Simple Supper: Spicy Beef Noodles

For anyone who has met me or has read the About Me section of this blog, you'll know that I am a bit of a chilli addict. It's rare that I cook a meal without some sort of chilli and I seem to go through them at a ridiculous rate - luckily I live in an area of London full of Asian shops which means I can pick them up for next to nothing. This simpler supper is a particular favourite of mine as it contains both dried and fresh chilli for extra levels of heat. Enjoy!

Wedding Wednesday - Supplier Success


Welcome to another wedding Wednesday post - how are all you brides, grooms and interested others doing? This time I thought I'd make it all about the people you choose to help produce your wedding: your suppliers. No doubt if you are newly engaged this will be one of the first things you're thinking about, once you've got your venue and date sorted. It can be a daunting prospect with more wedding suppliers out there than ever and all of them claiming to be 'the UK's best' 'multi award winning' 'loved by' various blogs or 'amazing value'. If you're a bit further along the process you may have bookd most of your suppliers by now but need to make sure they know how you want them to fit into your day. I'm going up run through the suppliers you'll probably need to think about, when to do what and how to keep them in the loop as your wedding progresses. Being a recent bride and a wedding supplier myself, both as a service with my band, The bb Collective, and as a product with my homemade favours and décor, I have a pretty good understanding from both sides of the client / supplier relationship. There's a nifty spreadsheet you can download to help keep track of them all and make you feel all efficient too - gotta love a spreadsheet!

The Honeypot - w/c 20.08.12

Hello Homespinners, how have your weeks been? I've had a good one, turning...eek...31 in style -  attending the boy's press night for his new play An Incident at the Border, lunching and dinner-ing around town with various chums, singing at a couple of lovely weddings and today having a BBQ (don't tell the sunshine) back at my mum and dad's. Lovely! And now here comes this week's "Honeypot" - a round up of the best blog posts I've seen around the web - crafty DIY projects, weddings with a homemade feel and recipes to try. 

Simple Suppers: Scallop and Chorizo Salad

This week's Simple Supper is a surf 'n' turf salad that's substantial enough for even my dinner - the potatoes help with that! You could, however leave the potatoes out for a carb free supper that still has some texture and interest. The dressing is optional - you could always just squeeze some lemon and drizzle some olive oil over the finished salad, but I do like the extra flavour burst the dressing I've suggested I've suggested gives the dish.

Tipi-tastic - Our wedding tipis

Happy Wedding Wednesday lovelies! After last week's post sharing some pictures of our wedding, which was featured on Boho Weddings I thought I'd write about our venue choice today, gorgeous tipi marquees from Beautiful World Tents.

Tipis have been getting more and more popular over the last few years as a great alternative to a traditional marquee for weddings and parties. One of the main reasons we chose to go for them is that I sing at weddings most weekends of my life and didn't want our own wedding to feel like a night at work. I've seen more billowy white marquees than I can count but knew that we definitely wanted to have the reception in the field at my parents' house, so when I found out about the tipis I was excited that there was a non traditional option out there. I showed them to Tom and he was instantly sold so we started to investigate further.

Honeypie - Triple Chocolate Cookies

I've got my first Honeypie for you today - posts which focus on delicious sweets things to make, usually baking but sometimes puddings too. Today we start things with some triple whammy chocolate chip cookies - because I like some chocolate with my chocolate, don't you?

This makes 12 cookie monsters (COOKIE! - obvs the option I went for) or 20 dinky cookies if you're feeling more refined, or making these for children. I've adapted this recipe from this one on Nigella's website, in turn she was inspired by Elinor Klivans - a lovely melting pot of ideas. And chocolate.

The Honeypot - w/c 13.08.12

Welcome to this week's "Honeypot" - a round up of the best blog posts I've seen around the web - crafty DIY projects, weddings with a homemade feel and recipes to try. Here comes my second pot of sweet stuff to eat, make, inspire and admire...