Merry Christmas to you!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! Here some Instagram photos of my last few days! I'm celebrating the holidays with my family in The Netherlands but we also made a quick overnight trip across the border to Germany to browse around the Christmas markets in Münster.

Enjoying the Weinachtsmarkt in Germany. Lights everywhere, glühwein, lebkuchen and bratwurst!

I baked a traditional Dutch Christmas bundt cake! Christmas tree bauble, feeling festive in my reindeer socks and Christmas crackers for the table decorations.

Preparing Christmas dinner; we have some vegetarians in my family so this year it's Jamie Olivers cranberry & pistachio nut roast as one of the many courses for our Christmas day feast. Last night we went to the Christmas midnight mass and today I did even more baking; the most delicious gooey chocolate crinkle salted caramel cookies ever... (recipe to follow!)

A quick run at the beach earlier today and now I am relaxing, eating and drinking with family...

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with family and loved ones! Xoxo

 

Chocolate Fruit Bark - Christmas Foodie Gift!

For Christmas I always love showing off what a domestic goddess I am spoiling my loved ones with some homemade baking ;) Over the years I have treated my family and friends to Christmas Rocky Road (link), Biscotti (link) and the most amazing festive chocolate crinkle cookies (link). I think foodie treats make for wonderful festive gifts. This year I found all my recipes on Pinterest and when I spotted this Chocolate Fruit Bark recipe, I knew it was something that I had to make. Easy as 1-2-3 and delicious...PERFECT!

 

Doesn't this look scrumptious? This chocolate bark recipe uses dark chocolate with 51 percent cocoa and adds some dazzle to it with dried apricots and figs, raisins, and cashews. The addition of the dried fruit and nuts spreads out the chocolate’s intensity, and adds in a healthy dose of antioxidants and finer; so need to feel too guilty when enjoying it!

What You’ll Need:

• 1-2 bars of good quality cooking chocolate
• 1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped
• 1/2 cup dried figs, chopped
• 1 cup mix of raisins, cranberries and mixed nuts

Tools:

• 1 large baking sheet
• Parchment paper

What to Do:

• Melt chocolate over a double boiler or in your microwave until its smooth.
• Pour chocolate over parchment paper-lined baking sheet, spreading so it so that it is about 1/2 cm thick.
• Evenly sprinkle dried fruit and cashews over the chocolate.
• Place the bark into the refrigerator for about 20 minutes, or until the chocolate harden.

I went for the super easy microwave option. I found this great Lindt cooking chocolate at my supermarket. I just broke the bars (I used two to make a good quantity) into pieces, placed that into a bowl and microwaved in short intervals of 20-30 seconds on medium-high power and stirred after each interval until the chocolate was melted.

About halfway ready....gooey runny chocolate, omg!

Perfect, all melted and only took about 2-3 minutes!

 

Now onto the toppings! For my slightly Christmasy chocolate bark I chopped up some dried apricots, dried figs and used an already mixed bag of raisins, cranberries, pecans and cashew nuts. However you can really let your imagination run wild and use any topping you fancy. Some other ideas could be adding; candied orange peel, cherries, hazelnuts, almonds and pistachios. Even more contemporary toppings are: cocoa nibs, toffee pieces, candied ginger, crushed peppermint candy and other dried fruits such as pineapple, blueberries, strawberries plus even toasted pumpkin seeds, cereal and pime nuts. Anything is possible!

Now once your chocolate is melted, just pour it onto a baking sheet which is on a tray of some sort and smooth it out, I just used the back of a spoon to do this.

Sprinkle your toppings onto the chocolate and you're basically done already! Now all that's left to do is just place the tray with your chocolate creation into the fridge to cool and lick that chocolate bowl clean ;)

When the chocolate bark has cooled and hardened, just snap into pieces and enjoy! Yummy....

I wrapped mine into little cellophane bags, added a cute Christmas tag and TADA a lovely and delicious Christmas present!

