We make all the Moomin pies!

Tonight I thought I'd have another go at making Moomin onion pie, I made it during the winter and loved it! It's so simple to make, at first I thought it would just taste 'alright' I was so wrong. It's proper winter comfort food, really homely and warming. The pie has a really unusual pastry case using grated carrots, this makes it even better. It gives it more texture and adds flavour to the pastry but it's not over powering, plus the filling is amazing. They work really well together and if this is what they eat on a day to day basis in Finland, I'm there! You must give this a go, it's definitely in my 10 ten favourite meals. It's great for freezing and you can have it hot or cold to suit your mood, or even have for lunch the day after.

Well here it is so you can give it a try...

Moomin mouth-watering onion pie

Nommy!

What you'll need:
50g Butter or margarine
1-2 Carrots (finely grated)
50g Plain flour (I used wholemeal because I think it tastes better)
50g Rolled oats
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
For the filling:
3 Large onions (cut into strips)
1 tbsp oil
100ml Cream
1 Egg (beaten)
120g Grated cheese (I used cheddar)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 225 °C
2. Mix the butter and the grated carrot; this is better when the butter has been left at room temperature to go soft. Add the flour, rolled oats, baking powder and the salt and mix this to a smooth paste.
3. Roll the pasty out, and with your hands press into a quiche dish so it covers the bottom and the edges.
4. Pre-cook the pastry case for 5-10minutes until it's firm.
5. Meanwhile lightly fry the onions in the oil until the onions are soft and translucent and not brown.
6. In a bowl mix together the cream, the egg, the cheese and seasonings then add the onions.
7. Pour the onion mixture into the pastry case and bake in the oven for 10-15minutes or until the surface has browned at 200°C.
8. ENJOY!

Really hope you give this a go, you won't regret it and once you do it once I can assure you'll be making it again!

We have all the wedding parties!

Last weekend Anthony and I, along with our friends went to celebrate the marriage of Eddy and Jessica. They got married in America (as Jess is American) earlier in the summer and finally Jess' visa was issued and she has now moved to the UK. As we couldn't be there on the day so, they organised a garden party to celebrate with Eddy's family and friends.

The theme of the night was red, white and blue for both nationalities flag (UK and USA). I think most people it was more of a coincidence with the colours they wore, but everyone looked lovely.

It was lovely evening, and it was great to see everyone for the first time in ages! Ed and Jess had a fantastic evening which is the main thing; Jess makes a fabulous cake too! Everyone ate, drank and was merry. Myself probably a little bit to merry, I apologised to Ed who said it just added to the entertainment of the night. Really do need some more nights like this, something about a wedding that puts everyone in such a good mood. I'll leave this one short and sweet, unfortunately because I'm terrible with a camera I got photos of everyone except the happy couple. I'll leave you with a few photos I did get; I'll try harder next time.

Me and Anthony

Josh and his new boyfriend

We give all the things to charity!

I have had one huge sort out of all my clothes, shoes, bags, jewellery and random stuff I own ready to take into the charity shop. I've been taking small bags of unwanted/unneeded things in to the local charity shop all year and it got to the stage where I just needed to be brutal and just get rid of things I have no room for. I had clothes that hadn't been worn for years, bags that had never been used and just things that were just not useful and taking up unneccessary space I don't have.

This isn't even all of it!

In the end I had two stereos and two huge bags of things to take in, not a bad spring clean if I do say so myself and there's still more to go! We have household items that have been here for years, we have so much junk around this house it's actually unreal. At least good things have come out of this spring clean and sort out, I have more space and my donations have gone to charity; our local hospice. It's probably my favourite charity in my local area, I've visited the hospice and it's a lovely place, the service they provide is amazing and it makes such a difference to the service user's and their families who use it. Some people may imagine a hospice to be a depressing place, but I assure you it's the complete opposite and it relies on mostly on public funding, to keep them providing this amazing service. This includes donations and the money from the charity shop as government funding id scarce so I hope the items which I have taken in today will make a small difference to improve and maintain the hospice, I also spend a lot of money in there so hopefully my funds have been spent wisely.

That's my good deed for the day so now I afford to be a little bit naughty tomorrow at Eddy and Jessica's wedding party hehe.

We enjoyed all weekend!

This weekend has been lovely, one of the best I've had for ages. It was only a quiet one, just Anthony and I and a few visits to various places around the Forest of Dean and Herefordshire, relaxing in the evening and of course watching some of the live sets from Reading and Leeds festival.

We had an extra long weekend due to the bank holiday and work kindly giving me Friday off this week which was lovely, Anthony also managed to rack some flexi-time so he to could have Friday off. It's quite rare we get to spend this much time together so when we can, we really try and make the best and most out of it.

I recently was offered a new job, which is great news as it's better hours, more challenging and something I feel I am much more interested in; Theatre recovery practitioner, sounds posh doesn't it.

Can't wait to wear scrubs again!

To celebrate my new job, Anthony took me out for a fabulous meal at a kind of local pub, The Cross Keys, Ii really was the best food I'd tasted for a long time. I had guinea foul for the first time ever which was really tasty, although I thought it tasted very similar to chicken but the sauce was delicious. We got all dressed up nice to go, and had a lovely time when we got there. Now getting there was a totally different ball game. It was a nightmare, we were late due to be lost in winding country lanes, I mean literally driving around a tiny village for about 20minutes to half an hour. When we arrived the food and the atmosphere in the pub was definitely worth the wait and I'm sure we'll go back again.

