Superdrug bargains and a couple of random pics...

I was in Superdrug the other day (okay so I'm in Superdrug about three times a week since there's one only five minutes away from my work...) and spotted a 10p sale! It would have been rude to walk away without buying something so I picked up these bits and pieces. Two MUA nail polishes (one is great, the other is a bit dried out) and a hair clip for my face mask times at home!

In December I also sent off my first Flavrbox:

I got it using a half price code taking the price down to £10. I thought it was okay but not something I would subscribe to regularly as I found the products didn't really fit into my usual food consumption, so there's still quite a lot of them hanging around my kitchen! 

There were two boxes of crackers which I'm struggling to use. Some chocolates that are still in my fridge (they were chocolate covered fruit - I'd rather just have chocolate!) and a tin of rub that you can use on meat.

The thing I really liked was the jar of red pepper sauce which I finished this using this week and was very tasty with both cheese and on sandwiches.

For £20 a month I'd definitely rather go out for a meal or buy myself some nice luxury products of my choice!

I also bought this last week for 99p:

It's definitely only worth 99p! The two books were pretty poor, most of the recipes aren't really recipes at all - things such as 'how about making chocolate dipped strawberries with Cadbury Dairy Milk'! I also thought the magazine on the front was a proper magazine with more recipes, turns out it was just a leaflet trying to get you to subscribe to the rest of the series of cookbooks, no thanks! 

 

Did anyone else buy it? What are your thoughts on it?? x

Chickpea and chorizo stew with roasted squash

The two things I love in life are pampering and eating. So while I see this blog as mainly about beauty, occasionally I like to throw in an odd recipe. Over the Christmas break I did manage to create a couple of dishes that I'll be doing again and didn't take too long.

Chickpea and chorizo stew (from Nigel Slater, link here)

3 onions chopped roughly

2 carrots chopped roughly

Garlic chopped up (as much as you want!)

Chorizo chopped into chunky pieces (again as much as you want!)

Tin of chickpeas

Tin of chopped tomatoes

500g of water (or roughly 2 x tins filled with water)

Paprika

Olive oil

1. Start by heating up the olive oil and softening the onions, add in the garlic and then the carrots, cook these through for around 5-10mins

2. Put in a teaspoon of paprika

3. Then add in the drained chickpeas, tin of chopped tomatoes, the water and chorizo

 4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for around 45mins - 1 hour.

 Serve with crusty bread or like I did with roasted squash...

The roasted squash recipe is adapted from this one by Jamie Oliver and was a quick and simple to make. I think I made it a bit too spicy so I'd go easy on the dried chilli if you are using it!

Any other good chorizo recipes you can recommend? x

Guest post: Pumpkin and chickpea curry

Okay so tonight Mike wants to share with you a curry he made...

Ingredients:

2 locally sourced (Dunham Massey) organic pumpkins!
Loads of garlic, peeled and chopped
Small onion, sliced on the mandolin
Cumin, cinnamon, chilli flakes, mild chilli powder
1 yellow organic fresh chilli, chopped and deseeded
Chopped fresh organic ginger
Half a tin of organic chopped tomatoes
Little bit of red curry paste
Veg stock 300ml
1 banana
Can of chick peas
Organic brown rice

1. Start by chopping and preparing all the ingredients
2. Fry the onions for 5mins until brown
3. Add garlic, ginger and spices (in your own quantities, it can be quite experimental!) for another minute
4. Add chopped tomatoes and fresh chilli, cook for another minute
5. Add pumpkin and red curry paste, cook for 3 further minutes, then add 300ml of veg stock
6. Stir well, simmer for 20mins until pumpkin is tender
7. Throw in the thickly sliced banana and the tin of drained chickpeas, simmer for 5 further minutes and serve with rice (if using brown rice like Mike did, remember to put it on around 30mins before you require it as it takes a LOT of cooking!)

N.B you don't have to use organic ingredients, Mike was just feeling very chuffed with his shop at Unicorn grocers in Chorlton (Manchester). Also Mike is my boyfriend and wanted to get in on the blogging action, hence this cheeky guest post :)

Favourite Blog and Turnip Inspiration...

Most of the blogs I read are beauty based. However amongst these beauty blogs are a few others on subjects ranging from: bees, fashion, pubs, architecture and food.

My favourite blog on food at the moment has to be Desert Candy. Desert Candy covers all kinds of Middle Eastern cookery. It has been running since 2006 so currently I've lots of posts that I'm still working through, which is lovely to do when I get a spare minute, kind of like a online cookery book.

I discovered Desert Candy when I was looking how to make Arabic/Turkish coffee (which I'm intending to do another post on at some point) and I've been reading it ever since.

