We can spin the sun around

Sometimes you just need to treat yourself. On Saturday the girls and I decided to head to Aurora restaurant in Nottingham for a well deserved meal and a few glasses of wine. Having never been to Aurora before, we didn't know what to expect but the menu sounded delicious and at around £20 for three courses, we couldn't pass it up. After oohing and aahing upon entry to the restaurant, we sat down and looked over the menus while we caught up on recent gossip.

As it was Valentine's weekend, Emma had bought us all a little present each to celebrate friendship and singledom. She handed out a small package each so we wouldn't know what we were opening. All of us had a different necklace with a literary quotation related to it. Such a cute personal touch. I'm still wearing my necklace.

After the excitement of presents and glaring jealously at all of the food surrounding us, we ordered our meals and then ate each course almost in silence because it was so delicious!

Beef Carpaccio, Blue Cheese with Pomegranate Salsa

Red Pepper & Vine Tomato Soup, Basil Foam, Rarebit Cheese Crouton

Seared Scallops, Salmon Mousse Ravioli on Buttered Leeks, Candied Lemon & Citrus cream

 ‘Surf & Turf’, Baby Vine Toms, Hand Cut Chips, Rocket Salad, Balsamic Glaze

Sea bass, Herb Mash, Lemon Scented Spinach, Confit Tomato & Hollandaise

Raspberry Cocktail Eton Mess

Bitter Chocolate Fondant, Praline, Cerise cream

Sorry for the poor quality photos, I only had my phone so had to rely on taking snaps with that every now and again. I must be the most irritating person to eat at a restaurant with! We finished our meals with a big smile on our faces and headed off to a few cocktails bars for the evening. I'll definitely be heading back to Aurora again and spreading the word. I couldn't believe how well priced it was for such high quality food.

If you want to check out the restaurant then here's the website: Aurora. Enjoy!

Shake it out

Sometimes all a girl needs is her best friends. I was lucky enough to win a free meal at Le Bistrot Pierre and I took three of my favourite girlies to treat ourselves and have a much needed night out. We were all allowed two free courses but ended up buying a dessert too because the rest of the meal was so delicious.

Pictures above: wine, cheers to the Easter break and HK having a starring role on my blog. 

I had to take photos on my phone as I'd forgotten my camera so here's what we had. Apologies for the iffy quality. I can promise you that the food looked and tasted stunning!

Starters:

The above are pictures of my starter. It was grilled St. Marcelin cheese with red onion confiture and sourdough toast. Naughty but gorgeous.

The girls had (from left to right):  Toasted brioche with fricassée of mushrooms with crispy Alsace bacon; Mackerel pâté chosen from the specials board; Coarse pork pâté served with cornichons and sourdough toast. All of them looked gorgeous. I definitely want to try the mushrooms next time. I might even have to recreate it at home. We all lapped up the starters and wine quite quickly. It was one of those moments where the table falls silent because you're enjoying the food so much!

Mains:
 

Above (left to right): Le Bistrot Pierre's Boeuf Bourguignon - thick slices of beef with shallots, red wine, mushrooms and bacon; Risotto with cep mushroom, roasted pumpkin, white wine,
wild rocket and mascarpone cheese; Sous-vide and pan-fried pork with Dijon mustard, creamed leeks,
thyme, Parmesan and Stornoway black pudding. I got much amusement from Holly Kate attempting to order the Bourguignon with various different pronunciations!

And now for my main...

I'm a simple girl and love nothing more than a giant slab of meat with some garlic and crunchy chips. I've not been feeling all that good recently so to have a big meal like this was a real treat. I have my steak cooked medium rare and it was perfectly cooked with a generous dollop of garlic butter. The steak knife was the size of my arm which only helped me to wolf this down with extra speed. The chips were perfectly seasoned and crunchy, none of that soft squidgy nonsense. I think if I had to choose one meal as my last then this might very well be it.

After the mains we all groaned about how incredibly full we were and how we couldn't move. However, as soon as the friendly waitress offered us the dessert menus we couldn't really say no! It would be rude to say no, surely? So we decided that a small dessert wouldn't hurt...

Desserts:

I only managed to get a photo of one of the desserts as we were too busy tucking in and catching up.

This is the chocolate torte with whipped maple and Grand Marnier cream. This wasn't my dessert, I was too busy getting excited about my Lemon and Passionfruit Posset with crumble. It was definitely one of the best desserts I've ever had. Another one to add to my 'recreate at home' list.

