A Seaside Trip

For my boyfriend's birthday, we took a trip to the west coast of Scotland to Ayr, a little seaside town. Considering I've lived in Scotland my whole life, I had never visited the town, but I must say I will be back! We spent the evening at a Murder Mystery event from the Sonic Boom Theatre Company which I'd highly recommend if you fancy something a bit different and interactive. Two bottles of wine later and we were doing karaoke with the couple who we met at our table!

Saturday was spent blowing away the hangover along the super windy but super lovely Ayr beachfront, followed by tea in a little vintage tearoom and lunch at The Social in Glasgow - great food, cheap cocktails and always buzzing! A perfect weekend all in all and does it really have to be Monday tomorrow?!

My outfit: tartan bodysuit from Motel (buy here), H&M shorts, Red Herring boots, Jane Norman coat and vintage belt

Rose and pistachio meringues

Fentimans rose lemonade is to DIE for!

The street where we stayed

Anti V Day roses

Train journeys are always a great excuse for picnics! This time I brought rose wine, sweet and salted popcorn and strawberry macarons....mmm!

How was everyone else's Valentine's weekend?

American Diner Style Birthday

It's fast becoming tradition that on my boyfriend's birthday, I cook a big slap up meal for us and of course, bake the obligatory chocolate cake! Who's idea was this "tradition", hmmm?!

This year I decided, after seeing an absolutely mouth watering post on a homemade burger with pulled pork by The Londoner (here), to go for an all out American diner style theme. Now, I do like to cook and I'm not a complete kitchen disaster (although the broken ceramic dish in my bin would tell you a different story), but I'm by no means a chef, so I beg of you to try this if Ultimate Burgers are your thang!

So, here's what I went for:

Southern fried chicken burgers (gluten free)

BBQ pulled pork

Paprika sweet potato fries

Toasted marshmallow milkshakes

Chocolate cake (gluten free)

And I'm sooo happy to say it was all a roaring success! 

For the Southern Fried chicken burgers, take 200g of gluten-free flour (I try to eat GF as much as possible) and sift with some salt, paprika and piri piri salt in a big bowl. Beat an egg in a separate bowl. Take two chicken breasts and score along the top and flatten a little, then dip in the flour, then the egg, then the flour again so it's coated well. Pan fry in hot oil for about 10 mins and then whack in the oven at 220 degrees celcius for 20-30 mins. 

The trick here is making sure you take the chicken out the oven as soon as it's cooked and white all the way through - I used to be so guilty of leaving chicken in the oven for an hour "to make sure it's cooked" but all that happens is you get bone dry chewy chicken! Take it out as soon as it's cooked and it'll be soo tender!

For the pulled pork, I did exactly as The Londoner did in her post, which I've linked above. Cooked in the slow cooker for 4 hours (after work meaning I did not see my bed till 1.50am by the time I'd taken it out and pulled off the bone, so maybe try this at the weekend when you have more time!), then pull the softest meat off the bone and mix with some more BBQ sauce, and it's honestly that simple. And let me tell you, it tastes AMAZING!

I didn't make the bread buns (shoot me) and they aren't gluten free (because GF bread SUCKS), but I did put an egg wash on the top, sprinkled with sesame seeds and baked in the oven for 10 mins to try and get that American diner bun feel!

Now, layer up in a loaded, messy style, serve with some sweet potatoes roasted with plenty of salt and paprika, and enjoy!!

Oh, and not forgetting the marshmallow milkshakes, which are a Spike Mendelsohn recipe, find it here...mmmmmmm!

I used a Nigella chocolate cake recipe (here) and decorated with baby bunting which was somewhat a by-product of the real, life-size bunting which I made as part of Hamish's birthday present. I will be doing a post about the making of that next week! As I'm sure you can imagine, Pinterest provided oodles of inspiration for the decorations!

