Bangin' Boeuf Bourguignon

A few months ago, my boyfriend went away with work for a month. For his last dinner before his departure he requested beef (he was going to India) and this combined my desire to go out with a bang (no pun intended) led me to cooking what I now call my Bangin' Boeuf Bourguignon!

If you have a spare 4 hours (yes, really) and you enjoy deliciously rich, deep, meaty, warm and hearty food, I highly recommend the commitment! You won't regret it!

Promises

I know I seem like a confused (drunk) pirate who forgot to shave, but the fact that this Santa's beard was even in the dress up box of some party we crashed makes me so, so excited!

CHRIMBO IS COMING!

Bare with me... I'm going to get my uni hand-in's out of the way and then I will be a good blogger! 

Expect posts on Christmas markets, Christmas recipes and Christmas presents! 

This:

When the weather outside is like this:

And to go outside you have to wear this:

Why not stay at home and watch this:

Whilst eating this:

... October, Welcome.

Meet Kester...

The best bit about my new flat is living so close to Clapham Common. I spent the best part of my day off last week choosing a new book at W H Smithy's and then headed to the Common for some solo sunbathing and reading said book. 

For those of you interested, I'm reading The Real Katie Lavender by Erica James. But would I recommend it? Hmmm... It's definitely an easy read; I kind of feel as though I'm at school reading one of the books from the 6 - 8yrs box when I should be picking one from the 9 - 11 box, if you know what I mean? It seems as though the author has a tendency to over-explain things. Aside from that, the plot is quite good; essentially about a girl who.... I'll link you to a synopsis.

The second best thing about my new flat is the beautiful fox that lives on top of the garage opposite. 

Meet Kester... 

Above is a picture I took of Kester last week sunbathing and below is a picture I took this morning of Kester having a lie-in.

What a cutie!

I'm Home

It has been way over a month since I blogged last... this is unacceptable, no?
These last four weeks have been one big blur of busy-ness! Since June, I have finished my first year at uni, interned at a PR agency, moved house and worked 18 days in-a-row (which you will have definitely heard me moan about if you're following me on Twitter, and if you're not then I am sure I have just tempted you to do so... @KayleighWills)!

A Cheeky 'Black & White Chocolate Cheesecake' I made over the weekend... If you like brownies and cheesecake, this is the one for you!!!

I've managed to take a few snaps and have plans to do one big post soon with all of the details on the aforementioned busy life I've been leading! I'm especially excited to share pictures of my new Brixton abode, of which I've been working so hard to afford! I feel like a true Londoner now!

If you can't wait until then, you can find me on Instagram... I'm KayleighWills there too! P.S Talking of Instagram... Has anyone seen the any of the 10000000 half naked pictures RiRi has been posting recently!

That shit cray!

Take Me Away

In true blogger style I am going to apologise for my lack of posting and tell you it is all down to being swamped with work at fashion college... It is true!

Fortunately between days at work and in the library, I managed to squeeze in one hell of a jubilee celebration and a delicious dinner at East London based Tayyabs. If you're ever thinking of going for a curry around Brick Lane, try Tayyabs which is behind the East London Mosque... you'll have to book in advance because every man and his dog wants a bit of that fine, Punjabi cuisine!!!
Annoyingly, any pictures I did take over the past week, are just too low in quality to post! But on a positive note, enough moaning at o2 has meant they are willing to replace my terribly bad Blackberry with a new Samsung Galaxy, so I'm sure when that arrives I will be snap happy!

I think I spent 5 out of 7 evenings last week going to bed dreaming I was on holiday. Somewhere like this little white-washed town in Spain I photographed last year, although I can't remember what it is called!

Vintage Ring

Today was a very special day for me, as today was the first occasion I have EVER invested in a quality piece of jewellery for myself. Introducing my beautiful, new, dainty ring.

This little darling is from Lisa E Moss at Twenty8Twelve. The designer Lisa, takes vintage metals and stones and restores them to make beautiful pieces like this (mine is made from sterling silver and vintage marcasite). As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had been eyeing this ring up for quite some time; it retailed at £60, which is reasonably priced for something I am considering super-glueing to my finger so I never lose.

Like all Lisa E Moss pieces, this ring is one-off, hand-made goodness! But you can browse her other collections over on her website. And with that, gone are my Freedom for Topshop days.

P.S. Just to emphasise, despite my raving review, this isn't a PR placement (I wish), I'm just super happy with my new ring!

