What I Wore: Clown Colours

Hello everyone! This outfit was inspired by my super colourful coat. I bought it from a vintage shop in Amsterdam. The colours are great, they remind me of the colours on clown costumes. Although I love it, it’s quite hard to wear because it’s too thin to be a cold weather coat, and being so very British, I take every ray of sunshine as an excuse to take all of my clothes off (well, maybe not all of them, but I’m always underdressed in summer.) Because I don’t get enough wear out of it, I’m going to vow to wear it more this summer. I think it looks great with white, and this way I can wear my white slip as a dress and not feel too much like I’m walking around in my pyjamas. My white slip is vintage, from the Beyond Retro on Brick Lane. Slips are such a wardrobe staple, nothing makes me feeel better than a slinky vintage slip. My boots are from Topshop.

Here’s a close up of my hair scarf, it’s such an easy way to wear more colour! The more colour the better, that’s what I say.

I hope you’re having a wonderful week. I’m bogged down with work at the moment, so I’m spending my time dreaming of Paris, lying on the beach with my girlfriends, sunny bike rides with ginger beer, movie days and nights out. Here’s to post – deadline freedom!

Plantain Chips

My local Morrison has introduced an exotic fruit and veg section, and it is SO exciting. Every time I go, I pick up something new and alien looking to try and cook with. Some experiements have been unsuccesful (the bitter gourd curry was not good) But these plantain chips were really tasty! A plantain is a large vegetable that looks like a big green bannana. It doesn’t feel like a bannan though, it’s much less squishy! If you have access to exotic fruit, here’s a quick and easy recipe for plantain chips.

You will need:

1 plantain!
1 clove of garlic
1 knob of ginger
Cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper
Sweet chilli sauce, for dipping
Lots of oil!

Step1: Peel the plantain, and chop into chip-shaped pieces. Roughly chop the garlic and the ginger.

Step 2: Heat a pan of oil deep enough to cover all your chips. Add the plantain, garlic, ginger, and a generous shake of cayenne pepper. Fry until the outsides of the plantain are cripsy (this takes about 20 minutes, and don’t forget to keep stirring it as it fries.)

Step 3: Move the chips to a plate, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and serve with some sweet chilli dipping sauce.

Enjoy! Have you ever tried plantain, or any other exotic fruit or veg that you would recommend? I hope you’re having a brilliant weekend.

What I wore: Tie dye and a flower

There are two things that I cannot get enough of when it comes to clothes, and those are tie dye and fringing. Maybe it’s because I’m such a  hippy at heart, but I just love tie dye. This dress is from ASOS Marketplace, my oversized shirt is from Purple Haze in York, my boots are New Look and my lipstick is MAC Russian Red which I’ve been wearing all the time. When ever I go to charity shops or vintage shops I have to stop myself from buying all the fleece mens shirts, they’re so comfy!

Here’s a close up of the flower in my hair! This is just a fake flower that I snipped the stem off, and tucked behind my ear. My hair’s so thick I didn’t even need a grip. When the sun is properly out (please let that be soon!) I plan to wear flowers in my hair everyday to celebrate. Maybe I’ll even make daisy chains.

Here’s Archie sneaking into my photo’s again! I figured it wouldn’t be an outift post without him. I hope you’ve had a great day I’ve just come back from watching The Great Gatsby and I LOVED it! There were so many sparkly dresses to admire and the soundtrack was incredible (and you know, the acting was alright too.)

What I Wore: Crop top and blue

Hello everyone! Happy Sunday I have been spending today swimming and eating veggie burgers, two of my favourite things ever. Here’s one of the outfits I wore when I was staying at home. I love pairing crop tops with high waisted bottoms, it feels like I’m being adventurous without actually having to show too much of my tummy! This top is one of my bargain finds from Ark Vintage (I’ve written about other finds here, here and here.) I love how 70s it is. If I had to choose one decade to get my clothes from it would probably be the 70s, although the 90s would be a close second. I got these trousers in the Topshop sale last summer, and these shoes are my ever-reliable boots from everything5pounds.com.

Sorry for the strange pose, I’m trying to show you how wide and floaty my trousers are!

Archie is just trying to get into my photos, as usual! Silly rabbit. On a side note, I have quite bleach damaged, curly hair and i’ve been failing to find a natural leave in conditioner recipe that works. (I can’t afford to buy deep treatment conditioner from lush anymore!) Has anyone treated their hair naturally? Do you have any suggestions?

