What I liked about March

I think March has been my favourite month of the year so far- if we ignore the fact that we're now a quarter of the way through 2015, when did that happen? I thought I'd write a little about what's been making life good this month.

• Catching up with old friends in new restaurants; I think one of the best parts of March was that I managed to spend a bit more time with some of my closest friends. What makes it even better is that a lot of that time was spent trying out new places to eat- namely a lovely pizza place, Buca di Pizza, hidden away near Leeds train station and I finally got to try My Thai, which might be my new favourite place to eat in Leeds.

• This American Life: Since finishing Serial in December I'd been wanting to get into more podcasts but I didn't really know where to start with finding a good one. Amy, one of my best friends, told me I had to download the This American Life app immediately and I'm so glad I did. TAL are the group behind Serial and they have been putting out weekly podcasts for years. As the name suggests, they cover different topics of life each week- some more specifically American- and try to give different perspectives of each topic. Some are light-hearted, some more serious. I listen to them every day; on my way to and from work, on the train, getting ready in the morning..it sounds odd but it almost feels educational to me and I'd highly recommend anyone to download the app and get listening

• Baking; I've always loved baking; I have many memories of helping my mum bake butterfly buns as a kid, pretty much since I was old enough to hold a wooden spoon. However for the last few years I've rarely made time to bake so I've really tried to get back into it this past month. My first attempt, raspberry and white chocolate muffins, which I made for mothers day, looked pretty but weren'tmy best tasting work. Then I tried out a lemon drizzle loaf and I think it's fair to say I definitely redeemed myself. Finally, I made healthy avocado chocolate cookies, which turned out so much better than I thought they would- so good in fact that I even posted the recipe here. There's just something about a bake turning out well that makes me really happy.

• Travel bug; As you may know, this month I travelled to Lisbon to celebrate Amy's birthday and I had such a good time. I also briefly mentioned the fact that I've now booked my flight to go travelling; on the 27th of July I'll be heading off to Bogota, Colombia all by myself. At times it is a terrifying thought, but being in Lisbon just for a few days made me so excited for travelling and to have the opportunity to discover so many new places. 

• Blogilates; I realised the other day it's now been about a year since I started doing pilates regularly. I'm hardly a fitness goddess but my body has definitely changed for the better in that year and what seems unbelievable to me is that I still really enjoy pilates. I got a bit demotivated with keeping up being healthy around Christmas-time and continued into a bit of a lazy slump for the first few months of 2015, but for the last month I've been trying to push myself to be better. I still do it from the comfort and solitude of my bedroom with Cassey from Blogilates as my own personal instructor. I'm just really glad I've finally found a form of exercise that works for me, after years of being that girl in P.E. lessons who over-exaggerated her asthma..

So that's March done- April has some pretty big shoes to fill but I've got a few exciting things to look forward to over the next 30 days. As well as copious amounts of easter chocolate, of course.

How was March for you?

Healthy chocolate cookies

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a naturally healthy person. If I could I'd eat out for every meal of the day. When people struggle to finish a meal I find it bizarre- maybe my parents were just really strict with me finishing meals growing up, but even when I'm full I'll continue to eat. The other day I spent a good ten minutes contemplating what I'd do if I had to give up one of either cheese or chocolate, and I still didn't come to any resolution. You get the gist- I like food. For the past couple of years I've made very conscious efforts to improve my in-built bad eating habits and try to make better choices.
That's where these cookies come in; they don't contain any flour or butter, only have a tiny amount of sugar in, and are legitimately pretty healthy coming in at just over 100 calories each. Earlier today I realised we had an avocado which was about to get to the bad side of ripe but I wasn't in the mood for guacamole. Then I remembered I'd once seen a recipe for avocado cookies online so I went on a search to find it. My recipe is very heavily based on this one with minor adjustments. I'm a bit dubious about all these 'healthy' baking recipes doing the rounds at the moment- if you want a brownie surely you want it to taste like a brownie and not a sweet potato. But please, like me, give these cookies a second chance. The texture definitely isn't like a traditional cookie, more like a cross between a brownie and a cookie, but since when has that ever been a bad thing?