Our evening had the perfect start with a lovely (and extremely large) meal, great service and time to catch up and reflect with friends. I just want to say a big thank you to the staff at Le Bistrot Pierre for being so helpful and friendly. Particular thanks to Gemma who let me change my booking last minute.  I was so happy to win their Dish of the Month competition and be able to eat there again. I'd definitely recommend the restaurant to everyone.

Have a look at their website here and if you want to have a go at the competition yourself then look for 'Dish of the Month' on the website. I think it might be about to change though because it's now April. Here's what I made to enter previously... Mussels. 

After the meal we all headed for a night out with many cocktails, including my new favourite drink, the Frozen Strawberry Daiquiri.

Happy Easter time guys and girls xx

Blueberry cupcakes

 

Baking is my new found love. My latest Sunday afternoon saw me making blueberry cupcakes. They're really simple, take very little effort and taste lovely.

What you need:

115g plain flour

345g self raising flour

450g unsalted butter

460g caster sugar

8 eggs

1 tsp vanilla flavouring

375ml semi-skimmed milk 

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a cupcake baking tray with paper liners. 

Put the sugar and butter in a bowl and beat it until the mixture is a smooth, light yellow colour.

Add the eggs, one at a time and beat them into the mixture as you go. Add the vanilla and mix this in. 

Sift the plain and self-raising flour in gradually and mix together. 

Add in the milk and stir until you have a bowl full of smooth, gooey goodness.

Next, spoon the mixture into the cupcake liners, add in some blueberries and bake for about 20 minutes or until they're golden on top.

After cooking, take the cupcakes out and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Ta da! Golden on the outside but light and fluffy on the inside!

The perfect little treat! I made so much batter that I decided to freeze half of it so that I can get it out at busier times, leave to defrost and then get baking. I'm still to master the perfect icing so that's next on my baking to-do list. No baking this weekend as I've been busy eating French food (a giant steak) celebrating a birthday and an engagement, eating a gorgeous curry and seeing friends whom I should see far more often! I've spent most of today reading Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman and have only just managed to tear myself away from it in order to blog and then do some work. I really do love weekends.

Moules Marinières

First things first, I am not a really experienced cook. I normally do the basics things: lasagne, spaghetti bolognese, stir fry and so on but I'm more of a cupcakes kind of girl. I've been scared about cooking seafood before now, just because I've heard it can go so wrong if you don't do it well. However, I've been wanting to try out cooking mussels and it just happened that Le Bistrot Pierre (who I blogged about a week ago here) sent me a recipe for their Moules Marinières. Me and my boyfriend cooked it together but I will admit he did most of the work and I did some chopping and irritating photo taking! We added some extra things to the recipe just to make it more to our taste, so this is how we did it.

You will need:

3500g Fresh mussels
200g Butter – unsalted
500ml Cream – whipping
400g Shallots or onions
500ml Medium dry white wine
60g Parsley flat (but we used curled)
2 x Lemons (large)
2g Bay leaf
10g Thyme
1 Chilli
3 Cloves of garlic
1 Celery stick
A big crusty baguette to mop up the delicious juice

What we did:

First we cleaned the mussels. If you haven't done this before then this basically involves pulling off the beard (the small bit it uses to attach itself to rocks) and then checking they're all closed. If a mussel is open or cracked then don't eat it!

Then I chopped the lemon, parsley, garlic and chilli in preparation for later. Onion and celery was chopped on another board.

Next, we put the onions, celery, butter, white wine, half of the chilli and the bay leaves into the pan with the mussels and steamed them until they were about half opened. This takes about two minutes. Have a glass of wine while you wait.

Then we added the cream and some of the lemon wedges and let it boil until the mussels opened fully.

When done, we added the rest of the chilli, parsley and lemon wedges and gave the pot a shake until it looked like this...

We served it quickly and ate it immediately so there was no time for pictures! My favourite part was using the bread to mop up the delicious creamy sauce left at the end. I really enjoyed my first mussels experience, especially knowing that I can do that at home easily enough. The only lengthy part is preparing the mussels but after that it's a quick and easy dish to make. It's not really salty and fishy like some people would assume. If it's seasoned correctly then there are so many different flavours. I'll definitely be having this again!

Eat, drink and be merry!

