First Birthday Giveaway

Well, I’m not quite sure how it’s happened, but the blog has officially turned one. That’s a whole lot of cake (or biscuits, or brownies) and even more peanut butter. The beard has varied in length over the last year or so. But it’s here to stay (despite my ahem, witty, April fools).

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Anyway, to celebrate my first Birthday as a blogger I am running a special birthday giveaway to my UK based readers. You can be in with a chance of winning some of my bakes (the ones that’ll travel best by post). The prizes will be a whole batch of my Brownies (possibly in a fancy flavour if you wanted) as well as a portion of cookies (again, these could be some of my stuffed ones, maybe).

To be in with a chance of winning just enter via the Rafflecopter below. The competition is running between April 8th 2014 and Midnight on Tuesday April 15th 2014.

Any questions, drop them in the comments and I’ll be sure to get back to you.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Food, Gin, Zombies and N64

Reason number 1 for why I am poor: food. Whether it’s ingredients or that place that does that burger you just HAVE to try, I spend way too much money on the stuff. I love food, it is my one true love.

This weekend I took a trip down to London to see some friends (east coast had that £5 train ticket sale earlier in Jan, too good not to grab). I used to go down to London a lot, every month or so, but I’d not been down since last summer sometime. So many of my friends are living down south these days that it makes my London visits that much better. My friend Isobel sorted out an itinerary for us, including two different restaurants and a street feast. Isn’t it strange how as you get older your social plans revolve more around food than about which bar or club you’ll be going to (we did still do this as well, but shh)?

Her plan for us all was as follows:

–          Bone Daddies Ramen Bar

–          Back to her flat for Zombies (the Board game), N64, drink, and attempts to shave Matt’s head.

–          Hawker House Street feast.

–          Nasin

–          Patty & Bun (Sunday hangover food).

 

I’d not heard of Bone Daddies until recently, when suddenly my Instagram feed was flooded by pictures of ramen from various London friends. It’s a tiny place in Soho and surprise surprise, there’s a queue. The tables all come with jars of garlic, with a crusher, pots with hair bobbles to keep longer hair out of food, sesame gringers, soy sauce and chili flakes in oil. Anywhere that has this many things you can use to self season is good in my book. I opted for the Spicy Miso Rame (pictured below) and loved the stuff.

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After eating we went back to Isobel’s and a few more people joined us. We played Zombies/N64/shaved Matt’s head before heading out to Hawker House.

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 This is a pop up event that happens in an old warehouse type building in Hoxton. It runs for 10 weekends in a row on Friday/Saturday nights. It has a couple of bars and then a number of food stalls, representing a number of London’s better streetfood vans. I tried as many as I could before getting stuffed, all of it was great.

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Yum Bun – Belly Pork Steamed Bun

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Breddos Tacos – Jerk Pulled Pork Taco & Baja Fish Taco

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Bleeker Street Burger – Cheeseburger plus Feta Fries

Sunday was a trip to Patty & Bun, which I’ve been wanting to try for a long time but, due to how busy it gets we’ve been unable to. Well, I can finally tick it off the list and man, it was worth the wait. The burgers were so good, cooked just right and with great toppings. The fried chicken was also some of the best I’ve had in the UK.

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Smokey Robinson Burger

Thanks again London, I’ll see you soon. I really need to start taking my camera with me for stuff like this. Sorry for the excessive use of mobile.

January Sales and Bloglovin

Well, what can I say other than I have spent a small fortune in the sales this time around. Far, far more than I should have. But retail therapy is what helps me get through January. Some of my purchases are below.

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Denim Shirt – Dr Denim

Grey Wool Jumper – Shore Leave

Green Mountain Parka – Fred Perry

Brogues – Samuel Windsor

I am keen to improve my all round personal style this year. I am sure I can do it, and these should help kickstart it all off.

I’ve also signed up to bloglovin! So people should follow me on there.

<a href=”http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/11636027/?claim=yvtnpu53ggp”>Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Christmas 2013

Well hello, and a Happy New Year to everyone. This is my first post of 2014. I hope everyone had a super awesome Christmas and New Year. Mine was a mixed bag all in all. Christmas itself was great, we went to spend it on Mull at my parent’s cottage, which is available for rental now coughHINTcough.  It was great to get to the middle of nowhere and also to get some walking in. Also baked several times while I was there, as well as helping cook.

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We were very fortunate however, as the storm that went through the UK hit that area fairly badly. My mother and sister only just managed to get to the island on the last ferry that ran before Christmas.

I baked a Cheese, onion and mustard loaf.

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A cranberry and orange loaf.

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And a chocolate Loaf, which was a bit of a disaster (the tin I used was too small) but still tasted pretty awesome.

And guess what?! My mum got me this amazing “Bearded Bakery” apron.

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Unfortunately, what made the period less good was breaking up with my Girlfriend, which happened the night I got back, which got me down. I won’t go in to it, because you don’t want to hear it; you’re here for food, not my life story, afterall.

If you want any recipes for the above things, just drop me an email or leave a comment. I’m sure I’ll get around to them eventually! This post actually started off as being about Brioche Buns, which were my first bake of the year. But I’ll just have to do that one tomorrow!

 

OH YEAH. I almost forgot. I also made some Reindeer pretzl cookies for a party just before Christmas.

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Hope everyone has a great year, all the  best.

(ps, This blog is 1 soon. How exciting?)