Halloween Cookie Creations!

Halloween is just one sleep away and I am fully prepared for my Halloween party!!! Well almost...aside making the blood punch...getting dressed up...and buying sweets for the trick or treaters...but that's not the point!

Pumpkin is carved, and the cookies are done!

I chose a really simple egg free sugar cookie recipe, and after buying some £1 Halloween cutters from wilkos was ready to quite literally roll out the dough and get cooking!

The icing was the fun part...I'm not going to lie! With a box of Silver Spoon Royal Icing Powder and by watching the tutorials by The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle you cannot go wrong!

Since following her blog for just under a month, I have become OBSESSED! And will be honing my icing skills over Christmas - if you know me personally...expect a jar of Christmas cookies when I see you around the festive season!

My favourite icing tip however came from this website: Karen's Cookies.net - all you need is an icing bag...and some cling film...trust me this little tip is a godsend if you hate washing out icing bags!

So without further a do, here are my cookies and sugar cookie recipe!

Brie and Tomato Home-made Gourmet Paninis!

The University of Nottingham's Library Cafe sells hot panini's for just under £3...thats right £3!!! What student in their right mind has £3 to spend on lunch?! Thats's before even factoring in a drink!

That's why...I decided to invest in my own panini baguettes.

My boyfriend's sister's husband...(I may eventually be able to say brother in law?), as far as I am concerned is the panini king, and he inspired me to start making my own (Thanks Russ :D)

So, I nipped to the shops this weekend to stock up on ingredients so that I could eat gourmet sandwhiches allonsgide all the rich students in the library knowing that my panini cost half the price!

One of these delicious sandwhiches will set you back just 93p!

Two Ways with Trout

I love, love, love when things I can’t normally afford to buy are on offer in the supermarket! I don’t know why people don’t make more of reduced sections!!!

At the beginning of the academic year, as I did my first big supermarket shop I stumbled across a pack of two trout fillets for just £1. That’s right £1, saving me around £3.50!!! So with their best before date coming to an end I wacked them straight in the freezer!

Now, as the reading is piling up, and tutorials are kicking in, I’ve been in desperate need for brain food and I got my trout out to defrost...now all I needed were two delicious trout recipes to cook up a storm!

Here are my two ways with trout:

Creamy Sausage Pasta

My life at the minute is HECTIC! In true law student style, the moutain of reading is piling up, and evening networking events with law firms have meant that I've barely stepped foot in my kitchen for the last two weeks, but last night as I sat watching cookery programme after cookery programme I knew I had to get back into the kicthen and cook a delicious student staple - creamy sausage pasta.

I developed this recipe in my first year of uni - as you probably know Total Yogurt (0% fat Greek yogurt) is one of my favourtie ingredients, good for you but super creamy, it can make any dish feel extremely naughty, without piling on the pounds.

This is just another recipe where that magic incredient makes all the difference!

By combining sausages, plenty of garlic, mushrooms and onion with salt, pepper and vegetable stock cube and that creamy yogurt you are left with a rich and creamy sauce that will rival any carbonara!

But the best thing about this dish isn't the taste...it's the price.

Based on Asda's own brand (unless otherwise specified)

Yogurt 44p, Sausages 26p, Mushrooms 24p, Onion 10p, Spaghetti 9p, Garlic 6p, Stock Cubes 6p

Total based on 2 portions: £1.25

Total for an individual portion: 63p

Here's how you cook it!

Blog Action Day #BAD11

Today is Blog Action Day! For those of you who don’t know, Blog Action Day has been running since 2007 and aims to unite bloggers by getting them to post about a single, important, global topic on the same day. You can register to participate at http://blogactionday.org/ or visit to just learn more about the day and read others posts.
This year the date has coincided with World Food day, and accordingly the topic chosen is food! The website suggests a whole range of topics including:

·         My favourite food

·         The famine in Africa

·         To be organic or not to be that is the question

·         Hunger and poverty

·         Best and worst food memory

·         Slow Food, Fast Food: what does it actually mean?

·         Malnutrition

·         Conflict over food: will new wars be about arable land

·         Is your hamburger hurting the environment

And many, many more!

I wanted to touch on the philosophical, political maybe ethical but none of the topic titles really jumped out at me until I saw ‘Strangest Thing You’ve Ever Eaten’ and it was decided. So here is my Blog Action Day post.

Caramel Cupcakes

After watching the first episode of The Great British Bake Off on demand at the weekend, I was overcome with the urge to bake! So, at 7 o clock in the evening, I got my sous chef (a.k.a Jonny my boyfriend) to join me in the kitchen to whip up a batch of cupcakes!

After a bit of rummaging in his mums cupboards (I'll replace the ingredients Mrs Moore I promise!) I stumbled across some soft brown sugar and decided to tweak my normal recipe and come up with something a little more grown up!

If you have a sweet tooth, these are the cakes for you! If you don't want your children to need fillings, I recommend keeping them all for yourselves!

Here's how you make these delicious cakes!

Oaty Apple Crumble

Autumn has finally arrived! The leaves are falling from the trees, wooly jumpers are being worn, and yummy warm soup is filling my tummy at lunchtimes! But, when I get home after a hard days work, and I've whipped up a dinner, there's just one more things that makes an Autumn day complete...Oaty Apple Crumble!

This isn't quite your traditional apple crumble, with the toppoing including porridge oats which makes it slightly crispier and more of a dense, gooey yummy crumble topping! Best served with a huge dollop of 0% fat 'Total' Yogurt for guilt free pleasure, or ice-cream if you're feeling naughty!

Here's my recipe:

Low Fat Creamy Mushroom and Chicken Pasta Bake

Diets - lets be honest, they are restrictive, they're not the same as teaching yourself healthy eating habits, and on diets there are certain foods that are off limits including creamy, cheesey pasta bakes!

However, I have come up with a delicious alternative to normal creamy jars of pasta bake that mean when you're 'dieting' or trying to get back into healthy eating habits, you can still have a big bowl of comfort food and not feel the guilt!

My healthy eating saviour is 0% fat Greek yogurt (in case your wondering I use Total!), this is what gives the dish its distinct creaminess (you may have noticed it in my curries too!), so you may need to nip down to the supermarkets to get the ingredients but it will be WELL worth it! Trust me!

I'd also recommend either using wholewheat pasta or pasta with low dietary carbs like Dreamfields but its not essential!