Cronuts in the park

This week has been super busy again with work and castings, but I had a random day off mid week and it was luckily sunny! I grabbed my friends and we made the most of it. 

First up was a trip to Buckingham Palace, a place I had never been before! It was a liiittle bit underwhelming (I sort of had in mind tea and scones with the Queen) but we saw the impressive changing of the guards. After this exhausting tourism work, we rewarded ourselves with some incredible doughnuts. 

Dum Dum Doughnuts have luckily opened up a doughnutterie in Harrods food hall - their shop in Shoreditch BoxPark is sold out daily by the afternoon so this is great news! These doughnuts... are amazing. They are literally the best I have ever eaten, and I'm not even much of a doughnut fan. They bake them instead of fry so you can sort of kid yourself they are 'healthy(ier)' for you than say.. a fried doughnut? Even in the midst of my super healthy eating, I would give it up at any point for one of these. 

The 'Zebra' cronut. I had this for the first time a couple of weeks ago with Dima and I haven't really been able to stop thinking about it since. It is just INCREDIBLE - layers of croissant and doughnut inbetween chocolate buttercream arghhhh so good. It is definitely a must try if you are in London, the other cronuts I've tried have been distinctly lacklustre after all of the hype but this exceeds it. It is also around £4 which is pretty good value for something so fab yet generally overpriced. 

We found ourselves in Hyde Park munching away happily and enjoying the sun. 

Nicola also got a creme brulee doughnut which was amazing - she actually preferred this to the cronut which is saying something. 

working off the doughnuts!



If you are still doing exams, don't worry they will be over sooner than soon! It's already mid-May, I can't wait for everyone to be freee so they can come out and play :)

 

Birthday

The past week has been a very busy week, filled with friends, family and food because... I turned 21! Last year I was in Disneyland Paris for my birthday so I was not expecting this year to even compare...
best day ever

However this birthday was actually even better very good because it was spent with the people I love most. (and really excellent food and presents!)

On the night before my birthday my agency very luckily had a dinner party at Blake's Hotel, which does a-maaazing food! We ate tartare, steak and.. cake! Where they very nicely sang to me :)


Then very drunk on champagne, I went to Dima's who tucked me into bed. We woke up at 7am (I got quite excited) and he gave me the most beautiful camera ever, in the hope that I take proper pictures as opposed to snapping literally everything I see with my iphone. I have had to buy a 'dummy guide' to it, it is quite overwhelming but it takes wonderful pictures :')
My other friends bought me a polaroid camera this year, so I have understood the hint - I take a lot of pictures.


After a hearty breakfast of pancakes we headed out to the Natural History Museum (in the pouring rain, cheers London) for some ice skating with two of my bestest friends, Katherine and Nicola. Luckily the rain held off for the hour we were on the ice, and we managed to teach Nicola how to ice skate on a penguin - I later made all 3 of them follow me skating on penguins whilst singing happy birthday :D



We then went for a leisurely stroll around Harrods, followed by the BIGGEST AND BEST PIZZA I have ever eaten. I have had Homeslice pizza before in a slice form, so after to escape the rain we popped in for a quick bite. The whole pizzas are 20 inches, but I don't think any of us really understood the 'actual' size - Dima got one to himself and me and Nicola shared. For £20 it is really good value to share as it is quite impossible to finish one off alone. A large slice is £4.

 
We waddled home, meeting my family ready for our next food adventure. My dad very nicely took us for a family meal to Hawksmoor, which is my go-to for steak and their salted caramel and chocolate tart with popcorn ice cream. Dima also really loves their Sunday lunches, but I am more of a dessert girl.

We were still in the midst of a food coma from the pizza, but free food = ordering a whole lobster and forcing yourself to eat it. Followed by ordering the above tart (which was not in its normal form that evening but a souffle-type thing, which is good because I love souffle but bad because I really love the normal tart) and the salted caramel rolos to take home. Because it was my birthday and I GET TWO PUDDINGS IF I WANT. But I very nearly passed out on the table trying to eat all this food. (Also, do not go to Hawksmoor on a weekend evening because it is very loud indeed).


My dad bought me a BEAUTIFUL Michael Kors watch/wallet which I shall treasure forever and ever.


and on Sunday I had a sort of food-party with my bestest friends. We ate A LOT. Monday was naturally, at Mahiki where we were delighted with massive drinks in seashells. I went with Central list who are always brilliant <3



It was also a pyjama party.

 
And that is almost all. I dragged myself to the last food adventure of the week with Stephanie and Aji on Tuesday, to an overdue dinner at Medlar, Stephanie's favourite restaurant. This is saying a LOT for someone who eats out every single day without fail. She very nicely managed to coerce the waiters into putting candles on our desserts in honour of mine and Aji's birthday :)

The food was incredible.
 
