A trip to Paris

Last week I went to Paris with my course mates for a couple of days as part of our next project! I had a good time, but unfortunately had a stinker of a cold was was probably not the best company for my course mates... but i'm better now and enjoying looking sat the photos I took in-between swallowing cold and flu tablets and sneezing!

 I went to the Louvre and saw the mona lisa, the iconic glass prisms' and the Venus De Milo!

 Unfortuantly the cold restricted what i couls taste, but it didn't stop me sampling some delicious goodies (as usual). The fruit tart was really good and cheaper than back home! it even had a lovely sprinkling of pretty green pistachios which was a nice touch.

Notre Dame! All I could think about was the Disney film 'Hunchback of notre Damn, which is one of the films I practically spent my childhood watching! That and the lion King, of and Matilda were my three favourites (they still are actually...)

The 'eyes of Notre Dame' :) for all those Disney fans ;)

Beautiful stained glass windows.

Candles that you can buy and light in Notre Dame for loved ones!

 On one of the bridges in Paris where couples and friends have locked padlocks onto the bars and written love message onto them which was really cool to see. I think it's a lovely idea and took a few snaps to show you all!

 More padlocks :)

A yummy French baguette with ham and cheese salad! Being in France really made me want to learn French properly. I did have a few lessons in high school, and did remember a couple of words and phrases, but nowhere near enough to have a conversation! Maybe one day I will learn another language, hopefully french of Italian!

 Lastly a quick snap of the type of chairs in the tube station. I love brightly coloured plastic chairs and really want some in my own house (when I can afford a house....) 

Simple Brownies

Chocolate Brownies..... Need I say more?

They `re my ultimate cake, yes I have finally decided (for now at least) that brownies are my favoruite kind of cake. I've never been a massive sponge fan, and I'm defiantly a chocolate lover, so naturally I tend to dip towards brownies as my go-to cake when i'm out.

I've made brownies a few times myself, but never really found a recipe that worked quite right for me - until now people :)...

 Ingredients:

185g Butter

185g Dark Chocolate

85g Plain Flour

40g Cocoa Powder

100g chocolate (white,milk,or dark)

3 Large Eggs

275g Caster Sugar

Method

Melt the butter and dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl over some hot water (on the stove/hob) or in the microwave if you prefer. Leave the melted mixture to cool.

Preheat your oven Gas Mark 4, or 180C   Line the bottom of a 20cm square tin (or the nearest size you have).

Mix together the flour and cocoa powder. In a separate bowl mix together the eggs and caster sugar. It's best to use a hand mixer/machine so the mixture becomes thick and creamy.

Poor the egg/sugar mixture into the cooled chocolate and butter. Fold in gently (I hate this bit). Chop the 100g chocolate into chunks (I use a sharp thick knife on the chopping board to do this). Sprinkle over the mixture, along with the dry ingredients and again fold.

Poor carefully into your lined tin. I topped mine with a few chopped pistachio's! 

Bake for 25 minutes. (ours took a little longer as Scott kept opening the oven.... The mixture should be left a little gooey, but if its still wobbling when you take it form the oven, give it another 5 minutes or so!

This is the pretty marbling effect that happens when your 'gently' (Im so impatient with folding) the brownie mixture.

I drizzled a few chopped Pistachio nuts on the top for a little colour pop! But you could try and nut or dried fruit you fancied! Cranberries and freeze dried raspberries work great too.

And then it's ready :) Ideally you should leave the brownies to cool before eating as they do taste better that way and are a lot easier to cut!

Carrot and Coriander Soup

Just a quickie-

Here is one of my favourite soup recipes, its dead simple and one I make quite often.

Ingredients:

7 large carrots

1 large onion

chicken/vegetable stock (enough to cover the carrots and onions)

tsp dried coriander

1 tbsp butter

fresh coriander

salt & pepper

Method:

Chop the onions and sauté in butter until translucent. Whilst the onions are sautéing, chop the carrots and add them to the onions. Stir for 2-3 minutes and ensure carrots are coated in the butter. Pour over the stock, season and add the dried coriander. Cook on low until the carrots are soft (about 20 minutes) Remove from heat, add the fresh coriander and blend your soup. If the soup is to thick, you can thin it down with a little milk or cream, depending on how healthy your feeling....

Serve with a little chopped fresh coriander and soup bread and butter, because lets face it, what is soup with bread?!

Christmas on Instagram

Here are just a few pics from my instagram account! I'm still rather a little obsessed with Instagram and find myself taking pictures too often with it. My profile is 'BETH2852' if you're curious :)

 I was making cranberry sauce in the first two pictures, fruity curry in the bottom right and stuffing for christmas day, bottom left.

 Scott and I went to the christmas market in Manchester again this year. The mosaic floor is in the town hall, and Scotts in front of the market and town hall. Below is Alfred my cat and Seabear my lazy doggy!

Scott and I over Christmas, and below a Christmas wreath from Manchester, and to the right the most incredible english breakfast we made a couple of days after christmas.

Hoover damn (or maybe not)

There is a special lake in North Wales where Seabear first learnt to swim. She was a young puppy and a little afraid of swimming until one day when we visited this particular lake over ten years ago with my mum and dad. There was a hoover that was dumped in the middle of the lake, Seabear caught a glimpse of it and made her way swimming to the middle of the lake in an attempt to retrieve this plastic yellow hoover. Unfortunately it fell over as she tried to pull it and she had to return to shore empty handed, however she was now no longer afraid of swimming and it is now one of my favourite places to take her, and my other dog Ella, back to.  My dad then coined the name 'hoover damn/ hoover lake' which we all find quite amusing. It's real name is 'Llyn Du Bach' which is little black lake for those who don't know Welsh!

