Dreaming of Dresses

I am a dress fiend, yes I AM, I love them, I love to swish, I love their simplicity, I love that you just whack one on and da-dah! You have an outfit.  So here we have it, another potential regular but this time I’m introducing some awesome frocks.

I’m also introducing a brilliant little online shop, Clarence and Alabama.   Now I have to come clean, Amy-Jo who runs this  fine emporium is a very good friend of mine but I wouldn’t share with you just any old shizzle.  Her shizzle, her beautiful vintage style dresses, are handpicked stunners.  And not only are they beautiful they are also affordable too so go check out her wonder shop.

So here we have a couple I have had my beady eye on recently:

 

This this chic, French inspired little number is a Lindybop dress called the Josefine Vinatage Style Breton Top 1950s Swing Dress and is priced at a very reasonable £34.99.  Personally I think it’s just perfect for flouncing around doing just about anything with or without a baguette under your arm, sorry for the hideous stereotyping there.

 

Hawaain Wiggle Dress £99

This second beauty is actually currently sold out, but I couldn’t not show it as I have had my heart set on it for quite some time.  However the good news is she is bringing it back, oh yeah, and if you follow this smart little shop owner on Facebook or email her here you can even request a choice of material and have the god darn delicious dress made to your special requests.  In fact that’s not all this fantastic little shop offers, if you happen to be getting married and are after some vintage style matching bridesmaid dresses she can do that too.

So what do you think?  Any thoughts?  Got any recommendations of great dress shops or dresses out at the moment?

 

 

 

 

Oven Baked Chilli Fries

This is a quick and simple recipe I knocked up for lunch, the chilli powder actually combines chilli (duh), cumin, oregano and garlic and gives these fries a spicy, moreish flavour which makes them almost impossible to resist, I thought I was knocking up enough for two but ended up eating  the lot.

Ingredients:

• However many potatoes you want
• Chilli powder, I went for a mild one but a hot one would certainly pack a punch
• Olive oil
• Salt

Method:

Pre heat your oven to 200 and get out a big tray.  Slice your potatoes (skin on) in to fat match sticks, well you could do wedges, super fine fries or whatever but i think fat match sticks worked well for a good crisp chip.  Chuck the tatties in large roasting tray then slug on a tablespoon or so of oil, mix with your hands then sprinkle liberally with chilli powder and salt then mix some more.

Shove in the oven for about 25 min until hot and crispy then serve with sour cream and sweet chilli.  Oh yeah.

 

 

New Starbucks Gluten Free Cheddar Cheese and Pickle Sandwich

Starbucks new gluten free sandwich option brimming with cheddary goodness!

Now I’m not entirely fond of this brand of coffee shop, I don’t rate their coffee that much (sorry!) but the one thing that this multinational coffee gang do well is gluten free nibbles.  I’m often impressed by the range of sweet treats I can buy there AND they have been doing gluten free sandwiches for a long time now. And this, folks, impresses me.  I mean sandwiches, gluten free ones, on the high street, it’s not a lot to some but it means a great deal to me.  Now they were doing a chicken and pesto thingy me jig filling which I sampled in a motorway service station last year but I was a tad disappointed by the lack of filling and ended up leaving all the crusts behind.  However this new sandwich, well, it is jam packed with cheesey goodness and pickle AND salad, and I was rather impressed.  Good things sometimes do happen, even to us sad coeliacs! So my friends there is more choice out there, go forth and try it, then tootle back and tell me what you think…

Cauliflower and Spring Onion Bhajis

Just in case you were wondering, I do write sometimes, look here is some proof!

My Instagram Feast

I’ve been between phones this week and am not a happy bunny about the fact I’m still using my old phone over 2 weeks after purchasing my new one but that is something I need to tackle with the dreaded O2 and not bore my lovely readers with, anyways it means I’m a little short on choice of pictures to use but hey ho, it’s still a lil peek into what has fallen into my belly over the last week.

From top left: chicken and chorizo tray bake, my favourite icecream flavour in frozen yoghurt – trying to convince myself I was beeing healthy even though I ate the tub in less than 5 days, amazeball gluten free chinese feast courtesy of my dad on Friday night, beautiful gf afternoon tea from the lovely Tiffen in West Bridgford, a frickin awesome gf double chocolate eclair made again by my most talented father (I’ve only eaten one so far dad, although not sure how long the other one is going to last in the fridge) and these very moreish crisps from Tescos, a rather healthy week no?!

1 Curry Sauce 3 Ways

So last week I made that chickpea curry here, well guess what, I had some left over sauce and managed to stretch it out into 3 different dishes over the week with leftovers for lunch (I didn’t count the leftovers in the title).   Pretty smart huh? Anyways want to know the details of my genius? (I’ll stop with the sickening over confidence now)

1.  I started with the curry sauce on Sunday and made this lovely chickpea curry, then I portioned off some of that and added the leftovers of my roast into a tub and packed that up for lunch.

Chickpea Curry

2.  On Tuesday night I roasted off some aubergine chunks and boiled some lentils then plonked them all in a pot with half of the remaining curry sauce.  This provided me with dinner for one and a portion for lunch the next day.  For dinner I served it with a garlic flat bread using Isabel’s fantastic gluten free pizza dough mix smothered in garlic butter.

Aubergine and Lentil Curry with Gluten Free Garlic Flat Bread

3.  Then the final dish was a baked egg in curry sauce with peas and a gluten free pitta (or 2).  I poured the leftover sauce into a small baking dish (I heart Falconware!), cracked in an egg and baked in the oven at 200 for about 20 minutes.  Just before it was ready I boiled up some peas, scattered them across and toasted a pitta to dip in.

Curry Baked Egg with Peas and Pitta

So my dear readers, what d’ya think?  Nifty huh? Hope you like it x

My Instagram Feast

I said it would be a regular, so true to my word here is my recent Instagram feast:

From top left: Veggie Thali from Exmouth Market, Rhubarb and Ginger Crumble featured on LiveGlutenFree, veggies ready for Sunday roast, Chickpea Curry featured earlier in the week, 'oops I ate my dinner before taking a picture' - aka too greedy for own good, gluten free pizza made with Isabel's pizza dough mix, curry no 2 with aubergines and lentils and Isabel's pizza dough made into a garlic flat bread, breakfast of Bakery on Main St gluten free muesli mixed with yoghurt and fruit, and a recent supermarket indulgence of Warburtons Blueberry muffins, mmmm...

Recipe for the Gluten Free Rhubarb and Ginger Crumble can be found here.

Chickpea curry here.

If you’d like to see my last Instagram Feast you can click here.

Thanks for reading 🙂