Ingredients:

• 1 ripe avocado
• 1 small-medium banana
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda/baking soda
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder; I used Bournville
• Chocolate chunks; I used about 70g of dark chocolate chunks
• A little sea salt

1.  Preheat your oven to gas mark 4/175 degrees celsius
2. Mash up your avocado flesh and banana in a bowl
3. Add your sugar and use a handheld electric whisk to mix it all up. In all honesty if you want to be extra virtuous you may not need this extra sugar but I wasn't sure if one banana would be enough to substitute what was meant to be half a cup of sugar.
4. Add the egg, give it another mix
5. Add the bicarb & cocoa powder and mix again
6. Using a wooden spoon, incorporate the chocolate chunks
7. Line a baking tray with baking paper, then spoon the mixture in blobs on to the tray- this recipe made 9 decent sized cookies. They hardly spread out at all so flatten them out a little with the spoon. 
8. Sprinkle a tiny bit of the salt over the tray- I like to do this with most cookies nowadays to make them a little less sickly
9. Bake for anywhere between 10 and 20 minutes. I set my timer for 10 minutes, at which point the cookies looked very shiny but weren't quite done. They'll never properly firm up as a traditional cookie would but keep checking them every couple of minutes until they hold their shape and you can lift it off the baking paper easily

That's it! If you can resist the temptation of a warm cookie with still-melted chocolate then you're a better person than I am, but even when cooled they have a very fudge-y lovely texture. Enjoy!

A postcard from Lisbon

Long time no see. Again. It's becoming a bit ridiculous how lazy I am with this blog, but the thing is that right now my life is in a particularly boring & uninspiring place. That's not to say I'm unhappy; I just don't have much to talk about. 

Luckily, my blog-draught is temporarily over. Last week I, along with 7 others, accompanied my best friend for a few days in Lisbon to celebrate her 22nd birthday. We stayed in a lovely air bnb which I really can't recommend enough- we all appreciated having a full flat to ourselves, especially when waking up feeling a little worse for wear. Until last Thursday I hadn't been out of the country since summer 2013 so you can imagine how excited I was to get to explore somewhere new; though I can't really complain since I've now booked my one-way flight to the other side of the world..but that deserves a post all of it's own! Anyway, I really liked Lisbon and I thought I'd share a few things about it as I don't think it's quite as well-known as some other European destinations.

• Lisbon is incredibly hilly. It's very strange because a lot of the buildings are really tall meaning you can't see what's coming round the corner- the difference between whether you'll be puffing and panting your way up a steep incline or tip-toeing down one. But at least it meant that my thighs didn't suffer too much from being in holiday mode (ie. eating & drinking everything).

• Speaking of indulgence, if you're a lover of pastry you really needn't look any further for your next holiday. 'Pastel de nata' are possibly the best gift that Portugal has given to the world- they're basically egg custard tarts but maybe 20 times better than anything matching that description that I've had on home turf. You'll find them pretty much everywhere in Lisbon, displayed in windows tempting in poor tourists, which is why I averaged 2 a day while I was there. Top tip- the best I tried was from Aloma, part of the Time Out Mercado da Ribeira food hall. Just don't buy them from the airport so you can bring the joy home to your loved ones- from personal experience I can tell you, you'll just be sad with how bad they are.

• The nightlife is varied and starts late. We didn't get a chance to go to any proper clubs and we didn't go to that many bars but those we did go to were all very different. On our first night we wandered towards the Bairro Alto area, which is the main spot for bar-hopping, and found a great little bar full of weird and wonderful things. Then on the second day we spent a lot of time in a bar called Sol e Pesca (translation: Sun & Fish) drinking far too much 'Super Bock' beer. This place is possibly the most fish-themed place I've ever seen; even the menus were displayed on fishing rods. Then, later on that night we ended up watching a drag queen show in a strange club. It seems that in Lisbon the possibilites are endless. Just head out late- locals don't even leave the house until 1am. 

• Linked with the above, if you visit Lisbon you'll likely end up drinking more than you intended to due to the ridiculously low prices. In the first bar I mentioned above, 6 beers and 2 glasses of (actually drinkable) white wine came to a grand total of €7.50. The conversion rate for pound to euro is particularly strong at the moment, but it seemed like most places were similarly priced. 

• As with most places I've visited in Europe, crossing the road is a pretty terrifying experience. Trams and cars share the same road space and pedestrian crossings don't really seem to mean much. That combined with, as I mentioned, never really being able to see round corners means you just have to trust your gut. Oh, and walk fast. 

So maybe we didn't do that much in the way of specific sight-seeing and I'm sure there's plenty more we would've got round to seeing had we had more time, but I think my biggest tip for Lisbon would be to just wander and see what you find. It's a lovely place to walk around, the people really do seem friendly and you never know what you might find hidden at the top of a hill!

