Recipe: Hot Chickpea Cookies (prepare to salivate)

No, you aren’t slipping quietly into insanity, that title is correct, cookies made from chickpeas is on the agenda today. But first a bit about how I came to this peculiar and unlikely treat that has since become a household favourite that I can barely go a day without.

Living in London combined with my penchant for delectable food and lack of will power took quite a toll on my body. In eight months I put on almost a stone, my skin was the worst it had ever been and I felt constantly sluggish and blerghhh.

Swapping flexible uni hours for a full time job, moving to London, having very little dollar left over after rent: it was all a big shock to the system. So instead of dealing with this in a sensible way, I spent most of my extra moolah on eating out / takeaways / cupcakes etc.

I blame Hummingbird Bakery single-handedly for the demise of my waist. Their red velvet cupcakes are out-of-this-world-good. My heart is beating double time just thinking about them…Alas, I digress.

ANYWAY, ramble ramble ramble. When I got back to Cornwall I like: shit gurrrrrl, sort this out. So I’ve been eating peanut butter, avocado, strawberries, cottage cheese, quinoa…you know, the standard healthy living bullshit. Surprise surprise I feel like a new ladeh, full of beans. And bonus: my skin no longer looks like a hormonal 16-year-old. Awesome.

My skin thanks YOU, smoothie.

That said, I still like sweet things. Specifically, hot, gooey, chocolatey things. Hence the chickpea cookie recipe. These are totally guilt free, around 160 cals each and full of goodness!

(I know they have chocolate chips in but they’re still a heck of a lot better for you than a standard cookie chocabloc with processed flour, butter and sugar. So nurrr.)

Hot Chickpea Cookies

I say hot, because a few nutters just make the dough and eat that. I mean whatever. None of my business. Weirdos. Anyway, I like my cookies hot outta the oven. Oh yes.

Ingredients
1 can of chickpeas
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 tablespoons peanut butter
80g honey
100g chocolate chips

Directions
Pre-heat the oven to 180c and line a baking tray with some baking paper.
Whack everything except the chocolate chips into a mixing bowl and pulverize until you get a smooth consistency. It has to be smooth as a baby’s bottom, you don’t want lumps of chickpeas in your cookies, so get smashing.

Mix in the chocolate chips.

Separate into 8 little balls of cookie dough on your baking tray. I like to squish mine down a bit to give them more of a traditional cookie look.
Shove in the oven for 10 – 15 mins. They should be golden and a little crisp on the top, gooey chocolate is another good sign.

And that is that!

I think these are best eaten hot, so if you don’t want to eat 8 in one sitting then store them in an airtight box and stick them in the microwave / oven when you want them.

So whadyaaa think? Too weird? Passable? Scrumptious?
xx

The Witch of AW13

I was lucky enough to be at London Fashion Week this feb. Well I say lucky, most of my time was spent freezing my tits off taking pictures of pretty young things around Sommerset House. However I did get to catch a few shows, and poured over the rest religiously online.

My ultimate LFW AW14 show has to be KTZ. It oozed black magic, witchy goodness and left me a girl obsessed. To create the black magic aesthetics the designers used tarot cards for inspiration for the prints and colour palette. Oh yes! And they splattered their designs with witchy slogans: Magician! Death! Order of the Golden Dawn!

Just lovely.

Since then, I’ve wanted capes, lashings of velvet, huge metal crosses, dark lips and so much structured leather I shouldn’t call myself a vegetarian. Whilst I’m obviously not going to leave the house dressed head to toe like a black magic enthusiast, I think a few witchy details wouldn’t go amiss.

I bought this asymmetrical jersey grey dress in the Dorothy Perkins sale for a basement bargain price tag of £10. It’s basically loungewear in disguise, suffice to say it has barely left my back the past few days.

I’ve been on the hunt for witchy apparel and Topshop is actually overflowing with magic infused goodness, I want everrrrrything!

1. Sheer sweater
2. Leather fringe dress
3. Arrow pendant 
4. Cat sweater

Especially the last one, what’s a witch without her cat eh?