Lemon and Chai Sticky Pudding

So, the idea for this pudding came to me in kind of a funny way. I was browsing pinterest, and I *thought* I came across a recipe for lemon and chai cake. That sounded amazing, so I pinned it and eagerly anticipated the evening when I planned to make it. When that evening came, I realised that I’d read the recipe wrong and it was actually lemon and chia pudding. Chia, it turns out, is not a delicious milky drink, but are berries which I definitely did not have in my cupboard. So, I decided to experiment, and this was the result! It’s basically a lemon drizzle cake which I adapted from this recipe, with added lemons and chai tea. The tea sits at the bottom of the cake so it has the texture of a sticky toffeee pudding. It got a good review from all my family members (which is rare, we can never agree on food!) so it’s a keeper.

You will need:

225g butter
325g caster sugar
4 eggs
4 lemons
225g self raising flour
1 packet of instant chai tea
(That’s a lot of sugar, I know, just don’t eat the whole cake at once, or close your eyes when you’re mixing in the sugar. One of the two should work!)

Step 1: Make the mixture! Beat together the butter and 225g of the caster sugar until you get buttercream. Next, mix in the eggs one at a time. Sift in the flour, and, finally, add the zest of all of your lemons.

Step 2: Bake the cake. Transfer your cake mixture to an ovenproof dish and bake at 180 c / fan 160 c / gas 4 for 45 mins. You’ll be able to tell when the cake is done because the top will be a golden brown, and the bottom will not be liquidy. If you stick a fork in, it should come back out without any mixture on.

Step 3: Whilst the cake is in the oven, you can prepare the chai tea sauce. I just followed the instructions on the back of my tea packet. This involved adding boiling water to the mixture, except I halved the amount of water it suggested. Then I added the remainding 100g of caster sugar and simmered the mixture on top of the stove whilst the cake was baking. This will make your chai tea lovely and thick and syrupy. When the cake is out the oven, just poke the top witha fork several times and pour over the tea.

Just wait to ten minutes to let the tea absorb, and then you’re ready to eat it!

I had loads of lemons left over, so I decided to make lemonade. Just juice the lemons into a jug and then stir in some caster sugar until it is sweet enough for you

I’ve been spending today crafting and baking, it’s been lovely. I hope you’re all having a good weekend!

Wild Ennerdale

This time a week and a day ago it was my 21st birthday! To celebrate, me and my friends spent the weekend in a camping barn next to Lake Ennerdale in the Lake District. It was so much fun, and Ennerdale is such an unspoilt, beautiful part of the country. It took half an hour (or at least it felt like it) just to drive down the lane to our barn. On Saturday, the weather was glorious! The sky was blue, the sun was out, and it wasn’t too windy. We spent the day swimming in a nearby lake (which was cold!) and in the evening we cooked our dinner around the fire pit. I took lots of pictures whilst we were away, and here are a few.

Here’s the gang (minus me!)

Look at how clear the water is! You could see right through to the bottom, it was beautiful.

On Sunday the weather was not as nice. It was raining almost all day! We braved the harsh conditions nevertheless and walked around Lake Ennerdale. It took us 4 hours, including a soggy sandwich stop! It’s crazy how different my pictures look form one day to the next. Even though rain is nasty, it makes the scenery look so atmospheric.  Here are some pictures from Sunday.

I couldn’t have hoped for a nicer birthday weekend! I would definitely reccomend a holiday in the lake district to anyone who has the chance to go.

What I Wore: Denim and Daffodills

I can never decide whether I prefer York in the spring time or the winter time. York is the best town for christmas because the cobbled streets and medieval buildings are the perfect christmas setting. Come spring time, the banks leading up to the old city walls are covered with a blanket of daffodils. The flowery verges are just so pretty! I loved taking the photo’s for this outfit post in amongst the daffodils, even though posing in public always requires a little extra bravery! My lovely friend Amy of bluegreygold took these photos for me.

The cardigan that I am wearing is another one of my bargain buys from Ark Vintage (which I’ve written about here and here.) My dress is H&M, my denim jacket is Deep, and my shoes are from Everything5pounds.com. I love these shoes! I really want to be a heels-during-the-daytime person but I can never muster up the energy. I’m not scared of heels, I’ve had plenty of practice wearing them on nights out, but I’m too lazy to go about my day to day life with the extra strain of wearing heels. These small red heels are a nice compromise for me because they are so comfy! I’m starting to get the hang of wearing red lipstick during the day, so maybe heels during the day is the next step!