That pretty much concludes my 21st birthday! It was really, really lovely and I feel so lucky to have such amazing people to celebrate it with :)))
xxxx

Lasagne

This is for Lisa who came over on Monday for Made in Chelsea, Revenge and Lasagne. (and chocolate cake because chocolate cake is just a necessary part of life). She asked me how to make lasagne and i told her it was literally the easiest thing ever (because I am a cheat and do not slave over my white sauce or whatever for hours stirring it every 30 seconds because THIS IS JUST AS GOOD) and she asked me to write a blog post about it. As she is the only person who reads my blog I can do her this favour ;) 

Ingredients
- 500g mince 
- 1 onion 
- Dolmio Red Lasagne Sauce
- Dolmio White Lasagne Sauce
- Lasagne sheets (mine are from Tesco)
- Cheese

the above I think costs under £10 so it is a very good/cheap meal to cook for a group of friends, who assume that you have put loads of expense/effort into it when it actually takes like 20 minutes top to cook and 30 in the oven. 

Set your oven to warm up at 200* (that * is meant to be degrees)

basically,  you need this 

 ok I will put it into steps because for people like me, who cannot cook, steps are good. 

Step 1: cut your onions (try not to cry) and put them in a big frying pan (I use a wok) 
Step 2: put your (preferably NOT FROZEN like mine was meaning that I had to awkwardly scrape off the cooked bits of meat.. as it cooked) mince into the pan and brown it 
Step 3: put the RED sauce in the pan with the meat
Step 4: put your meaty-oniony concotion into an ovenproof dish in a not-too-thin  but not-too-big layer. 
Step 5: place the cute little lasagne rectangle sheets over your meat, try not to let any sauce come through 
Step 6: cover this pasta layer with lots and lots of white sauce yuuum (and also add some cheese if you love cheese, i put some casual mozarella balls in here) 
Step 7: repeat the process over again (so meat ontop of your white sauce etc) 
Step 8: when the dish is full up COVER IT WITH CHEESE (if you like cheese)  
Step 9: put it in the 200 degree oven for half an hour
Step 10: remove and EAT 

SO THERE YOU HAVE YOUR EASY PEASY LASANGE. And it tastes great. meat covered in cheese and pasta is pretty hard to not taste great. 

  



the optional last step is to eat this whilst watching crappy tv like Made in Chelsea (And then instagram a picture of your food and tag MIC and Jamie Laing will like it, worked for me) because you feel all fuzzy and warm inside knowing you are not a complete dick like spencer who probably never eats lasange. 

Enjoy! xx

Country Break

Last week was my best friend Katherine's birthday, and she lives in a tiny village on the outskirts of Sailsbury (the smallest town in England!) so we all made our way down there to celebrate her turning 20. She was having a 'tea party', or in other words, a giant food feast!

 

she made all of the above, which was super impressive as it was all amazing (and I ate far more than my fair share!) 

       


Flat 23 (from university halls) reunited!

Luckily she has a trampoline, so we managed to burn off probably the equivalent calories of a single lemon meringue cupcake on it (better than nothing right?)





some couldn't take the cake sloshing around... unlike me



 
The next day we went for a long country walk, which was amazing in comparison to being in London for so long! And we finished it off by coming back to Katherine's and picking blackberries from her (insanely amazing) garden.



Amazing party, the best kind, centered around food with your best friends :) 

FEAST London

This has been a very food-centered week. On Tuesday we went to Big Easy (great lobster and prices, bad service), Wednesday to Bone Daddies and Thursday to FEAST which I was so, so excited about! We went last year and it was incredible and this year did not disappoint.

We started with a yum bun, which I have heard a lot about and was amazing!






Soft doughy bun filled with pork and amazing hot sauce!

Then me and Lisa moved on to The Rum Kitchen's chicken bake - my boyfriend Dima and new flatmate Matt decided to venture on a meatier (more expensive) journey whilst me and Lisa tried to split food to make it cheaper and less obesity-inducing!



this was really really good and I reaaally now want to go try the restaurant in Notting Hill (but I am a bit broke after this week!)

Then we moved on to ... DEEP FRIED OREOS



which I think is probably one of the best things I have ever eaten!

Lisa went for a macaroon ice cream sandwich..



while I went for a giant slice of chocolate and sea salt cake which I finished off later (very drunk)






Dima and Matt also got....











GINORMOUS ribs, 40 day wagu steak, huge big apple hot dogs, risotto kimichi balls... and a cute little dessert pot to finish..



We went as soon as it opened (5pm) to beat the massive queues that inevitably form and rolled home by about 7 pm to have a quick nap before mahiki!

me and my new flatmates :') (aka my boyfriend and his flatmate)


me and my best friend :')