Will you be making any foodie gifts this Christmas?

 

Mint winters day OOTD & new cross bracelet

For those of you who follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you would have already seen my picture post of two bargains I picked up in the H&M sale last week. I was quickly popping into my local store buy some socks (of all necessities) and got distracted by the sales racks where I found this lovely cropped mint knitted jumper for only £15! Even though it's now winter and you might see mint as more of a spring colour I see no reason why to shy away from brightening my winter days with colourful outfits. This is me in my new jumper on Sunday, where I combined the mint jumper with my favourite bright pink winter wooly snood scarf.

Do you like this colourful look for winter?

To keep warm I paired it with my super snug tan UGG boots!

I have also been meaning to show you this new fine side cross bracelet that I got from ASOS a few weeks back. It is from their ASOS collection and you can get it in silver, gold and rose gold. It looks more gold in this photo but mine is the rose gold one.

Get it here for only £6 (link)

I was back home (yet again!) this weekend to celebrate St Nicolas with my family. It is my favourite Dutch tradition because it is an evening full of laughs, presents and the most yummy St Nicolas treats!

I definitely indulged in a fair amount of Speculaas this weekend....

Dutch Speculaas Chunks - you can find my recipe here (link). The gym is definitely calling my name this week after my indulgent but fun family weekend but hell it was worth it ;)

Birthday Celebrations =

Instead of moping about turning yet another year older, I decided to just embrace it by throwing a party to celebrate my birthday with some of my closest friends in London. And when I think celebration; I think of champagne or bubbles! So when I found out about a company that could provide cold flowing Prosecco (Italian sparkling wine) by the keg making it available on tap in the convenience of your own house; the idea of my birthday ‘Prosecco Party’ was born! So me and my flatmate ordered two kegs to be delivered to our house and it was set up with a cooler and tap to allow the bubbles to flow all night long.....

Here you can see our own 'Prosecco bar' attached to two (20 litre) kegs!
 Fore more information on how to rent-a-keg of Prosecco, click here.

My birthday celebrations officially kicked off already on Friday when I received a lovely bunch of flowers from a friend of mine delivered to work. Also it is a Dutch tradition to provide cake or sweets to your office to treat co-workers on your birthday so the night before I baked a delicious (if I say so myself) Lemon Syrup Cake. It was super easy to make and disappeared rather quickly at work :)

The recipe is from Nigella Lawson and you can download the recipe here.

The girls at the office also got me this amazing birthday card.....

Appropriate much? :)

On Saturday was the night of the party; where the drinks flowed, the music pumped and the laughs and chatter was all around. It continued on until the wee hours of the morning and I loved spending my birthday with some of my favourite people! I didn't end up getting many pictures because when 'hosting' you tend to get so busy mingling with everyone but here a couple of shots from the night!

I treated myself to a new dress for the party! I wanted something fun and colourful and this turquoise knitted panel bodycon dress from Lipsy fit the bill perfectly. It was £48 and you can buy it here.

Many many people crammed into our house!

And then my wonderful friends even surprised me with hummingbird cupcakes, candles and singing me Happy Birthday! I feel truly blessed to have so many amazing friends in my life ♥  It was the best birthday ever and I am excited to see what my 28th life year will bring me :)

Happy Hump Day! xoxo

Chicken and Orange Tabbouleh Salad

Hello everyone!
I am back from my holiday in Croatia and I had the most amazing time….photo’s will follow :)

After a holiday filled with lots of naughty food, alcohol and late nights this week is definitely all about the DETOX! Healthy eating, plenty of sleep, no drinking and lots of exercise. I recently found this recipe in the free London Stylist magazine and have made it a couple of times since. It’s a delicious, easy and healthy summer meal. This recipe is perfect for using up leftover roast chicken (or be lazy like me and just buy a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket)