I hope you have a lovely day, and the weather is treating you nicely. I’ve just come back from an amazing trip to the lake distict (photo’s coming soon!) and getting back into my rountine is proving difficult. I just want to be swimming in the lake again!

How to cook with tofu: Crispy

My favourite way to cook tofu is to marinade it. However, it’s also really yummy when it’s cripsy. This way of cooking tofu is slightly less healthy but a lot quicker, and requires fewer ingredients than marinading! Recently, I had some crispsy tofu as part of a meze of lunch foods. You can see it at the bottom of my plate below my dolmades. I realise dolmades and tofu aren’t usually served together, but hey, you’ll never know if you don’t try it! I love dolmades, they go with everything. If you want to eat crispy tofu like a normal person, it’s delicious on top of a salad or a bowl of noodles. The cripsy tofu itself is vegan.

You will need:

Tofu
Flour
Soy Sauce
Oil

Step 1: If your tofu needs to be drained and firmed  up (if it does, it will say so on the packet!) I wrote some tips on how to do this here. If your tofu is called “firm” or “ready to eat” like mine, then you can skip this step!

Step 2: Mix a small bowl of one part water to two parts flour until it forms a paste. Roll around your tofu in it until it looks like this:

Step 3: Fill a frying pan with about an inch of oil, and put it on a high heat. When your oil has heated up, carefully place in the tofu. When it is golden brown on one side, turn it over and sprinkle on some soy sauce. When the tofu is golden brown all over, you are ready to serve!

When I was cooking this at my parents house, we were having our kitchen re-done so my mum set us up a camp kitchen outside. It was kind of fun like camping, but mostly it ws cold, with no campfire songs or marshmallows. If I can make tofu on a camping stove, then anyone can do it!

What are your feelings about tofu?

What I Wore: High Waisted

Hello everyone! This pink blouse is another one of my bargain finds from Ark Vintage. (I’ve written about another find here.) I love it, it goes with everything! There are no labels in it, and I have a feeling it is homemade. I love the idea that I’m wearing something which has been lovingly sewn from scratch. This outfit is quite simple, but sometimes simple is the best! My shoes are from Everything5pounds and my high waisted jeans are from Next.

Here’s a closer look at my rings. The green one belonged to my Grandma, the pink one is from H&M and the plain silver ones are from Topshop. I love wearing lots of rings. When it comes to ring wearing, Phoebe from friends is my hero. I’m not quite there yet, but hopefully I will have a ring collection to rival hers someday. Here she is in all her 90s glory,

Phoebe’s style is the best!

Look at that bunny blur trying to sneak his way into my outfit photos! Archie doesn’t like it when I’m not paying him my full attention, so he spends him time running around my feet and trying to knock my tripod over. He’s not very helpful but he’s so cute. I miss him so much when I’m at uni.

I hope you’re having a lovely week.

Homemade Bubble Bath

If, like me, you’re coming towards the end of your degree, then this is a very stressful time of year. We have our final assesments and I’m supposed to be preparing for the real world? That’s too many things at once! I think what anyone in my position needs is a relaxing bubble bath. Scratch that, I think what everyone needs is a relaxing bubble bath. Recently, I love going to health shops. They have so many exciting types of tea and veggie things and lotions and potions that smell amazing! The last time I was there I picked up some things so that I could make my own bubble bath.

I decided to just make enough for one bath, however if you made a whole bottle full, this would make an amazing homemade present! Making your own bubble bath isn’t necessarily cheaper than buying it from the shop. But it’s tons more fun. You can use and combine any scents that you like, and you can tailor the oil you choose to your own skin needs. I chose lavender because I think that it is the most relaxing smell in the world, and almond oil because it’s great at moisturising, and my skin gets a little dry sometimes. One day I will be more adventurous and buy essential oils other than lavender.

You will need:

Hand soap
Essential oil(s)
Almond oil
A container like an old bottle or a jam jar

Step 1: Mix together one part hand soap to one part almond oil. If you’re making enough bubble bath for one bath, add 3 or 4 drops of essential oil. If you’re making a bottle of bubble bath, add half the bottle of essential oil.

Step 2: Pour your bubble bath into the running water and enjoy!

I hope you’re having a lovely weekend, and making the most of these balmy evenings