Laters, I’m off to don velvet and make potions. Toodooloooo! x

Blog fail + general life fail.

A very sheepish hello.

So, it’s been a while. Basically things have been absolutely manic with work, stress and general living situation, so blogging has been the last thing on my frazzled mind. Sozzles.

Brief recap

Last July I moved up to London and became a fashion and beauty intern at an online women’s mag.

It’s something I’ve always wanted to do and I thought I would be in a state of perma-ecstacy. I thought swapping my wellies for wedges and matted hair for matte lippy would be the dogs bollocks, but it turns out I am pretty much the anti-urbanite. I should have probably realised this, given I heavily despise all of the following:

• Having to spend time crammed inside a tube carriage forced to inhale the mandatory BO and depression oozing from other humans
• Spending basically all of my dollar on rent
• Not being able to exercise outdoors because of smog
• Thus having to fork out for a grimly expensive gym membership
• Lack of sea / fields / clear night skies etc
• Rush rush rush atmoshphere. There will be another tube in 2 minutes, calm the fuck down please
• Places full of people
• Being apart from my cat

So maybe I was stupid to even try – given the likelihood of failure – but I am glad I did, just to be 100% certain that sweating in the underground isn’t for me! 

As you’ve probz guess by now Kyle and I decided enough was enough and life’s too short to be unhappy and all those other clichés. So we packed up a few bags and scuttled back down to Cornwall. Beautiful, clean, fresh Cornwall!

I’m already so over the moon. I think a lot of it comes down to feeling a zillion times healthier already. For example, my city acne has disappeared and I’ve lost my half a stone of London padding. Plus filling my lungs with fresh sea is air is still a massive novelty.
Last but not least my brain has a bit more room to think now. I’ve decided to start work on my book again and I’m back up for a spot of blogging. So you can expect more than a quarterly update henceforth!
Speak soon x

London & The Beast Part 1

I am really learning to love London, it’s a truly great city soaked in history and culture, the sort of place that makes me proud to call myself British whole heartedly. I love the reams of free museums and galleries, the sprawls of green that break it up and make it easier to remember to breathe, the shops (my god, the shops…), the fact there is always something going on and somewhere is always buzzing and ready for a good time to be had.

But…the tubes. Erlack.

There has been many a great metaphor written about London’s underground system, but I can best describe it as a rickety, million miles a minute hellhole and that’s just when it’s running on time. Otherwise it is a stagnant hellhole, much worse, I’m sure you can appreciate.

Take this morning’s journey. Off I scuppered at 8:20am for my daily morning torture only to arrive to a platform 5 people thick of ruddy, exasperated commuters. The tube was 2 minutes late. So I squeezed my way to my usual waiting spot (one of the few benefits of being 5”0) and waited for the naughty late tube to roll in, as aloof as ever.

It did, and opened its doors to reveal a wall of human backs covered in suits. There was quite literally not even an inch worth of space. So I had to wait for TWO MORE TUBES TO PASS before I could hop aboard, thus running ten minutes late too work. Naughty, naughty intern.

I appreciate the magnitude of the underground system and for what it’s worth I think it’s actually pretty darn impressive. It is just a disgusting place to be.

It’s obviously just my problem though. Today, I kid you not, I witness a girl set up office aboard the tube. She had her mac out, various office paraphernalia scattered across her general persons and whilst she was at it, she stopped for a nutritious snack of a tasty orange. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate the vitamin C qualities of an orange make it an appealing choice of fruit. But on a packed tube? During rush hour? Turns out she was well prepared with kitchen roll, so my complaints would have been unjustified, but still. Very peculiar.

In other news, we (read: I) have found the perfect wedding venue. Here is a snap of the view. YEAH BOY. Deary me I love Cornwall.

So do you to have to frequent the bowels of your city for a daily commute? Or are you sensible and unwilling to have you face shoved into a strangers armpits for 20 minutes a go?

Over & Out x

Oh hi there

Deary dear, dear oh dear, I am a naughty naughty blogger. Or not even a blogger at all? A part time blogger. A pseudo-blogger. Whatever. THIS 9-5 SHIT IS HARD GUYZ.

