B.R.I.G.H.T.O.N

How beautiful does this look!

I recently went to Brighton for a mini break with my sister as I always wanted to go to have a wander. Walking down different lains and onto the pier was so refreshing and it was really nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of London life.

 I loved walking around looking a little boutique shops and retro shops, so many interesting/beautiful finds in the shops that I wanted to buy! There was also the food market near the pier which had amazing smelling food, was so tempting to buy everything to eat as they all looked amazing!

 There is one shop in particular that I feel everyone need to go into when in Brighton is Snoopers Paradise. There's so many retro things to look at you can spend hours in there! There's also a black and white Photo Booth with props that you can put on to take pictures! Of course me and my sister had to have some pictures done :) 

I'm pleased that the weather wasn't too bad to walk around but it did get quite foggy in the afternoon/early evening. It looked so odd as the fog literally came out of nowhere!

For dinner, went to this lovely little tapas restaurant called Olive Grove, the staff were all lovely and the food was really good. We had a good old chit chat in there and was nice to not feel rushed. 

Brighton is definitely a place to go back again as I felt so relaxed and chilled from only 2 days away, I would highly recommend to go if you've not been :)

Where would everyone recommend to go?

Hope you'll all have a good day :) 

Cindy

X

Chickpeas and Carrot Burger :)

For some reason when I go food shopping, I now tend to skip on buying meat and just stick to getting a lot of vegetables and sometimes fish. Don't get me wrong, I love meat and I'm not turning into a vegetarian any time soon (nothing wrong if you are!) but when I go around the supermarket, generally Lidl, I'm not that fussed in buying meat. I have also recently got into eating more pulses and started experimenting with different recipes which have things like kidney beans, chickpeas, peas etc.

One evening I was looking through my cupboards trying to see what to make for dinner and thought, why don't I make a vegetarian burger like the ones from Mildred's! So I looked up some recipes and created this!

 

I didn't really follow a specific recipe as I only used what was available in the cupboard but it turned out really nice! If anyone is interested to make this here's what I used:

Serves 4
1 canned chickpeas
2 medium carrots, grated coarsely
1/2 teaspoon paprika
Juice of 1 lemon
2 garlic clove, crushed
Salt and pepper
3 heaped tablespoon of plain flour

First I mashed the chickpeas and then added the grated carrots and mixed well. Then I put in the paprika, lemon juice, crushed garlic, salt and pepper and mixed this all together well before adding the plain flour to bind together. Shape the mixer into 4 equal sized patties and put in the fridge for 30mins to firm up. You don't have to do this step as I couldn't wait to eat (!) so you can put them straight into a medium heated pan with oil and fry for 6-7mins, flipping over in between or until it has a golden, crispy look. Voila you are done!

You can layer your burger however you want; tomatoes, lettuce, onions, gherkins, ketchup....whatever you like! :) I took mine into work for our food day and everyone loved it! You can change this to be gluten free by swapping to gluten free flour, this is also good for vegans :)

If anyone tries this recipe out let me know your thoughts and if you enjoyed this meat free burger :)

Happy cooking! 

Cindy

X

Starting Afresh

Wow, it's been a while since I've been on this! Just been looking back at what I have posted previously and I have to apologize for the picture quality and all the rambling!

Since the last time I posted, alot in my life has happened.....I moved out of my family home with my then boyfriend, broke up with said boyfriend, went a little wild with life and soon moved down to London to pursue my career in fashion.

Not gonna lie it has been a tough time but it has really taught me to be a stronger person. Now I know all this sounds so cliche. You read about people who's been through break ups how they thought it was the end of their lives and they didn't know what to do with themselves but now they are so much happier and better without them...yada yada yada....well that's exactly what happened. Moving to London was the best decision I made, I do feel like it was fate that I managed to get a job so quick after only applying for for jobs in London for 5 months (and that's including Christmas period). Instead of moping about feeling sorry for myself in a quiet village in Lincolnshire, I threw myself into the hustle and bustle of the London life. Looking back, it was probably for the best for the both of us as we both ended up getting the jobs that we really wanted. Maybe in some way, life is telling us we need this change to grow as an individual.

Don't get me wrong I still have had times where I just want to cry but London definitely made it better for my broken heart. After nearly 2 and a half years of being a Londoner, I do feel like I'm a better version of myself. This is also due to the amount of amazing friends I have around me to give me the support I needed, and the amount of friends that I've made since I've been in london. One friend in particular have been the greatest support to me, this is my best friend who I've been friends with since secondary school. There is no words to say how grateful I am to her for being there for me, even at my lowest points. I can't thank her enough and proud to call her my friend. <3

Now that I'm in a better place I thought, why not start my blog again and show you all the exciting life of London! Haha! My plan is to show you all a little bit of everything in my life including food, scenery and travel. I'm going to try and do more food updates as I do love food (you can tell from the amount of food pictures on my Instagram!) but there will be other snippets thrown in too :). 

Hope you will enjoy reading my blog, I promise there will be better blogs to read soon! :) 

Hope you all have a lovely day! I'll leave you with this quote:

Cindy xx