Impulse Control Fail

As I'm sure I've said before, my housemate Diane runs a vintage items and a handmade jewelry store. She has some really gorgeous items, and regularly has stalls at local vintage fairs.
I often accompany her on these trips, just to help out and as an excuse for me to wander round too, but there is one fair I particularly love. Its based in Stockport and is called Vintage Village. Held on the second Sunday of every month, its a veritable treasure trove of awesomeness.
Normally I don't buy anything (I purposely don't take money with me so that I don't) but at the September fair I actually picked up a few awesome finds.

Rhubarb Crumble Recipe

This is looong overdue and I apologise. Life just has a habit of getting in the way...

I promised you a recipe for rhubarb crumble and here it is, but first let me give you a quick bit of background.

I've always hated rhubarb. I have a horrible sweet tooth, so the tartness of rhubarb really isn't something I enjoy. My mum and grandma, however, love the stuff, so I've cooked it up for them for a long while.
Gran's next door neighbour has a green thumb and for as long as I can remember he's grown rhubarb - and shared it with Gran (isn't he lovely).

I've never grown it myself and don't have any idea how to harvest rhubarb, but Diane loves it, so when we moved into the new house and found a large crop of the fruit just waiting to be pulled, it was like a challenge.

After a quick google search (gotta love google) I found out how to pull rhubarb and had a go. I was quite surprised at how easy it was, and Diane followed me out with her camera. This is the result.

A whole new look!

Hey guys!

Sorry I disappeared for so long. I wasn't really sure where I was going with this so I lost interest and got distracted and it kinda petered out. I sincerely apologise.

I'm not going to promise anything for the moment as we all know how that went last time, but I'm going to do my best to make regular posts as I miss this blog.

I'm going to be posting recipes mainly I think, along with the occasional 'how my day/week has been' post, and maybe a book/film review here and there. I'll try and figure out a schedule for myself, so you know what to expect - other than lots of randomness that is.

Anyway, onto the new stuff!
As you can probably tell if you've been here before (if not, welcome!), I've done a bit of a redesign. You can thank my friend (and housemate) Diane for that. She's made the awesome background, and is going to be taking photos for me, so you'll be able to see some pictures of my food that look amazing - almost entirely thanks to Diane's camera skills :p
I've been inspired by her blog and by reading a few other blogs - I will try and add them to my blogroll. I might even do a post sometime soon listing a few blogs I like.

(Diane also makes the most awesome jewellery - check it out here)

I'll leave it at that for now, but I shall be back soon with a recipe for Rhubarb crumble (complete with pics of me harvesting the rhubarb) and I'll also give you an quick update on what I've been up to.

P.S. What do you think of the redesign? Let me know any thoughts/ideas on what you like or don't like.

TTFN!!

xxClairexx

Epic Eats!

Hey guys!
I want to share a couple of awesome recipes with you. One of which is one of my absolute fave home cooked meals.
For as long as I can remember my grandma has made a thing called Bacon Pudding. Some people have heard of it, some haven't but as far as I was aware growing up, it was something only my Grandma and Great Granny could make. It was the food we asked for when she asked what special meal we wanted for birthdays, and always makes me think of Great Granny.
This is not a healthy meal by far, but its good old fashioned cheap and tasty food.

Best dinner in ages!

Hey folks.

Happy 2011!
Its a bit late, but I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and have had a good start to 2011. I know I had a good time, it has really helped to have a couple of weeks break from everything to sort my head out. I'm determined to start 2011 with a whole new me!
I don't really make resolutions - I never manage to complete them, and I'm always disappointed in myself, so instead of 3 or 4 resolutions, this year I just have one - To have no regrets.
I want to get to this point next year, look back on 2011 and, no matter what has happened through the year, to be happy that I did the best I could in everything.

I don't know how that will turn out, but I've started off well. I've already made a start on uni work that isn't due in for ages, and I've started eating a little more healthier - well, sort of. I mean I've been cooking proper food recently rather than just reheating freezer/processed food. I'm going to a recruitment day on Tuesday so that I can hopefully get a part-time job, I'm looking after myself more and my friends are taking me shopping for some clothes so that I can actually feel like I look good.

So, enough about that, onto the main reason I'm writing this post. I've just eaten the yummiest meal I swear I've ever made.
Last night I made bolognese, and though it was nice, I didn't really fancy it again tonight. I had a huge bag of onions in the fridge just waiting to be used up, so I decided to make a soup. I really only had one option - French Onion Soup.
I used Delia's recipe with a few very minor changes. I used red onions, instant beef stock, and I skipped a stage or two. I'll write the rough recipe below.
I figured after that I'd probably want something sweet, and I have a pile of apples on the table and some bananas which if I don't use up soon they'll have to be baked into something or they'll be unusable.
I decided on baked fruit. I'd never really tried it and I have a pretty sweet tooth so I looked through my cupboard for something extra. This is what I found:

I have a jar of chocolate mincemeat which mum gave me to turn into mince pies but I never got around to making, and a jar of choc-o-toff sauce that I bought from the Christmas markets.