Warming Carrot Soup

Hey Everyone, I hope your day has been well.

I love when I surprise myself with my cooking. I recently made a carrot soup which I thought was going to taste bland as it mostly contained carrots but surprisingly the taste was phenomenal! I also added in some sweetcorn and kale for added vegetables along with frozen fish fillets. The carrots were grated and gave the soup a really sweet flavour once finished.

Ingredients
Oil
Onion, diced
Carrots grated
Garlic powder
Black pepper
Coconut milk
Sweetcorn
Kale
Grace noodle soup mix – I used about 1 tbsp
Frozen fish

Method
Heat the oil in a pot and once hot, cook the onions in a pot for 5-7 minutes until soft stirring occasionally. Add the carrot and season with garlic powder and black pepper.

Add a drop of water and cover with a lid for 3 minutes. Next stir in the milk, sweetcorn and kale bringing to a boil for 5 minutes.

The stir in the soup mix and frozen fish keeping on a gentle simmer until the fish is cooked, roughly 8-10 minutes.

What’s you favourite type of vegetable soup?

Keeping warm in winter

Hey Everyone, I hope your day has been well. I’m writing this with a cosy blanket over my shoulders.

I thought it would be nice to post something different that I’m sure we can all relate to… the COLD winter! It even snowed recently, so I can only imagine how much colder it is going to get. I’ve recently moved and it feels much colder than where I was before. It could be because the building is older, I’m not really sure but I thought I’d share some handy tips to keeping warm this winter and maybe making a few (hopefully not too expensive) purchases that can minimise the cold inside.

Some tips below:

• putting thick curtains up at the windows
• using draft excluders
• wrapping up in blankets
• wearing thermal clothing or layering up
• drinking hot drinks throughout the day
• using hot water bottles
• not covering/blocking heaters

There’s probably many more technical tips online but there’s a few to get you started. I know that if I’m in one place for too long, I start to feel the cold more so moving your body may help too, a little stretch or wonder around the house will keep the blood flowing.

What are you doing to keep warm this winter?

Thanks for reading, A.

Winter life right now

Hey Everyone, I hope your day has been well. It’s a Sunday evening and I’m winding down ready for a busy week of work.

I’ve been reflecting on the season recently and I feel like I’m finally starting to accept that we are in the winter months. I’m finally starting to like wrapping up warm in my long coat, woolly scarf and leather gloves. Feeling warm and cosy is such a comforting thing.

Sometimes it just takes a while to get used to the new seasons but today I woke up and it was snowing, Christmas is 2 weeks away and although it’s really cold, its also a nice time of the year to sit with your thoughts more and reflect as the year comes to an end. In December we generally spend more time indoors so it’s a good idea to make the most of the time with loved ones or to work on ourselves.

Just a quick thought that I wanted to share.

Thanks for reading, A.

Book Review: My Sister, the serial killer.

Hello everyone, thanks for stopping by my blog today 🙂

I’ve never really been bothered by the idea of a book club but I really like the idea of sharing my reviews. Reading and reviewing a book is a way to possibly connect with people and share thoughts that maybe someone else didn’t think of. It’s also quite a personal thing, expressing your opinions about what you read and how it resonated with you. It is interesting how 1 book can create a variety of feelings, both positive and negative. It’s funny how a book can be so interesting/useful to one person but then someone else will take it in a completely different way.

This is a great book for these dark and gloomy nights as we spend more time at home. It’s not too scary however the main story line is based Ayoola being a serial killer.

The story is set in Nigeria and includes many of the dialect spoken there and you get a real sense of what certain situations described would be like in the story. It is a mixture of crime, murder, romance, work and family relationships. We are introduced to a sibling relationship right from the beginning between Korede who is the older sister and often left to clean up Ayoola’s mess. Ayoola is the younger sister and manages to get her own way because of her beauty and charms. It’s a nice storyline but I can’t say much more without spoiling the story, so give it a read!

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Find the book here on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3otph8r

Sugar Cookies

I get regular emails from Emerald Street and I’ve noticed recently they sometimes have a recipe in them. Anyway this week I made The Log Ladies Sugar Cookies sounds amazing right?? Basically they are vanilla flavoured cookies inspired by the tv show Twin Peaks. They are described as the perfect winter snack and I would definitely agree with that 🙂

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Makes 18

Ingredients
250g plain flour
150g butter, cubed at room temp
125g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

Method

1. Set the oven to gas mark 4 and line two trays with parchment paper.

2. Place the flour in a large bowl and add the butter, rub together with your finger tips until it resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Next still using your hands work in the sugar, vanilla extract and salt. Slowly bring the mixture together until it forms a dough.

4. At this stage the ‘dough’ may seem quite dry or not together but you just have to keep kneading the ingredients together, once your hands warm up the butter it will melt better into the flour which will release the gluten and help form the dough.

5. Now you can roll out the dough onto a floured surface and cut the cookies using a large scalloped edge cutter.

6. Carefully place onto the baking trays and bake for 15 minutes. Leave to cool down fully on a wire rack.

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