Yesterday Scott and I went to this lovely lake for a picnic and a walk with the doggies :) It's quite far from the nearest village and people etc and there are usually lots of interesting things to discover from bones to plants and sometimes frogspawn in the right season!

We had a lovely picnic with bacon, cheddar, chutney and cucumber sandwiches, satsumas, pepsi max, Pringles and mini Toblerones for dessert. Classy I know but delicious :)  I'm really getting into my photography at the minute, just as a hobby and for fun, but I just fond it some wonderful to take photos and look back at them to remind myself of all the interesting places I go, what yummy things I ate and the interesting plants and things I find along the way! I wore my standard farmer wellies,.. It was so swampy and wet and windy - I wore to raincoats to try to keep the wind out!There were a ridiculous amount of bones (i'm assuming sheep) which I enjoyed looking at, and tried to keep the dogs from sting :/ I 

 This is a particularly unattractive photo, but it sums up how we were feeling, a mixture of happiness, excitement and a face full of bitterly cold wind! I also look a little like Wallace and Grommet!

     It was that windy Seabear's ears were flying back in the wind :)

    Scott and Ella.

 Seabear :) Happy to be back in her lake!

I was holding hands with Scott and didn't realise for a while that I'd been splashing mud onto him from my wellies.. woops :) 

My faithful car Fester the fiesta!


And lastly Scott lifting a very wet and tired Bear into the car as she didn't have enough energy to jump up herself!

Christmas, Turkey and family photographs

Christmas Agiain!It's been and gone and it's been so lovely seeing all my family, friends, animals etc! I've eaten way too much as per, but it's all been worth it :)

Here was our delicious Turkey that we had for Christmas day, it's 15lb and is was ridiculously heavy, and had an impressive coloured skin this year which always makes it

look beautiful.

My Christmas dinner :) Turkey and all the trimmings! All home made of ccourse, even the cranberry sauce ! We never make our own Chistmas pudding though, so many thats something to think about for next year.

I had a wonderful new Instax Fuji film camera which I'M IN LOVE WITH.  I already have a Polaroid and Canon camera which are my old faithfuls and I couldn't live without, but I felt it was time to get a newer Polaroid as the price of the old film is ridiculous now Polaroid have stopped making the film.
Here are a few snaps I've taken so far :)

Scott and I in hats playing card games with my family. it's a little blurred as I was just figuring out all the buttons and angles etc.

The Clough's! My mums side of the family always come over just after Christmas as it's my Grandmas Birthday shortly after. It's such a wonderful time full of card games, cheese and a heck of a lot of competitive treasure hunting...

more of my family with the fujifilm camera. I will do a blog post soon about the camera in more detail, as it's an awesome camera to have. And now fuelling my photography hobby!

Lastly my Dads side of the family who all come for bacon butties of Christmas morning :)
I hope you all had a fab Christmas and wish you all a Happy New Year !!!!

LLandudno beach with the doggies

I can't believe how much I've missed walking the dogs these past three months at uni! I know how lame this must sound, but it's something I've always done and it's actually a really relaxing time to think about life and also a good way to keep healthy (I'm so unhealthy at the moment and need to sort myself out!). As soon as I got back home i've immediately gone for a walk with the doggies and Scott to the beach and it was lovely.

I found this rock that has these amazing marks on them that look like footprints! Being on a footwear design course has made my life basically revolve around shoes... I'm even seing them in rocks now?!

Talking about being unhealthy... Scott and I went for a rather enjoyable Big Mac meal at McDonalds. Being a student you get a free cheeseburger with a meal so I always get one and give half each to the dogs so they too can have a special little treat. This is probably why my dogs are so fat, but it really is very occasionally...

I'm not sure why my hairs looking so blonde here?! I haven't dyed it for agers! Which is very unlike me!

You probably know by now how much I like taking shoe pictures of my feet so here's another one....

The dogs adore water, wether it's the sea, a lake or even a mangey dirty wet puddle! So it's always top priority when we go for a walk to find somewhere wet. Molly (Seabear) is getting very old and hobble-y nowadays but she always gets a spring in her step near the sea :)

i'm not sure what's going on here....

Ella always gets excited and runs along the beach ahead of the rest of us , leaving just her sandy footprints for us to follow!

Seabear looking quite inquisitivie here ..

I found some neon fishing wire on the beach, I loved the colour so much I had to take a photo next to the natural stoney coloured pebbles.

More shoes and feet, as the obsession grows....

I like taking pictures of moss. And mould. And rust...

Ella kept her head on the backseats the whole way to the beach (30 mins drive), and spent the journey home collapsed in the boot as she was so tired from all the running. She and Molly also steamed up the car with a rather fowl wet dog smell which is never pleasant, but we still take them to the beach regardless!

Scott skimming stones :)

The only dowside to walking the dogs. The hideous task of collecting their .. erm ..droppings... Scott fortunately is very good with this sort of thing :) And I had some nappy bags especially for this occasison :/ So we were safe from being fined this time.....

I'm also due a trip here with my best friend Georgie, as it's almost a tradition we have to come here on boxing day, dressed in some strange attire and listenning to the Disney soundtrack.. Small pleasures..

 :)