I do miss spilling my pickled brain contents onto the web though, so I am going to try and write at least once a week. But enough of the organised fuckery, that was much too forced and unlikely to ever happen.

Quick update: Still living in London, still doing the same job, still engaged to K. Oh oh oh! Exciting news! We graduated! And…I signed up to a half marathon.

Exercise: Half Marathon

My relationship with running is turbulent at the best of times, you know that, I know that, so why on earth I’ve signed up to this is beyond me. Marathon mum thought it would be a good idea and I was obviously feeling optimistically fit at the time. Le sigh. The good thing is it IS making me scoot to the gym more often – and good news – my sabbatical from exercise hasn’t been too damning on my fitness and I can still manage 3 miles.

Well, I can now. The first time back on the treadmill was FRESH. HELL. ON. EARTH. I managed 10 minutes. Seriously, that is it. 10 minutes before I slammed the stop button and grumped back to the changing room like the chubby little brat that I am. But clever old marathon mother was all: “Don’t give up, just try again tomorrow and go slower” (classic marathon mum) and low and behold I managed 30 minutes. The fact it was more speed walking than running is irrelevant and best left unsaid.

But things are kind of on track, ish. Any tips on how to get through the next 4 months and be spat out the other side capable of running 13.1 miles would be FANTASTIC though.

Food: Not happening

I still don’t have an oven and am lacking serious $ at the moment so have been subsisting on a diet of pasta broccoli and cheese, in some combination or another. Sometimes from a packet. On occasion, at work, I eat things like this for lunch.

Oh god. Seriously lacking all inspiration so I won’t be hammering on much about food.  I did celebrate my one year vegetarian anniversary the other day. Though yesterday I found out my fave thai curry pasta has fish sauce in it, but I am pretending that hasn’t cancelled everything out. I’M A FRAUD.

My parents, kind souls that they are, took pity on my inability to live off of chutney and expensive cheese and sent up this bad boy.

Unashamedly middleclass produce is the bomb.

Fashion: La la la I want everything

So my job basically involves a lot of time spent on Topshop / H&M / Netaporter drooling over the latest threads, which makes restraining my purse strings and wearing my primark tea dress circa ‘09 to work excruciating.  Unbearable. Harrowing. Exaggeration, but basically, it’s hard to not spend all my payday moolah on pretty things basically is what I’m getting at, yah?

Currently on my perpetual wish list:

This gold skull bracelet from A Weathered Penny, which by the way, is a total steal at £6. Too bad it’s sold out. MAKE SOME MORE PLEASE, I HAVE SENT A HINTY HINT LINK TO THE BOIF.

I KNOW I will regret not buying these adorable/awful kicks. Plus they are on sale. IT IS CRIMINAL. Thus I will probably buy them come payday.

Topshop know whats what when it comes to knitwear, credit where credit is due. However, I think with some patience and 3 or 4 charity shops I could find something similar for 1/10 of the price. Hmm, personal challenge? It’s good to set and achieve goals.

It doesn’t HAVE to be Ralphy, but I quite badly need a fringed bag in my life. And boy has done good here.

Conclusion

I realise my subheadings are superfluous in the world of blogging, but I thought a good old fashioned update was in order and clarity is a must! Next time I’ll be less stuffy and stop pretending I’m writing an essay, deal?

In conclusion? Here are some things I have been up to as of late, aside from getting into instagram cringe worthy big time / after it was cool.

Over & out! x

Ohhh and my little brother just sent me this picture saying: “he’s proud of you!”

 

AREN’T THEY BOTH THE CUTEST?

Over this really is all now.

Opinion: Boobs and boys

You can buy you’re very own HILARIOUS top for the bargain price of £23.80 from here. Guaranteed MEGALOLZ. 

So here’s the thing, I very rarely wear cleavagey tops, for two reasons really

1. I don’t have big boobs so I don’t have the problem of looking frumpy of whatever if I wear a polo neck (not that I ever wear polo necks).
2. Boys can be ridiculous.

Mainly, I was reminded of the other night, because of the latter.

