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I’m considering moving to blogspot but with 864 blog posts on here I dont know if I should.

Hmmm…

I am getting myself so worked up over this exam that I have to do next month. I am seriously freaking out about it.

I don’t know why. I don’t know if its because I haven’t done one in 8 years, I rely on spell check, or that I think I’m going to just fail. I can’t stop thinking about it and yet there is nothing that I can really do apart from go in there and just try and get it done.

I must keep repeating to myself that:

• I am 25 years old - this is better than the last time I did an exam at 17 as I know more
• I am reasonably intelligent 
• I know I can write quickly
• I can do this

Yeah none of that worked. I AM STILL STRESSING OUT! AHHHHHH

xxx

Booked our flights to Menorca yesterday! So excited :)

We aren’t going until September but it’s def something to look forward to as the next holiday I have is Glastonbury and I am not holding out for sun……

Ooooo sun, beaches, drinking non stop for 2 weeks. It’s going to be so lovely to go on holiday and not do a single thing but read and get a tan!

xxx

Yes I’m aware that the above just says ‘Rice’ but I didn’t know what to call this recipe and when in doubt saying it in French always makes it sound good…….

So this is a simple recipe to make and I’m going to be taking it into work for lunch as a welcome change from salad for a while. I’m allowed 50-75g of rice but as I’m just having it as a lunch meal I might take portions of 40g and have some fruit after

I made 2 different types - a fish and a meat but you can add whatever you want and it will work.

So the actual recipe…….

Ingredients

• 300g brown rice
• 1 red pepper
• 1 courgette
• Large handful of spinach
• 5 mushrooms
• Spring onion
• 1 large tomato
• Chillies
• 4 Sausages (meat version - chicken would work too)
• Tin of Anchovies (fish version - I had a tin in my cupboard but you could use any fish)

Method to the madness

So very easy really - boil the rice (remember brown rice takes longer!) Chop up all the veg and chuck it all together in a pan. If you are filling the dish out with meat pop your sausages under the grill. Roughly cut up some spinach and leave to one side.

Cook the vegetables until soft, drain the rice, and mix the 2 together. Chop up the sausages or fish and also stir in. Chuck in the spinach and season with salt and pepper.

Eat.

See told you it was the easiest recipe I’ve ever posted. It’s very tasty though :) and it looks so colourful as well. I’m really looking forward to having this for lunch tomorrow!

(pink plate - fish option / green plate - meat option)

As a bonus here is a picture of me cooking - just because I thought I looked like I knew what I was doing in my apron….

you can see that I am losing weight slowly……

xxx

I have got such a good week coming up - I am so super busy. Although having said that it isn’t the best week to be busy as I have my final essay due in next week but forgetting about that for a second…..

Monday - Day off

Tuesday - Cinema

Wednesday - Drinking with friends

Thursday - At the theatre to see Singing in the Rain!

Friday - Leavers drinks

Saturday - Day school and birthday party

Sunday - Afternoon tea at the Savoy with Leigh 

I’m going to have lots of things to write about :) Need to try and make another recipe soon as well. I just feel that I have got so much on at the moment and no time to take a minute.

xxx

I couldn’t wait any longer and I upgraded a couple of months early!

I love my new phone! It has so many new features and the screen is so clear, it had an HD quality to it. The camera is beautiful - 13 megapixel, the pictures come out perfectly.

I’m not a techie and I dont really know how to go through the specs of the phone but going on my opinion - get this phone! It is just bloody brilliant and the fact that I can just tilt my head and the page moves up and down is just some sort of future shit which blows my mind slightly!

xxx

Weight update: I have now lost 12lbs over 8 weeks, which is such good progress and although it’s still a long way to go until I reach my target weight I feel like I am getting there.

I have also lost a couple of inches off my hips and people are starting to notice it around my face which is always a good motivator.

I just wish I didn’t miss white pasta so much……

xxx

New York seems like such a long time ago even though it was only a week. I blame the time travelling!