January

I've decided enough is enough; it's definitely too late to post my 2014 round-up. Long story short- I killed myself revising for finals, graduated with a 2.1, my sister got married, I bought a (very old) car & got a job and started learning to cope with post-student life. So that's that. On to a new year!

I'm pretty glad that January is almost over. While I didn't particularly get much of a Christmas break (working as a waitress/bartender will do that to you), it's still a bit depressing when your house stops resembling Santa's grotto, the horrible snowy weather isn't accompanied by Dean Martin songs and you realise that eating nothing but cheese and chocolate for the last month may have affected your waistline a little..

A few things from this month:

• I had a hair cut. While hardly anyone else noticed, it was actually pretty big for me as I had quite a lot of length cut off- plus this is only my second hair cut in about four years. I may have had an inital 'oh my god I have short hair' moment of madness but I've gotten used to it now and I think I'm a fan!

• Hardly news-worthy, but this month I've eaten a lot of pancakes; healthy banana pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, pancakes with bacon in... I imagine this will only continue through February as one of my favourite days rolls around- and no I absolutely do not mean Valentines Day.

• One of my favourite parts of January was visiting Birmingham for the weekend to celebrate one of my old housemates' birthdays. I love getting back together with my uni friends as we all still get on so well and it's something I'm determined to keep doing over the years. 

• Not pictured: I've also been doing a fair bit of planning this month. I've booked a trip to Lisbon for one of my best friends' birthdays, redeemed my Harry Potter studio tour gift voucher (I'll be going when the new Hogwarts Express bit has been added!) and have started figuring out a route for my South American travels. I have a feeling 2015 could be a pretty great year!

I won't make myself any promises but I'm aiming to do one of these at the end of every month so that when I inevitably forget to post a 2015 round-up, it won't really matter. How was January for you?

Places in Leeds: Cabana

Last night I met up with two of my closest friends for a new years catch-up. We'd all been really busy over the festive period so had barely seen each other leaving us with lots to discuss; perhaps the best bit of gossip I can share with you is that Gaby, one of my oldest friends, spent her New Years Eve dancing in a show in the Maldives in front of the likes of David Beckham & co. The difference between our lives amazes me sometimes.

Anyway, we wanted to try somewhere new in Leeds to host our little reunion. I suggested Cabana, a fairly new addition to the Trinity centre. Cabana is a Brazilian restaurant- I know what you're probably thinking, what exactly does that mean? Judging by the menu it means street food, meat skewers and a whole load of caipirinhas. We decided to give it a try and I'm glad we did- even if just solely for the sake of the dessert alone, but I'll get to that later..

First of all: drinks. Caipirinhas are one of my favourite cocktails and Cabana's offering were definitely up to scratch. They had the classic lime option, which I went for, as well as kiwi, strawberry, pineapple & mint (which Gaby chose) and passionfruit (Lizzie's choice). As you can see, Lizzie was a big fan of hers.

Next up: the food. We decided to bypass the starters and go straight for mains. Lizzie & I both went for the spicy malagueta chicken skewer; malagueta is Cabana's signature sauce and you can buy a bottle of it to take home with you. Gaby plumped for the lime and garlic chicken skewer, and we all decided on the feijoada fries, which are sweet potato fries with a pork, beef and black bean stew on top. When your food is ready, each person's skewer is brought to the table separately and is transferred onto your plate. This is a bit of a gimmick I suppose but it all adds to the experience that Cabana is trying to give, which overall was a pretty good one. We all really enjoyed our food; the only thing I might say is that next time I visit it might be a good idea to share some different sides for a little more variety, as essentially what you have on your plate is just your meat. This isn't a complaint as such, because the meat is pretty damn good. Just a thought!

Now for the best bit: dessert. This is a bit of a tale- we paid after mains and went off into Trinity kitchen in search of one of their monthly stands called You Doughnut. Alas, when we got to the stand nobody was there serving. Determined to get some dessert we went through our options and decided to go back to Cabana as I'd heard great things about their nutella donuts. So off we went back inside the restaurant, much to the surprise of the waiter. Lizzie & I got the doughnuts while Gaby had a peanut butter and oreo sundae. Okay. I don't even know how to describe these donuts other than to say if you live in or near Leeds, you must go try them. Tiny donuts stuffed with nutella..served with more nutella for dipping. Apparently I hadn't read the menu properly as I didn't realise they actually had nutella inside them too, so you can imagine my delight when I had my first bite. Lizzie let Gaby try a few of hers in return for a bite of sundae- I'm almost glad I have a nut allergy therefore couldn't partake in this swap as these were far too good to share. It's probably time I stopped talking about donuts now. I'll just leave you with the photo instead.