Sticky Toffee Cupcakes

I made these sticky toffee cupcakes with friends a couple of weeks back and was able to snap a few pictures before they'd all gone!

The recipe, of course is from The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook (AKA my bible) which uses lots of milk in the cake mix, making it super light, fluffy and creamy. Even now, I still get excited to lick the spoon!

For the stickiness, the recipe uses chopped up dates... Does this count as 1 of your 5-a-day? As you can see our cupcake cases were too big for the muffin tin, nawwwww :( .

Yummmm... Decorated with little Dulce de Leche polka-dots!

Today I've been catching up on lots of uni work... My deadline is in just over a week, ahhhhh! So I rewarding all my hard work with little cups of home-made (by my flatmate) iced tea. 

For the tea, we combined strawberries, lemon, ice, sugar and of course some cold tea!

My Week in Pictures

This week I had a friend visit me here in London. Needless to say, we took full advantage of the sunny weather and spent our time between parks, bars with outdoor seating and roaming the streets of the city.

Pit stopping for a refreshment along Westminster Bridge.

Enjoying a late lunch at The Breakfast Club.

Totally celeb stalking Peter Crouch and Abbey Clancy in Hyde Park. I don't think I'll ever get over the novelty of seeing celebs.

Yummy-looking daisy cake at The Hummingbird Bakery.

Apologies for the poor quality images; I must remember to take my camera out with me next week, as opposed to my useless Blackberry!

Wedding Guest Dilemma

Having not been to a wedding in 10 years (!!!) I have no idea what to wear to a wedding I am attending in October, hence the early planning. Ultimately, I want to wear/generally look like this for the rest of my life...

But realistically, having browsed my local shopping centre, which just happens to be Westfields, I have a few other outfits in mind...

Thoughts? Clearly I'm loving frills and generally feminine dresses for the occasion, but I also think the red dress from The Kooples could be a winner as it covers the part of my arms I hate the most (although, hopefully by October I wont hate them so much. Need. To. Work. Out). 

Lastly, the yellow dress on the left is from London-based Twenty8Twelve, which is where I work! Having seen this dress tried on PLENTY of times, I have come to the conclusion it is one of those dressed that actually looks better on real women with curves than a model... massive plus (excuse the pun)! Additionally, the print is super-summery, whilst the style covers enough body to be October Appropriate!

From Left: Twenty8Twelve dress, French Connection dress, Zara dress, The Kooples dress, shoes both from Kurt Geiger. 

Aamsteerdaamee

I saw a tourist on the tube the other day wearing a mask, to which I had a little laugh to myself about. And then, like clockwork, someone next to me sneezes, I inhale, fast-forward 48 hours and I'm wrapped up in a duvet, on the sofa surrounded by tissues, Tiger Balm and Lemsip. I've retired to my boyfriends house in the countryside (I now consider anything outside of London to be countryside), I'm watching double episodes of Grand Design and sneezing as I type... I literally couldn't feel more cliché!

As I mentioned before, I took a 5 day trip to Amsterdam back in March, and today being the rainy, dull Monday that it is, felt perfect to look back and edit a few pictures to post.

Tulip Loving

This week's been one of those week's that just seems to go on forever. I've got a feeling these next two months will be full of week's like these as I'm just kind of waiting for them to hurry up and pass before I can move out of halls and in to a shiny, new flat with my boyfriend & friend. 

I spent the day at work awing over an amazing Lisa E Moss ring that I'm desperate to buy; if you don't know Lisa's jewellery then you're seriously missing out! All of her pieces are hand-made, one-offs, created from vintage and antique metals and stones! What a cute idea!

After a few hours of admiration, I came home to look online for flats for the summer (as in properties, not footwear!); it's surprising how ridiculously addicted I've became to doing this!

Anyway, another day at work tomorrow, which of course means more lusting over the aforementioned ring and more swiping of (other peoples) black AMEX's. 

Enjoy the photo I took in sunny Amsterdam of tulips and midday diners.

What Shall I do Today?

I've had a super lazy, unproductive morning, lying in bed, eating toast and trailing through my favourite blogs. Upon doing so, I felt inspired by the enviable Cupcakes and Cashmere's  L.A based summer to-do list and decided to compile my own list for my summer in London.
Being a student means I haven't been able to experience London the way I imagined, so this list will be a post I refer back to every couple of weeks when I find myself with a free day and a bit of spare £££ (Yeah, right).

