Monday, December 9, 2013

A gift for christmas eve!!

Everybody gets there kids jammies and slippers for Christmas and most people let there kids open a present on Christmas eve!! Here is a way to join the two together and also make sure you get a lil credit seen as its Santa that gets them all there pressies!!

I found this idea on pintrest last year and did a quick last minute version which went down well. This year I have done a much better version as I started early and had time to plan it out!!

I got a box (one from a delivery of lego pressies for Christmas) and inside I put slippers, Christmas socks, Christmas jammies,an Oreo chocolate bar, a Christmas book specifically Olive the other reindeer

and a small Christmas lego set that I got for free when I ordered some lego pressies from the lego website!!

I wrapped the pressie and it is nestled safely under my tree!!

I think its a great idea as without it my son would have no pressies under our tree in the build up to Christmas so at least he has one under the tree to say is his!

He will open this pressie after dinner on Christmas eve so he has the evening to enjoy his chocolate and play with the lego!!

Cant wait for Christmas >.<

Monday, October 7, 2013

cheap makeup can be just as good

I think cheap drugstore makeup can be just as good as its more expensive competition!check out my vlog about cheap drugstore makeup
An when I say cheap I mean cheap I don't mean Revlon foundation that costs 17 euro a bottle n Mascaras that cost 15 euro I mean the cheapest of the cheap!!
Catrice is an amazing super cheap brand you can get in most drugstores and Primarks all over Ireland! I paid 6.99 for a bottle of there photofinnish foundation. The packaging is lovely a glass bottle with pump the product its self is lovely thick creamy medium to full coverage depending on how you apply it!
I also got a Catrice full volume mascara in a sale box in my local pharmacy for 1.50!! Its a great mascara with a curved applicator!
Essence is a great brand to probably one of the cheapest out there I love there lipliners I have no 11 in the nude and it cost 1.49!! There gel liner is one of the best I have ever used and at 3.49 u cant go wrong I prefer it to Inglot and would compare it to MAC fluidline!!
I also like a few NYC products I have a blush that cost 2.50 and it is a great little compact blush for bringing traveling and the color is lovely! I sampled there 14 hour foundation and was going to get it but they didn't have my shade left it cost only 4.49!! I will defo be looking for it again!!
See cheap products are great to give them a try you will save a bundle and coming up to Christmas we all need to squeeze every penny!!
xxx

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Im finally back on youtube!

Check out my new youtube video. I am finally back in the youtuber world please subscribe and like and tell your friends! the more subscribers I get the more videos I make!

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Vintage wedding fair

No Im not getting married but a few for my friends are so I persuaded them to go (and let me tag along) to a vintage wedding fair in the Boyne Valley Hotel right beside where I live.
I dressed a lil vintage for the day


It was amazing everything I would want for a wedding!! Bunting, birdcages, teapot centerpieces, vintage plates and lots of cake to taste yummy!!

We prebooked even though it was free but prebooking meant we were guaranteed a goody bag full of sweets beauty samples and vouchers!


The rooms were set up beautifully there were stalls of facinators, flowers, cakes, invitations and the most adorable rockfield ice cream bike!!



I had such a brilliant time and it was my firs wedding fair!!
 I was told after by my boyfriend I am not allowed to go to anymore ;)
Look what arrived in my post :) yay my new decorating nozzles!! Also 20 of the biggest icing bags you have ever seen!! Is it my birthday cause it sure feels like it is!!!

We eat with our eyes!!

Its not always just about the food its also how we serve it!!
I am a charity shop junkie and I live to grab a vintage bargain whether its a teacup and saucer or a sideplate (and also Christmas goodies from about august)
To look at me you might not think Im a vintage lover you would probably think GOTH but nothing could be further from the truth yes I have a lip piercing, tattoos and wear mostly black (its very slimming) but inside Im a lace loving, gold trimmed vintage girlie!!
My favourite place in my town is the SVP they have a brick a brack shop FULL of teacups plates frames vases everything you could dream of its a rummagers heaven!! 
Here are a few of my pieces most of which are from charity shops (a few are gifts from shops but I love them too)

There is nothing nicer than a slice of home made pear gateaux served on a gold trimmed vintage plate alongside tea served in a bone china cup and saucer!! 

I am planing to expand my collection to larger dinner plates and bowls so eventually I will have a full dining set of miss match vintage items!


Stay tuned for that pear gateaux it will be coming your way in a week!

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Saved my Bacon!!

Feeding a family on a budget doesn't have to mean mince meat everything or tuna casserole every night (although once in a while its great).
I have a great money saver traditional Irish dinner for you here that feeds a family of four!!