Our pretty little country pub

Surprisingly on Saturday the sun was shining so we got up bright and early-ish, had some bacon and sausage butty’s and headed out to Hereford. Admittedly I felt like I was on my way to work, but when we got there I felt a bit differently. We explored the city, found a wonderful lane full of independent retailers and cafes, it was quite refreshing to walk past all the lovely shops and not see a huge commercial building. The best thing of all, it had a cheese shop! A whole shop dedicated to cheese! I love cheese.

Say cheese Anthony!

 

Best moment of my life

All in all was a really nice day out, I bought myself a new outfit which made it even better. Next time we head to Hereford we'll try and find some other hidden gems to explore.

Saturday night I taught Anthony how to cook spaghetti bolognaise. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, not because he was rubbish at it, just because I wanted to do everything and help him out a bit. In the end I sat down with a glass of wine and dictated what to do and even though he was a little slow to say the least, we got there in the end after nearly two hours of cooking and it tasted lovely. He was a proud man, and I was proud of him, he'll be sorted for life now.

Hopefully we'll have some more weekends when we head out and do something a little bit different, September will most probably be quiet, due to our holiday at the end of the month. We do have a wedding party to go to in a couple of weeks which will keep us entertained for now. Next time I won't leave it so long before I blog again. Until then see ya laters!

We have all the Moomin mushroom ragout!

This is a recipe that I've used a few times now, and I have to say it's a lovely accompaniment to a meal. I got the recipe from my Moomin cookbook and is one the few recipes within it not to involve cream! It's really easy, effortless and also healthy. It goes well with most meats, I've also had it on toast and the cookbook suggests having the ragout with rice or potatoes so it's up to you to decide.  

It’s not like your usual ragout but is still homely and delicious perfect for a quick dish. So here's how to do it.

Ingredients:

Everything you need!

1. 300g mushrooms (choose a mixture if possible)
2. 2 onions (I used 3 as they were really small)
3. 1 courgette
4. 2 tomatoes
5. 1tbsp oil or butter
6. 1tsp salt
7. Pinch of pepper
8. 1tbs dried marjoram
9. 1 or 2 cloves of garlic

Method

1. Chop the mushrooms and onions then dice the courgette and your tomatoes.
2. Heat oil or butter in a frying pan and brown the onions.
3. Add courgette, garlic, tomatoes and seasonings and cook for around 15minutes stirring occasionally.
4. Serve and enjoy!

Your finished product

 

We partied all over town!

My birthday was at the start of July but due to being really busy birthday plans were put on hold. I went out with my friends from work on Saturday night for Chinese food and to go clubbing. One word for it could be messy, but all in all it was a really fun night, and the food was amazing, although I did pay for all the fun I had on Sunday morning with my raging hangover! As I've got older my hangovers have just got worse and worse, and every time I wake up and say "I'm never drinking again!" and I always do.

Before everyone drank to much.

Hereford isn't my preferred place to go for a night out but I'm starting to realise that it really is who you're with that makes it a good night. We've got another night out planned in a few weeks for a leaving do, hopefully the night will be just as much fun, hopefully my hangover won't be quite so bad he he.

Time to go home I think

We saw all of Blink 182

On Friday night I went with my friends to watch Blink 182 in Manchester. I wasn't overly excited and to be honest I never thought they were that good, so I drank a bit too much cider and the evening passed a little bit quicker. What got me the most was that everyone seemed so young! I mean they are actually children and admittedly I am used to going to over 18 venues so I never have to deal with this occurrence. It really did make me feel old and put me off the whole night, don't worry I do have some positive things to say about the night.

See look at the smile. It wasn't all bad!

Blink 182 were supported by Twin Atlantic and The All American Rejects. I've seen Twin Atlantic a couple of times before and they never disappoint. They seem to be making their way up the ladder pretty damn quick and before we know it, they're going to be a household name (I can hope anyway). The All American Rejects were alright, quite standard and the lead singer definitely had Tourette's Syndrome. I've never heard someone swear as much as he did. They took be back to be my youth of being a teenagers again, I used to love them. Although now, I feel I am too old and it just didn't seem quite right.

Explains it's self really...

The thing that really impressed me and this may sound really dumb; to be honest I don't really care. One of the members of the band had his birthday on Friday and instead of have a birthday cake, he had a birthday ham! I would much prefer a birthday meat, I mean I'm not massively keen on cake anyway and with meat you can do other things with it (if you wanted too),you could even turn it into birthday curry. I'm starting to think celebratory meat could take over the cake. It will become tradition to have meat instead, but anyway on to the main event.

I never had high hopes for Blink 182 and usually this makes gigs better but unfortunately Blink were still pretty pants and I won't recommend going to see them unless you are sixteen. I mean it took me back to my teenage years for about five minutes then I would notice how young everyone was and how rubbish Blink 182 actually are. I mean the comedy is very adolescent and the singing really isn't great, I mean Tom Delonge sounds like a child himself. What really irritated me was the fact that the kids who were there in their Blink 182 t-shirts and hats, didn't even know Dammit, my mum probably knows Dammit. I don't think these kids even know how dance or start a mosh pit as there was hardly movement down in the standing area; I always find that's the best part about the gig!

Blink 182

On a positive note to the concert, the stage was set out really well and the back drop was really artistic, a bit emo but I can handle that. All the band were on stage at the time which was stated on the program, my seats were in a really good spot, no one's fat head in my way or anything like that. The best part of the night was seeing one my best friends and former housemate, Hayley. I haven't seen her for ages and even though it probably wasn't the best place to try catch up with someone, it was just fantastic to see her and just laugh about anything! Even though I didn't really enjoy the band it was worth going just to catch up with an old friend.

Hayley and I

I would recommend going to the Manchester Arena, it's huge although do be aware that it is sitting and standing. From where I was sat I could see everything! It's central and really easy to get to. Apologies for all my criticism but it really is just my opinion.