I’ve only ever been to America once when I was 12 and I don’t really remember too much of that so it was going to be a completely new experience. We had a nightmare on the way to the airport, we caught the tube all the way down to Heathrow but about half way down I realised that I had packed the wrong folder with the PDF of the tickets. I think my heart stopped for a full 30 seconds before I snapped out of it and got Leigh to download them on to his phone.  Thank God for smart phones! I’m always so prepared but recently I have just been really unsettled and scatty.

Anyway – we finally made it on to the airplane and I settled down to watch 7 hours of Disney because Delta have a Disney channel! I was so happy. We watched Brave, Star Trek (for Leigh) Mirror Mirror and then I watched about 20min of Aladdin. It was brilliant J The flight actually made very good time and we arrived in JFK a full hour ahead of schedule, about 1.30pm US time.

We managed to find our way from the airport and met my friend, Chloe, who we were staying with. She moved over to NY about 9 months ago so it was quite exciting to see her. She finished work whilst Leigh and I sat in a bar and I tried to get my head around tipping bar staff. Restaurants I can understand but really?! You want me to give you $1/2 for putting a drink on a napkin? Chloe met us after she finished work and we went back to her place in New Jersey to drop off the suitcase and get changed before heading out into New York! I’d been told by several people that only tourists look up at the buildings so I was deliberately trying to keep my head down but to no avail, it’s quite impossible. I live in London so I’m not stranger to a tall building but they just tower over you there. We fleetingly passed Times Square before being taken into Dallas BQQ where we ordered giant frozen coconut margaritas and pulled pork burgers…

I am ashamed to admit however that although we had tickets to a free vodka bar we had to go home! I pulled something in my back on the flight over and it kept cramping making it really hard to walk, plus it was about 2am our time back home, so we went back to the flat and I finally got to lie down and hope that my back wasn’t like that the whole time.

Luckily I woke up in the morning and although my back felt really tight I was able to stand up straight and walk in more than a shuffle which was great because we were going to be doing ALOT of walking. We headed over to a place called VAMOS where they served brunch and they had a deal – all you can drink frozen margaritas in 90minutes. We ordered food and got right to it – we managed to polish off 5 and a half, it’s actually very difficult to drink frozen margaritas quickly which I feel may have been the idea.

We went to walk along the Brooklyn Bridge but we were told it was closed so instead we walked along the Williamsburg bridge where we could see the Brooklyn Bridge which was probably better. It was a really lovely day, the sun was shining down which was so welcome after the weather in England the last few weeks. Once we got to Brooklyn we sat on a random sofa we found soaking up some sun before heading into a bar, gate-crashing 2 people’s birthday parties and playing a game of pool. Several people commented on the fact that I had an accent and I was just like ‘so do you!’ – I do like the American accent, it always sounds happy. We stayed at this bar for several hours until the drink needed to be soaked up by something so we went to Mcdonalds (of course!) before heading home feeling ever so slightly tipsy.

So the next day we headed out for lunch at Big Daddy’s Diner and we had the biggest meal in the history of meals. We each had a extremely thick milkshake – mine was banana and caramel and then we had 3 eggs,3 pancakes,2 sausages and tater tots. I couldn’t even finish it – there was just too much food. They really do like their big portions!

After we had eaten we went for a walk around Columbia University which was so typically American, but such a stunning set of buildings. It really was like something straight out of the films. It makes me wonder how different my life would have been if I went to America….

We followed our little foray into American College life by heading over to Central Park. I was really excited about this as it is such an iconic place and it didn’t disappoint. It was filled with cherry blossom trees and bridges and bicycles and well it was quite lovely. We sat in the park for a bit to rest our feet from all the walking and then we headed over to the ‘Friends’ fountain. We walked nearly the whole length of Central Park which I was told would take a long time and it wasn’t really that bad although my feet felt it!

We went for a few beers after that and ended the night with a $1 slice of pizza which tasted quite yummy. I am aware as I’m typing this that we really didn’t seem to do that much but honestly we were just tired, it seemed like we walked the length of New York!