1. Go to this bar in South London's Borough to enjoy movies and  2-4-1 cocktails simultaneously - How perfect does that sound!

2. Take a London Sightseeing Tour and sit on the open-top deck with a sneaky glass of Pimms are something equally as British.

3. Eat out at this cool restaurant where you eat your entire dinner in the pitch black! I imagine that would really mess with your senses.

4. Go to a bar on a boat on the Thames; preferably one of which sails whilst you're on it (I don't get sea sick).

5. Finally, and probably the most feasable given my current bank statement, head back to Borough Food Market and to the monstrous mushroom stall to pick up ingredients for this wild mushroom risotto by Jamie Oliver.

An array of Shrooms at Borough Food Market.

Tapas & Cervezas

Having a boyfriend with family in Spain has worked somewhat to my advantage; I have explored a majority of southern Spain (including a cheeky trip to Marbs to party with Mark Wright & Arg), achieved a lovely golden tan for a mere £50 flight, but most of all, experienced what I believe to be some of the yummiest tapas Spain has to offer.

Ironically, this post will be about the tapas I devoured during last months trip to Amsterdam, in a little cafe called Tapas Catala.

Dining out with my boyfriend will always mean we over-order and ultimately, sport a 32 week food-baby for the remainder of the day. Pictured above, we ordered some delish warm bread with aioli dip, salted asparagus, anchovies, amazing calamares, chorizo sausage (obviously!), patatas bravas and most importantly, two giant jugs of sangria!
Talking of which, during a trip to Spain last year, in a very rural bar in southern Spain, I attempted to order a glass of sangria, only to be laughed at by the bar tender and told "We don't serve that here, you can have a tinto de verano" which is a red wine topped with lemonade! Showing my tourist like tendencies to the locals, huh?!

My favourite calamares up close, and below, me enjoying a pint of Heineken in the sun, after a trip to The Heineken Experience.

Boston Cream Cupcakes

The Hummingbird Bakery is definitely one of my favourite finds since moving to London last year; so you can imagine my delight when I received their second book, Cake Days for Chrimbo. Since then, I've used this book for just about every occasion that requires a cake, including my friend's birthday where I made a 3 tier vanilla sponge and vanilla frosting tower!
Last week, on a typically rainy day, with friends in tow, we made an adaption of the amazingly delish Boston Cream Cupcakes; a moist vanilla sponge filled with custard and topped which a dark chocolate frosting.

Our cupcakes minus the cup. 

We made 12 cupcakes and used the rest of the ingredients to make this messy, but equally as delicious half cake.

I don't believe I am allowed to publish The Hummingbird Bakery's recipe online... but it is well worth ordering the book if you want to make cakes like these and sooooo much more!

Sara's Pancake House

On a trip to Amsterdam last month, my sweet-toothed Boyfriend suggested we take a trip to the local pancake house for Breakie in true Dutch style.
Now, I am by far the biggest pancake fan, but I can confirm that these bad boy's are in fact God's gift to the world... or at least Sara's gift to the world, who could be seen single-handedly flipping pancakes for all of the diners!

My boyfriend had a unique combo of banana and bacon, which evidently he drizzled in maple syrup. I however, after much deliberation (the menu is massive) opted for the "Hawaiian Pancake", which consisted of banana, pineapple, coconut ice-cream, whipped cream and some bright green liquor!

If in Amsterdam, I strongly recommend Sara's Pancake House!

A Lazy Lunch

I'm a massive fan of the old chorizo sausage... I'd even go as far as to say it's one of my Top 5 Meats! Of course the shop-bought, thinly sliced stuff is a far cry from the amazingly smokey whole sausage you can buy, but sometimes, when my local supermarket doesn't seem all that local and even the trip to the Tesco Metro opposite makes me whinge, I will compromise.

For this nicely filling, lazy lunch, you'll need:

• A bit of crusty French stick
• Mozzarella (I went for the less fat one, woop woop!)
• Chorizo slices
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt & Peps
• Some salad of your choice (I went for rocket & babyleaf, with cherry tomatoes, dressed in Extra Virgin)

I'm not going to lie... It's pretty simple. I just grilled the French stick with a drizzle of Extra Virgin and Salt & Peps and grilled for 2 minutes. Added the Mozzarella on top and grilled for a further 3. Added the Chorizo and grilled for 3 minutes whilst preparing your simple salad. That really is it.

Enjoy being lazy.