Wednesday 30 April 2014

Photo a Day: April



I can't believe we're almost halfway through 2014 already!  I also can't believe that I have completed yet another month of my photo a day challenge and hope that if you made a resolution you've been able to stick to it as well.

April showers bring May flowers - most of April was beautiful but the back end has just been rubbish!  If April showers bring May flowers I'm looking forward to some amazing blooms!

April also brings Easter, eggs galore and April Fools' Day.  Did you see any of the pranks across the internet?   My favourites had to be the Google Chromecast squirrel entertainment (having worked on the UK launch of it at work sans squirrels!) and the YouTube upcoming viral trends for 2014.

Sunday 27 April 2014

Grilled Artichoke with Lemon, Garlic & Ginger

Grilled artichoke with a hint of lemon, ginger and garlic


If you've seen my Twitter feed over the last couple of days you will have seen that I have been having a bit of a fling with artichokes.

I've had artichoke hearts in the past but they've never really been on my food radar...until I bought a pizza.  Waitrose do a "Four Seasons" pizza which I bought a couple of months aso.  It triggered some crazy artichoke button in my brain.  Although not easy to find I've been surviving on canned artichoke hearts alone (that's a lie, I eat other things too..) and have been on a mission to find an actual artichoke that I could take home and get to know better.

I scoured the veg aisles of the supermarkets including a huge branch of Tesco but alas, no artichokes.  It was only when I stopped at my local Waitrose that I found my much desired veg.  They actually had about 10 of them!

Friday 18 April 2014

Scoops, Berkhamsted



I discovered this morning that it is never too early to eat gelato.  Not even at 10am.  Don't judge me.  My 4-day Easter Bank Holiday weekend had a sweet start just a 5 minute walk from home!

Scoops is located right in the middle of Berkhamsted - it's right on the corner of the High Street and Lower Kings Road so like me, you may have noticed it while stopped at the traffic lights or while strolling through town.  Don't walk by next time you see it though and here's why...




Friday 11 April 2014

Hot Cross Oatmeal Cookies

A twist on the classic Easter treat, hot cross buns - hot cross oatmeal cookies!


Easter is on its way and wanted to make something "Easter-y".  If you look through my Easter Pinterest board there are a few recipes I had been contemplating like Swedish semla, hot cross buns, chocolate crispy nests but as usual wanted to try something a little different...

I was also inspired to create this recipe because I'm meeting Nick Coffer from BBC Three Counties radio today - he's doing a series about local people in the towns around the three counties (Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire) and I have been invited to talk about this here little blog!  Considering all I post about is food related I could hardly go empty handed, could I?!  I did think about some of my favourite foods that I've posted about but they're not really portable but cookies were perfect!

Sunday 6 April 2014

Easter Inspiration

It's April and that can only mean one thing - Easter!  Pinterest has been going crazy for all things eggy and here are my favourites!


Bunny tails, semla (Swedish Easter bun), Devilled Easter chicks, and not forgetting the old-school chocolate nests!

Baked (Leftovers) Spring Rolls

A healthier version of the normal deep fried spring rolls


As you may have gathered from other posts, I tend to eat a lot of Asian influenced food...I just love the flavour so even if I'm not following a more traditional recipe I usually end up adding typically Asian ingredients to my meals.

Conveniently for me my two colleagues visited one of our stores on Friday which happened to be near Wing Yip.  Of course I put in an order...It's not a million miles from me but does involve either driving down the M1 (hate) or driving down the back roads but either way it involves London traffic and ways of driving and I'm not at all happy with that...

Anyway, I sent them out with a shopping list - deep fried tofu (the beautiful, gorgeous spongy stuff you get from a takeaway), mushroom sauce (very similar to oyster sauce), fish cakes and spring roll wrappers.  I was most excited about the spring roll wrappers because I love a good spring roll but hate how much grease is involved with store bought ones or ones from the local restaurant and have been wanting to try making my own at home but baked, not fried.

Saturday 5 April 2014

Me and My Crohn's

I want to take a quick minute away from my normal foodie post to talk about Crohn's...

Have you ever heard about it?  Do you know what it is?  I had no clue until...

Thursday 3 April 2014

LDN (London)


Last weekend was SUCH a great weekend!  Honestly, I had such a good weekend this weekend that I think the only weekend that beat it was the weekend Mr Jones proposed to me.

We had the chance to see Russell Howard at the O2 Arena and we kind of built it up from there.  Mr Jones received an "experience" voucher from a group of friends for his birthday a while ago that we needed to use up and conveniently Mr Jones' team, Everton, were playing against Fulham.  Rather than run back and forth over the weekend I booked a room in a hotel close to the O2 and we were all set for a "mini break" (ok, Bridget Jones...)

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Photo a Day: March



March means it's officially spring.  Are there signs of Spring where you are?  The ultimate sign of spring for me is daffodils and they are everywhere!

March starts out with St David's day for Wales but also features such days as Pi Day (03/24 in American calendars and a great excuse to bake!), Save a Spider Day on the 14th (no thanks!) and St Patrick's Day (green beer!).

March was a great month for me - I finally got my Humira delivery so am starting to conquer my Crohn's and had an absolutely fantastic weekend with Mr Jones in London. I'm also proud of myself for completing a third month of my "Photo a Day" project!  I'd love to hear from anyone else who started a project like this so get in touch!  Oh and by the way...ombre eggs are the way forward for eggy organising!

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