Chloe went to work on the Monday so Leigh and I had to find our own way round. There was a bit of a horrible moment when I realised that we were on the wrong subway and I jumped off but Leigh didn’t in time and I was frantically signalling him when the lovely train driver reopened the doors so he could get off! After that little drama we headed in to what seems like the middle of New York – Times Square. It wasn’t quite as big as I thought but just as bright and bold and loud. We took the obligatory background picture shots and then met Chloe outside the New York public library for lunch before heading over to the Rockefeller Centre so we could see the view. Unfortunately it was the one horrible day of the trip and quite cloudy and foggy so the view wasn’t the best it could have been but you could still see a fair amount and we managed to use the binoculars (someone else’s money hadn’t run out!) so we could even see people on top of the Empire State Building.

We stopped off at Magnolia Bakery and bought 2 cupcakes and ate them in Bryant Park as the weather has cleared up by then which was a relief. I dragged Leigh into Victoria Secret but they don’t have my size and everything is so expensive but I spritzed myself in perfume and contemplated a dressing gown which I did not buy.  Instead we went and had a walk around Grand Central which is filled with tourists and actual commuters – you can tell who the tourists are because they try to get as high as possible to take pictures of the golden interior. We met Chloe after she finished work and went to a bar, I’ve realised that I don’t like beer and that I missed cider while I was away. We went to a Five Guys burger place to grab some dinner, you choose how many burgers you want and then add all the toppings. It was so good there was juice dripping out, that’s when you know it’s a good burger! We walked off the burger by walking along the Highline, it’s an old raised railway track that has been turned into a walkway with flowers and benches with views over the streets which is a really clever way of making use of space. We stopped by Target on the way home and I picked up Nerds, Cookie Dough, Recees brownies, maple syrup and some cheap nailvarnish. I wish I lived near a Target!

We woke up on our last day and headed towards the Statue of Liberty. I tried to find Carrie’s steps (SATC) but we couldn’t see them anywhere which made me sad, but then we went to IHOP and although I didn’t get pancakes I did have a really good Philly Steak Sandwich which kind of made up for it. Thankfully the sun was out on Tuesday so we had a really nice sunny stroll down to Ground Zero where we stayed for a little while taking in the fountains and the memorial. They have turned something really tragic into something quite lovely, there were even ducks floating around in the waterfall pool.

We walked down to the harbour then and caught the free Staten Island ferry which passes Miss Liberty, as Sandy had destroyed the island she stands on so nobody can go there for a few months. But we managed to get good seats outside and the zoom on my camera was good enough that I could see her. It took us an hr in total so get there and back which meant we had just enough time to grab a pretzel and a hot dog (just to say that I had) before we rushed off to meet Chloe to grab our suitcase and head back to the UK!

It really was a whirlwind tour, I don’t think that we stopped at all which was brilliant because it meant that I didn’t put on any burger weight and I think that we managed to get everything that we wanted to do in a really short amount of time. There were aspects I liked (the food) and things I found a bit anal (the tipping) but New York was def an experience. I really do think that the next holiday we take is a beach holiday though, I think after Europe and now this Leigh and I really just need some time off!

xxx

Ingredients

·         olive oil

·         1 finely chopped onion

·         half a block of frozen ready-rolled shortcrust pastry

·         150g crumbled feta

·         100g chopped sundried tomatoes

·         1 tablespoon mixed herbs

·         4 eggs

·         175ml single cream

·         cracked black pepper

Method to the Madness

Preheat oven to 200°C. Lightly grease a muffin pan with olive oil. Chop the onion place  in a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat, cook for 3 minutes or until soft and translucent. Set aside to cool. Using a 8 circles to fit and line muffin holes with the pastry .

Combine the cooked onion, feta, sundried tomatoes and mixed herbs in a small bowl. Divide feta mixture between pastry shells.Place eggs and cream in a small bowl and whisk until well combined. Season with pepper. Pour over feta mixture until it’s all covered.

Bake for 20 minutes or until cooked through and golden.

These are so good served warm with a side salad. Leigh polished off 2 and asked for more! :)

Enjoy!

xxx

Spent the day in Central Park. Its so lovely

I’m going there now! Ahhhh!