Every Irish family knows and probably loves bacon. I don't mean streaky rashers (although there great too)
I mean a lump of pork bacon.
To get enough bacon for a family of four in aldi costs about 4.99 for 400g that's enough for one dinner and that doesn't even include potatoes, cabbage,carrots, peas and the rest so all in all you would be spending about 10 euro to feed a family of four.
I can do a bacon dinner for four for under 5 euro.
The secret is BACON OFFCUTS. Don't be scared its OK... most people see the word offcuts and think eww gross eww!! You couldn't be more wrong!! Its just the ends of the bacon that don't look as ascetically pleasing as one lump of bacon.
In aldi you can get 1kg of bacon offcuts for 1.99. This amount of bacon after trimming does a family of  four 2 big dinners that's less than 1 euro per dinner. Now it does mean you have to trim off a Lil fat but when your saving that much its worth it! It also means you don't have to spend an hour boiling a lump of bacon as the offcuts are in smaller bits it takes about 20-30 min to cook.
Potatoes you can shop around and get a good price. I got 10kg of new potatoes for 3.68 in dunnes this will do you a week of potato dinners so one dinner would be about 70 cent.
A bag of carrots for 2 euro in aldi will do a week so one dinner is 30 cent.
A tin of peas in aldi is 53cent and they are better than batchelors.
If your proper Irish you can get a cabbage for 2 euro which is 1 euro a dinner
You can make white sauce with a tablespoon of butter, a tablespoon of flour, a cup of milk, salt and pepper (and a bit of parsley if you want parsley sauce) is it even worth adding how much that costs? Lets say 50 cent
So that is just 4 euro and 3 cent for a dinner for 4 people!!!

And the next day you can use the rest of the bacon for a carbonara or casserole!!


Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Oreo Cupcakes!!

Ok so Iv gonna a lil cupcake mad!!
I made a huge batch over the weekend for a family day to the beach and all week Iv been looking up recipes, frosting techniques and equipment.
Today I was craving chocolate and itching to do some baking but I had no need and no coco to bake with, what I did have was 4 oreo cookies just enough to to for cupcakes in my teacup cupcake moulds!!

I took 65g of butter room temp and mixed that with 65g or caster sugar until fluffy.
I put 3 oreos into a blender with an egg and a desert spoon of milk and blended.
I sieved 100g of self raising flour into the butter sugar mix and then added the wet ingredients and folded together.I greased the cupcake moulds and filled 3/4 of the way up, poped them into a preheated oven (180') for 15 min.

for the frosting I took 1 oreo and blended it with a tbsp of double cream.
I creamed together equal parts butter and icing sugar then whipped in the oreo cream mix!
Spread it on n sprinkle choco bits on top

The frosting tasted good but separated a bit I think cause of the oreo cream. When I do it again Ill remove the cream from the oreos then grind them and add them last to the frosting I think it will improve the colour and consistency of the frosting!!

Eat

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Toystory party cake!

OK so its not gonna win any beauty awards but my holy majoly it was delicious!! My son stuck his entire face in his (not good table etiquette but it being his birthday he was let away with it) and it even went down well with the chocolate cake hater that is my dad!!
It wasn't home made from scratch (I'm not that good) it was just a box of Betty Crocker devils food cake I baked at half 12 the night before (thanks to a trip to the cinema and a detoure for curry chips) and Betty Crocker chocolate frosting but it was amazing.
I read on www.cakemixdoctor.comand a few other websites to add and extra egg and use milk instead of water when making the cake which I 
tried out and it was a success the cake was moist and springy and yum.
Then I used my new piping bag to 'decorate the cake' with the frosting!
I had a icing print of toy story and happy birthday and my sons name made in our local bakery supplies shop
Cake Couture but it was too long for the cake so I had to remove the name.
I had a little trouble with the icing picture. It started crumbling as I tried to remove it form its backing
(I nearly had a heart attack) luckily it was half 5 and the shop was still open so I rang them up and the very
helpful lady told me to pop it in the freezer for 5 min which worked a treat!!
 Everyone loved the cake and it will definitely be my go to cake forever I think. I do love cooking from scratch but on a big even I like to know the cake will be a success so for me packet cakes are the way to go!!


Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Peanutbutter Frosting!!

It was my birthday last week and my boyfriend made me a chocolate cake with peanutbutter frosting!! It was sooo yummy I could have just ate a bowl of the frosting!!
Mix a cup of icing powder and half a stick of butter till soft and fluffy.
Then add a cup for smooth peanutbutter and half a cup of cream and mix till fluffy and light.
So simple and soooo easy!!!

Saturday, June 22, 2013

My home made tomato sauce!!

Making your own pasta sauce is easy, cheap and definitly more tasty than the shop bought jars!!
All you need is
Tin tomatoes (plum, whole, chopped, whatever)
Garlic (powder or fresh)
Onion
Belle Pepper
Tomato paste
Basil & Oregano
Salt & Pepper
Sugar
Olive oil
Chop the onions and peppers to the size you like (some people dont like big bits of either in there food and if you dont like any bits but still want the taste you can blend them once they are cooked with the tomatoes!!)
Fry them in a pan with a tbls of olive oil until they are tender. If using fresh garlic add 2-3 tsp (depending on how much you love garlic and I LOVE IT) at the end and alow to cook for just a min.
Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, a tsp of basil and oregano, about 2-3 tsp of garlic powder, a tsp of sugar and mix together.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Allow to simmer for about 10 min
You can add ground beef, chicken, vegetables, tuna or you can even use this as a pizza sauce!!
Eat!!