Chicken and Orange Tabbouleh Salad

Ingredients (serves 6) 
300g medium bulgar wheat
500ml vegetable stock

1 bag of rocket salad leaves
120g walnuts
2 tsps cumin seeds
1 orange
2 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
1 mild chilli, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tsps sea salt
1 leek (or red onion), sliced
700g leftover roast chicken
80g fresh parsley, chopped
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsps walnut oil

Bulgar Wheat

Bulgar wheat is a whole wheat grain that has been cracked and partially pre-cooked. It is a naturally high-fiber, low-fat, low-calorie vegetarian and vegan food ingredient. Tough bulgur wheat is most commonly found in tabouli (tabbouleh) salad, you can use it just like rice or couscous, or any other whole grain, such as barley or quinoa.

Add the bulgar wheat to a pan with the stock, cover and put on a low heat for 5 minutes. Remove and fluff with a fork. In the meantime toast the walnuts and cumin seeds in a dry frying pan.

The original recipe didn't include rocket, but I love this peppery salad leaf so I decided to make my salad a bit lighter by less bulgar wheat and adding some rocket!

Grate the orange zest into a pestle and mortar. Add the olive oil, chilli, garlic, dill and salt. Crush together to form a paste, then add to the cooked bulgar wheat.
Peel the orange and cut into cubes and chop up the leeks and parsley! What a gorgeous range of colours don't you think?

Shred your leftover chicken or use ready grilled or rottiserie chicken if you don't have any leftovers.

Now mix together the bulgar wheat with the chopped orange, leek, walnuts, cumin seeds, chicken and parsley. Squeeze over the lemon juice and dizzle over some walnut oil and combine!

And there you have it, a yummy healthy lunch or dinner!
The combination of the nutty bulgar wheat with walnuts, chicken and fruity orange is just delicious.

Recipe from cookbook ‘Supper With Rosie’ by Rosie Lovell

See the online link to the original recipe here (link).

Are there any healthy summer recipes you are loving at the moment? x

Healthy easy dinner: Sweet corn Fritters

In summer time I love making quick, fresh and healthy dinners! Corn fritters are something I love at brunch or dinner time and recently I found a great recipe that I thought I'd share :)

These savoury morsels are quite the treat - but guilt free!

Ingredients:
(Serves 1-2 people)

Fresh sweet corn kernels
1 egg + 1 egg white
1 heaped tbsp. self-raising flour
Salt & pepper
Olive oil for frying

Optional add-ins: capsicum (peppers), spring onions, chilli or anything else that takes your fancy!

I was inspired to make this recipe because I'd purchased some lovely fresh corn from the Portobello markets but you can also use canned (not creamed!) or frozen corn but personally I think you can't beat FRESH corn off the cob :)

Start by removing the kernels from 2 large heads of sweet corn with a sharp knife....

Put them into a mixing bowl with a whole egg, a little salt & pepper and 1 heaped tbsp of self-raising flour....

plus I opted to add some more colour to my corn fritters in the form of red capsicum...

Beat the separate egg white until stiff....

Mix the corn, egg, flour, capsicum together and gently fold in the whipped egg white into the mixture.

(Be careful not to over-mix the batter because this will result in heavy cakes)

Drizzle a little olive oil into a nonstick frying pan. When the oil is warm, place large tablespoons of the batter in the pan and leave for a couple of minutes to brown lightly...

Flip them over with a palette knife and cook the other side. Lift out, drain on kitchen paper, then eat immediately. I served mine with a small rocket salad on the side and a big dollop of avocado mash on top!

(Avocado mash: roughly mashed avocado, chopped coriander and parsley & some lemon/lime juice)

Let me tell you, these were truly delicious, filling and super easy to make! For an even more yummier meal you could add some cooked rashers of bacon or slices of grilled haloumi and roast vine tomatoes. Have you tried corn fritters before? If not, I think you should give it a go.....it looks tasty doesn't it?!

Bon appetit ;) xoxo