Valentine's day is always a good excuse to eat lots of sumptuous food and drink endless cocktails. Nottingham is a good place if you want to find some gorgeous restaurants with reasonable prices to match. We went to Le Bistrot Pierre on Tuesday and I can't speak highly enough of them. The service was impeccable and the food was divine. Our waiter was there the moment we needed him but we didn't feel rushed or like we were being watched over. Sometimes you get the feeling in a restaurant that the staff are glaring at you while you finish your meal. Not here. We had a nice evening and felt really looked after.

Now let's get to the important part, the food. I'm really partial to French food and couldn't wait to get started. We began with a glass of prosecco and mini chorizos roasted in honey before moving onto the starters. I went for chicken liver parfait with plum chutney and sourdough toast and we sat in silence as both of us tucked in to what was the best starter I've ever had. My boyfriend had a beetroot and goats cheese tart but I was too busy swooning over my starter to even glance at his! Then for my main meal I had sea bass with ratatouille,gratin dauphinoise, olive oil and lemon. The fish was falling apart on my fork and tasted divine. I could have eaten that twice over.

I plumped for baked apple tart with vanilla ice cream for dessert. Although this doesn't sound particularly overwhelming, it was incredible. It was sweet, sugary and delicious. I haven't stopped thinking about it since. Unfortunately, I was too busy enjoying the food to take photos but there plenty on the website and on their facebook page. Le Bistrot Pierre isn't just in Nottingham, there are nine restaurants across the UK so no excuse not to visit.

Image taken from Le Bistrot Pierre website

Head to their website (here) if you wish you take a look. You can also follow them on twitter @lebistrotpierre

After Le Bistrot Pierre we headed onto one of my favourite cocktail bars. Tilt Bar is on 9 Pelham Street in Nottingham and is fairly tucked away. Follow the stairs and blue fairy lights up to a cosy bar which serves cocktails in jam jars, tiki mugs and brandy balloons. Each cocktail looks different and there's definitely one to suit everyone with such an extensive list. The guys behind the bar truly know how to mix cocktails, they're not just your standard bar men who pour in some cranberry and vodka and give it a shake. This is a proper cocktail experience. Tilt also has live music and a great atmosphere. I was in two minds whether to blog about this and give away my little secret! The cosy atmosphere in Tilt is due to it being a well kept secret and a place with only the coolest of people (in my humble opinion!) Go (here) to view their website and a few of their drinks. My favourite so far is the Razberrito but I've got many more to try! If you're in Nottingham I'd definitely suggest giving both of these places a go.

Image taken from the Tilt website

Pieces.

12 packets of quavers, 9 hours driving, 4 albums on repeat, 2 girls and 1 very dodgy tent.

We did it.  Rather than write too much about it, I thought it would be better to show some pictures and let you decipher the madness for yourself!

 

My favourite ♥

 

Pizza Express time

 

 Chase and Status rocking it

VIP guest tent

Meeting Zippy

Happy camper the next day

We had an amazing time, plenty of cider, so much raving we hurt our arms and not enough sleep but it was totally worth it! Not only did I win the tickets, but they got upgraded to VIP when we arrived. We spent most of the time in the Misadventures tent watching Kissysellout, Zane Lowe, Tinie Tempah and Chase & Status (with Plan B).

What a weekend! One of the highlights....



Wakestock 2010 ♥

Food, fashion and pampering ♥

While everyone is talking about politics and the state of the country, I thought I would keep it light and talk about fashion. The latest thing I've seen is this page on ASOS.com with a feature about Tamsin Egerton (St Trinians and general stunner). It interested me first of all because it says she has 'classic style' and shows her wearing certain pieces alongside things you can buy to 'get the look'. I've always been a fan of classic with a twist so thought I'd have a look.

As well as having a full interview with the star, there is also a video which features quotes from her and a few photos with a great soundtrack. I really like her style and the layout and multimodal elements of this page made me search further. So many things I want to buy...



Tamsin Egerton - watch the video

A few of the pieces I've got my eye on...


In other news, I will be working all summer teaching Spanish kids and then begin at my new school in September. Exciting times! I also have a fun weekend ahead courtesy of my brilliant boyfriend.

I will be spending my Saturday afternoon having an hour long mud massage here:


Followed by a beautiful meal and drinks at Le Bistrot Pierre and then onto a hotel.

Here's a little snippet of the menu. It looks delicious! Have a look on the website for more info. It's making my mouth water just thinking about it...




I am scouting around for my birthday events and will be using Beautification again if it's good. Me and a big group of friends want a package of treatments so I will see how it goes.

Got a slow few weeks ahead so will try to blog as often as possible. xx