Kidney bean meat loaf

I love meatloaf and it always goes down well with my fella when I make it. But I wanted to try somthing different, A way to make the loaf healthier and go farther. So I thought to myself kidney beans!!
Take a tin of kidney beans (drain off the liquid) and pop them an egg and half an onion into a blender and blend till mush.
Add about 2 cups of breadcrumbs 300g of ground beef 2 tsp of salt, pepper and either garlic powder or fresh garlic.
Mix it all together and turn out onto a sheet of greese proof paper.
shape into a foaf shape and pop into the oven 200 degrees for an hour.
This meatloaf is moist and tasty and instead of  my normal meatloaf which per slice would be 23g of fat this is 15g or fat and double the protine per slice!!
I served it with penne in a homemade tomato sauce!
Eat!!

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Cornflake Chicken

Lower in fat than KFC

I love KFC well any kind of crispy fried chicken really but Im tryign to be good and eat less fatty food so when I saw this chicken on Not My Mothers Recipies on the Food Network I just had to try it!
I got 6 chicken thighs and pulled all the skin and membrane and yuckky stuff off them rinsed them and put them into a baggy with low fat milk (Bobby Deen used buttermilk but I had none) salt, pepper, garlic powder and mild chilli powder. I left this in the fridge for a few hours. I smashed up some cornflakes in a bowl till they were crumbs. Then I dipped my chicken into the crumbs to coat them all over with the crispy cornflakes and placed them into a baking dishontop of greaseproof paper. I popped them into the oven for 50 min to cook and then I served with wedges and a big salad!! yummers!!!!

Easy Peesy Pizza

This is a recipie I learned of my Bro when he was living with us. Its a super easy pizza and its sooooo good!!

Put a sachet of yeast into warm water and let it sit for 5 min (or you can get instant use yeast so skip this step)
Put 300g of flour a desert spoon of salt, sugar (and garlic powder if you like for flavour).
Pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil and the yeast onto the dry mixture and mix with your hands. 
Add water as needed till the dough comes together in a ball.
Leave to rise for about 30 min and then knead the dough.
Leave to rise for 15 min.
Then roll out onto greese proof paper.

While your dough is rising you can make the sauce. 
All I use is a tin of tomatoes blended down.
Put into a pot and put on a high heat.
Add a tsp of salt, pepper, garlic, basil, oregano, tomato paste and a dessert spoon of sugar.
Leve to simmer for about 10 min.
Allow to cool.

Pour the sauce over the rolled out dough and spread it out.
Cover in mozzarella and cheddar cheeses and then add your fave pizza toppings!!!
Cook for about 30 min at 200 degrees

Eat!!!!


Tweeking sauces

Ok so your making dinner with a jar of sauce or a dry packet (cause ur feeling lazy) but you know it never tastes as nice as when you make it yourself.
Well here are a few things I do to tweek jar/packet sauces.
I always (and I mean always) add garlic either powdered or fresh it boosts the flavour of most sauces.
If lacking in flavour add a tsp of sugar, salt and pepper it always brings out the flavours already in the sauce.
Add a squeeze of tomato paste to deepen the tomato flavour in marinara sauce.
Add basil and/or oregano dry or fresh to marinara sauces.
If using the stirfry sauces to give better flavour and make it go farther I add a stock cube to the sauce and a little soy sauce too.
To chicken gravy I add sage thyme and rosmary to give a real home made taste.
To sheppards pie or beef gravy add a beef stock cube and thyme.

What to you add to sauces to make them better???

Decaf Ice Tea

ICE TEA


I have been a little obsessed with Lemon Ice Tea latley!!
Aldi was selling a big 6 pack for 2.50 and it was so tasty I drank sooo much!! The only problem was I cant handle caffine very well I can only have decaf tea and coffee so you can imagine how buzzed I was after a few bottles!! So so cut out the caffine and save a bit of money I decided I wanted to try out making my own Decaf Ice Tea!
It is actually super easy to do!!
All you need to make a jug is ..
5 tea bags (regular or decaf)
A cup of caster sugar
1 and a half large lemons
and water enought to fill your jug ;)

Boil some water, pour it into a bowl (just a regular breakfast/soup bowl) and pop in the tea bags.
Leave that to stew for about 3-5 min.
Juice the lemons (I pulled all the pulp out of the lemon and soaked it in some of the cool water to get all the lemon flavor)
Add the cup of caster sugar to the lemon juice and mix to help the sugar dissolve.
Take the teabags out of the water (dont squeeze the tea bags this releases tannins which make the tea bitter)
pour the tea into the jug and top up with the cool water.
Add the lemon sugar mixture and mix well.
Leave to cool in the fridge and serve with ice!!
mmmmm refreshing


Hello and welcome to my food blog! The idea to start this blog came from nowhere even thought it has been staring me in the face for years! I love food! I love cooking, baking, going to resturants and just generally eating so this blog will be full of my recipies and resturant reviews! I am always trying out new recipies and ways to tweek the food and drinksI make so there will be recipies from scratch and also tweeked recipies using packaged food!! I hope you enjoy reading my blog as much as I know I will enjoy eating the food and tasting the drinks Im going to write about!!