take that away. Is it worth it though in the long run? We all think well, just this last time. Just a few more times I only go in every once in awhile. That's like saying you only smoke a few cigarettes (that subject is for a whole other blog post). Once it's done it's done. That's a small bit of health you will never get back you can't undo a tan. You can't undo the air into your lungs.

I used to roll my eyes when people would say don't do that it's unhealthy. You could get cancer. Me? No way. Whatever... that would never happen. Then being 4,000 miles away as I sat skyping with my mother and seeing her fight the tears to tell me that the doctor found a cancerous mole and the test results said it was severe Melanoma. Now that's a virtual slap in the face. I wanted to rub my skin rid of all the times I'd been so foolish for what? To be a bit darker? Being something I wasn't.

It's always that though isn't it. You do something so many times until something happens and it's a wake up call. You can't go back in the past and change things. You can change what you do from this moment on ward. I know it's cheesy and it's sounds so patronizing but please folks, as the days are getting darker let your skin be lighter. I do agree most people look nice with a bit of colour but I've said it and I'll say it again, is it really worth it?

If anything grab that bottle of gradual tan. Put some of that on. Protect yourself. This is the only life you get. What you did yesterday is now over today is a new day. It's never too late to change your ways until it's the end.

I will never ever step foot in a tanning bed again. Will you?

PALE IS THE NEW TAN!