The most recent post on Desert Candy is on pickled turnips, which weirdly coincided with me going to a farmers market yesterday and buying turnips and beetroot. I regularly have lunch at a takeaway called 'Falafel' in Rusholme (Manchester's curry mile) and I'd always wondered what the bright pink pickle thing was on the mezze - turns out its turnip pickled with beetroot!

As I had both items after visiting the farmers market, and I had the recipe at my finger tips thanks to Desert Candy, I decided to make my own pickled turnip to have with hummus and pitta which is staple for me. I won't bother putting the recipe here as you can read it on Desert Candy but here are some pictures of my pickled turnip...I let you know how it tastes!

Rosehip Jam (and a return to blogging)

So I think its safe to say at this point that I'm never going to be the world's most frequent blogger. I'm always impressed by my favourite bloggers who can post several times a week. But I find that having a full time job doesn't lend itself to having a full time blog, so my loyalty has to lie with what pays the bills! However that's not to say I'm giving up the blogging, so I'm back with a recipe for rosehip jam I made this morning.

 

This jam came about after find a bag of rosehips at the bottom of the fridge. My boyfriend had collected them last week but he's off in Kosovo at the moment (on a holiday with his friends). So I was left sans boyfriend but with a rapidly 'getting funky' bag of rosehips!

I did a bit of research and found a recipe on the Guardian website which I felt I could tailor to my rather small bag of rosehips. Here's the low down:

1. Wash the rosehips, cut in half and scoop out the middles:

2. Put in a pan with a small amount of water, bring to the boil, then let them bubble for around 20 minutes. During this time I kept mashing them with the back of a spoon and adding extra water. They will turn to a pulp eventually:

 

3. Once you've got the pulp, take off the heat, strain through a sieve and put back in the pan with an equal amount of jam making sugar:

4. Let this bubble for a few more minutes until it is all dissolved and thickens. I had a small sterilised honey jar to hand and then poured the mixture in:

 

As you can see the jam didn't quite make the top of the jar but it's a nice amount for us to use next week on toast. The label was from Ikea and was mainly stuck on to cover the old label which I'd not bothered to take off!

 

I've not put exact measures or timings down as when picking items such as rosehips or berries its hard to be accurate so I find it easier to improvise! Do be careful to scoop out all the seeds though as they are an irritant.

 

Leanne x

Bramble bashing!

A post or so ago I mentioned I'd been bramble picking. Well not one to resist free stuff I've been back a few times since and found myself with a fridge full of brambles:

Last night I decided to do something with them all and found this recipe online for making bramble jelly using only blackberries (not sure what the difference between blackberries and brambles are??), lemon and sugar:

It promised to be 'quick' in the title so I thought 'yes - this is something I can start at nearly 9 o'clock at night and be done by 10!' Ha - as if!


The basis idea was to simmer them, add the sugar and lemon, rapidly boil then sieve them into a hot bowl. Once the sieved mixture was in the hot bowl you could decant it into sterilized jars....

This sort of went to plan with the exception of it not taking an hour and ending up with my kitchen resembling a murder scene...(that's not my foot by the way, its my boyfriend's. My toes are much nicer!)

The end product does not have a jam consistency. It's more like a strawberry sauce to go on ice cream. But it does taste nice. So a jar is heading off to give my sister when I see her tonight whether she wants it or not! She's getting the better jar of the two, we'll use up the messy one!

Have you had any jam disasters, any tips on how I can get my jam to set (if I ever put myself through jam making again!) x

Beef (food and eating)

One of my main ideas for the blog was to have details of good places to eat and drink in Manchester. I have done way too much eating out over the last few years. My favourite restaurants at the moment seem to have a middle eastern leaning (but that's a bit vague I know) and I'm always up for trying cuisines I've not had before. I'd say I'm more into eating out than making my own creations but that may change...

However so far the blog has been taken over by bees (they seem to do that!) but as I have a couple of pictures to hand (both a bit meat heavy so look away now if you are veggie) of good recent meals I thought I'd give a mention to:

Persia Grill House 255 Barlow Moor Road, Manchester, M21 7GJ

I've only been once to this restaurant but I can't rate it highly enough, lamb that fell off the bone, melt in the mouth rice, wonderful service and not too pricey.

The Gurkha Grill 198 Burton Road, West Didsbury, Manchester M20 2LH

I've been to the Gurkha Grill a few times loved it. They do a great sizzler (see above) which is always my favourite. I once went to a curry house in Slaithwaite where they deconstructed the classic sizzler to the point of me just getting a plate of meat minus the sizzler plate and sizzle. I could have wept.

Luckily this isn't a problem at the Gurkha Grill and I look forward to many more trips there in the future.

Recommendations are also VERY welcome!