Here's the birthday boy himself, badge and all, getting tucked right in <3

 PHEW! I'm almost as tired writing what I did as I was preparing it all! We ended the evening shacked up in a tiny little pub drinking Disaronno and coke listening to some brilliant open mic, and are off on a trip to the West coast of Scotland this weekend. I like birthdays, even if they aren't my own!

Let me know if you have a go at the burgers, or have any advice to give!

Fairy Project #3 The Rocking Chair

Let me start by saying - who doesn't want a rocking chair?! When we went on the search in our local and very beautiful vintage furniture shop (I 'oooo' and 'aaaah' the ENTIRE time I'm in there) for a simple little wicker chair to sit in the bare corner in the living room, I didn't expect to be spending the rest of the evening re-upholstering a vintage rocking chair!

You know when you walk in to a shop and see THOSE shoes, or in to a cake shop and see THAT cake that you know you just aren't going to leave without, well this was the case for the Rocking Chair and I. Despite it being a little over budget at £60 for what we had planned, I knew it would end up being one of those pieces of furniture which will end up staying with me and therefore be worth every penny and more! And you can't deny that it will fit perfectly in a baby's room in the future for late night feeds! :-)

The original upholstery on the seat wasn't awful...but the material was like linoleum and not what we were looking for to go in our cosy living room. A trip to Dunelm Mill for half a metre of fabric (around £5), a staple gun and an old white pillowcase to stop the old material from showing through, and a Sunday night of re-upholstering commenced!

Original shiny material - cute but too kitcheny

 With a little help! Unscrewed the seat

Stretched white pillowcase stapled as an underlayer

Stretch the fabric tightly and staple then cut to neaten up

 Screw back on and pop in little corner with some more contrasting flowery prints

I'm happy to say that the chair even made it through the flat party without turning to kindling!
What do you think of my first piece of re-upholstery? :-)

Collars and Roses

You have probably guessed by now that I am a big fan of flowers! I love to have flowers in the flat all the time and I am a lucky lady to have someone who is quite partial to coming home with some for me, but I do like to buy them for myself too! You would be shocked at how many bunches of gorgeous flowers are reduced and then thrown out if not sold by the supermarkets. A sell-by date on flowers, why?! I once got a MASSIVE bouquet of flowers for 99p which were reduced from £10.99, they lasted in my vases looking beautiful for over a week! I find it so sad to think about poor little pretty flowers lying in a bin :-(

I love flower prints and this orange and cream rose cardi reminds me of the summer. It's from Tesco would you believe, but is great material and I can't wait to wear it thrown over a sun dress on my summer holiday. 5 months and counting...!

I promise I didn't coordinate my clothes with my flowers!

Cardigan: F+F at Tesco; Top: Primark

Fairy Project #2 Homemade Seat Covers

Bye bye January! Hello February! After a very long month of weekends in and no vino passing my lips, tonight I am coming out of my hermit hole and having all my friends round to the flat for drinks and some good ol' party tunes. Seating is always a problem at house parties, especially when you have a little 1 bedroom flat, and so last weekend I managed to rope my boyfriend in to helping me make some cute and very comfy seat covers for our kitchen seats (I made white chocolate and raspberry blondies in return!).

We found some brand new, thick thick cream cotton seat covers in a charity shop recently and I thought it would be the perfect little project to spruce them up for the kitchen. After a trip to the material shop in town to pick up a couple of scraps of kitchen-y fabric (red checks and green checks, one for each seat), a good few hours of sewing and stuffed with a couple of squishy feather cushions, we now have some cheerier looking (and less bum numbing) kitchen seats! 

A metre of checked fabric

Boyfriend's cover

Folded neatly and a wee running stitch all the way round

The finished product

Stuffed with some feather cushions from Dunelm Mill

Perfect party seats?!

Homemade gluten free white chocolate and raspberry blondies and tea from Cath Kidston and Laura Ashley mugs

I'm thinking about buying a sewing machine but have no idea where to start. Anyone have any recommendations? Obviously all I want is a vintage Singer sewing machine but maybe that would be better for decoration!

Happy Saturday...!