I was wearing my 1950s inspired, bubble hem, checked dress that I’d totally forgotten about. My mum posted it up for me to eBay, but being the clothes hoarder that I am, was like nahfanxi’llkeepitfurevainstead! So, excitable as I am, I wore it out that night.

We were out with a good group of friends and after a few drinks, one of them said to me: “dya think it’s appropriate to wear a dress that low cut out?”

Ok, he’d had a drink and it was probably supposed to be vaguely amusing in a, look-how-cavalire—with-my-words-I-am-how-fucking-Russell-Brand-is-this-shit? kinda way, but instead it just really fucking pissed me off. Hence the need for two expletives in succession.

It’s as if he thought I was wearing this dress deliberately to draw attention to my (entirely average) cleavage. Well I wasn’t. It was a fucking cute dress, that is all there was to it.

I doubt many girls choose their clothes based on whether or not males will notice what great tits they have. As the great Betsey Johnson once said: “Girls do not dress for boys. They dress for themselves and, of course, each other. If girls dressed for boys they’d just walk around naked at all times.”

But it’s not just him who seems to think otherwise.

As soon as you wear something slightly revealing the majority of men seem incapable of looking elsewhere.

IT IS JUST A HUMAN BODY, GET OVER IT.

I think the problem this sort of behaviour is normalised, all the fucking time. Men are constantly reduced to animalistic brutes that are naturally incapable of NOT ogling because it’s hardwired into them. This thinking is everywhere, in advertising, in TV, in books in news reporting. So obviously it’s going to trickle down and affect out mere mortal brains to some degree, right?

Anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t wear a low cut top and not get ogled, so I’m just going to revert back to my old buttoned up ways. So if anybody’s after a 1950s inspired, bubble hem, checked dress, gimme a shout…

What do YOU think? Agree or think I am I being a massive drama llama and women wearing low-cut tops are asking to be ogled?

xx

Internet treasures & smiles: I’m turning into a hippy…

So in addition to passing on my fave interenetzzz finds I’m guna tell you what’s been making me smile recently. People (read: me) can be moany little brats and sometimes it’s just good to forget it and spread the lurrrrrrve. How have I turned into MORE of a hippy since moving to London, I wonder. Anyway, here we go.

Things that have made me smile this week

On Friday a woman I bought a diet coke from said “That necklace makes you look like the Queen dear,” which was nice of her.

Kyle and I will spending our first Christmas together and this pleases me greatly. I’m feeling a little bit festive already, which is ridiculously uncharacteristic I can assure you!

I had a scone with Regents Park tea (that Kyle said tasted like potpourri, boys got no taste) that made for a pretty divine feed sesh.

I finally got my expanding buttocks into gear and joined a gym. I was feeling incredibly delighted by this until I did a 1hr body pump class with a cruel Russian woman. This was on Thursday, I kid you not I still ache today. SO UNFIT.

Went out for a friends birthday last night and whilst playing with my lipsticks I discovered my new favourite shade, bright pink mixed with purple. Sounds pretty gross but I love it, so go ahead and play!

I FOUND MY YOGA JUMPER. Life is good again.

So  in the spirit of being a chirpy so and so, what’s made you bare your nashers this week?

Treasures from around the internetz

Ok so we’ve probably all heard and read about some politicians and their naïve/vile views on rape, it’s been pretty well documented over the last few weeks, but this piece really takes the biscuit in summing it all up. Bit depressing, but can’t help thinking: hear, hear!

To cheer you up from that, look! Canada has started a new anti-rape campaign that doesn’t victim blame for once, woohoo progress!

(I did my dissertation on rape and how it’s reported on by the press, if you’re wondering…!)

On a lighter note, this is how I want to wear my hair all week, how adorbs? And it looks easy enough for even my incapable hands to handle.

Well crazy cats, that is all for now. I am going to spend the rest of my Sunday writing my opinion piece for tomorrow and then doing fuck all, London Fashion Week is coming up (eeeek/aghhh!) and thus most forgo next weekend in a bid to become the next Anna Wintour. Hah.

xx