Something else that I liked about Cabana is that although it is one of a chain of restaurants, the owners wanted to keep some authenticity. For example I've read that the different baskets they put your bill in were all bought from a young boy on a beach in Rio. The seats are made from recycled jeans selected from a small charity in Sao Paulo. They give out colourful ribbons with the bill which are popular in Bahia and are known as wish ribbons. According to Brazilian tradition, you're supposed to wear them until they fall off for your wishes to come true. So I'm not holding out any hope for my fancy New York apartment dream to come true, but it's a nice little touch all the same.

All in all we had a lovely few hours in Cabana and I'd reccommend it to anyone looking for tasty food in Leeds city centre.

Have you ever been to Cabana?

Tis the season...

...to eat all the cheese and chocolate because calories don't count for the last week of the year. Except now it's the 2nd of January and my jeans are feeling a little tighter than usual. Oh well.

I apologise, dear people of the internet; I kind of forgot this blog existed for a while if I'm honest. I will be writing an update, run-down of 2014 and hello to 2015 style post soon (ie. tomorrow, not in 3 weeks I promise) but for now I thought I'd go down the materialistic route and show you what I got for Christmas this year.

Christmas was a little different for my family this year- my sister got married in summer so instead of her travelling up to us as usual, my parents & I made the journey down to her house. Sitting in a car for three hours on Christmas morning wasn't ideal but we had a lovely day once we got there (being welcomed with a 1.5 litre bottle of prosecco didn't hurt).

Here are some of my favourite things (shown above);

• Jo Malone Wood Sage & Sea Salt perfume: I fell in love with this after my friend invited me to the Leeds launch of it in September and I'm so happy that I finally own it. I don't think it particularly smells of wood, sage or sea salt but whatever it does smell like is amazing

• Collins easy learning spanish CDs: as you may know I'm planning on travelling to South America this year. I've been meaning to start learning spanish for a while- I know it isn't the only language spoken in S.A. but I think it's a good base to start with- but I've been putting it off. Now I can have these CDs in my car and learn while I'm driving to and from work. I know I won't become fluent from it but it'll certainly give me a good starting point.

• Charlotte Tilbury matte revolution lipstick in Love Liberty: I've wanted to try one of these for so long and I'm so glad to now own one. It really is the most moisturising matte lipstick I've tried and I'm very tempted to go buy more from Ms. Tilbury's collection now- though I'm sure my bank balance would prefer if I didn't

• 'Thunder only happens when it's raining' print from Lloyd Loves: I saw Kate post a few prints from this seller on instagram and loved them. I also love Fleetwood Mac so this print makes a lovely addition to my bedroom.

• South America on a shoestring: I really need to start planning my afore-mentioned travels so this should be pretty helpful. I know guidebooks can get outdated quickly but even if not for specific recommendations this book should be useful for a general insight into each country

• Origins Drink Up 10 minute mask: I don't have dry skin generally but I definitely notice my skin feeling tight and dehydrated in the winter. I'm sure we haven't experience the worst weather of this season yet so I'm hoping this can help my skin out for now

• Gift voucher for the making of Harry Potter studio tour: I am one of those people who will judge you if you're from my generation and haven't read the Harry Potter series. Seriously, if that is you, what on earth did your childhood revolve around?! Anyway, I didn't love some of the films as much as the books, but I don't think I'll be able to contain my excitement when I finally get to go on this tour. It's probably not okay to be 22 and be so giddy over Harry Potter.

• Read this if you want to take great photographs book: Despite my best intentions I still haven't really got to grips with my DSLR camera- I spend most of my life at work where I don't feel particularly inspired to take photos so I rarely practice. I really want to learn how to take better photos and this book has a lot of advice from many different types of photographer, plus easy to understand explanations of the different camera settings so I'm looking forward to reading it

• Fox head from Fiona Walker: Perhaps one of my oddest presents but I really love this felt fox head. My parents & I went into York a few weeks ago and went into a little independent shop that had these heads on the walls- there were foxes, rabbits and deer amongst others- but then I forgot about them. I rarely get surprise presents anymore but this really was one. My fox now hangs proudly in the corner of my room but I'm looking forward to when I have my own place and can display this (hopefully) above a fireplace.

Not pictured, I also was lucky enough to receive the Urban Decay Naked basics 2 palette, a lovely little globe charm from Links of London and of course a good selection of chocolates. As you can see Santa was really good to me this year and I'm very appreciative of all my presents.

What did you get for Christmas?