Valentines in Harrogate

Happy Sunday! Hope you've had a good weekend? I can't believe how quickly mine has gone. So not ready for it to be Monday again in the morning. We've spent most of the weekend decorating so finally the bathroom is finished for now. We still need to add the finishing touches of skirting board and architrave but we've done all the hard work for now. Hoorah.

Anyway I thought I would share some snaps from last weekend, as managed to spend a rare Saturday with The Boyfriend. His break in the rugby season happened to coincide with Valentines Day, otherwise I'd have had a hot date with my paint roller. We decided to drive over to Harrogate which is only about 40 minutes from where we live, and hadn't yet been there together.

We started our little day date with coffee and cake (and a cheese and ham toastie for The Boy) in a cute little coffee shop. Apart from my own (I'm not shy of saying I make a mean brownie) it was the best brownie I've ever bought. Topped with pistachio nuts and perfectly gooey in the middle; a definite winner. The coffee was rather lovely too.

Next I suggested we "pop into" Jo Malone for "a browse". A nice surprise was that being Valentines Day we were greeted with a glass of champagne which I think definitely helped loosen up The Boy's purse strings, as he treated me to a bottle of some gorgeous smelling perfume. It was a close call between Wood Sage & Sea Salt and Vanilla & Anise, but the Vanilla just tipped it. Again as a Valentines treat they included two cute little sample bottles of Red Roses and Dark Amber & Ginger Lily. I like the Ginger one but really not a fan of anything Rose scented which is a shame
.

Next we mooched around the shops, which I thought were quite similar to the shops in York, before heading back out of town for our lunch. My friend at work had recommended The Pine Marten which was a 5 minute drive from the centre, and I'm so glad we listened to her suggestion. It had a lovely, countryside feel with a huge roaring fire and wood paneled dining room. It was a little bit quiet for my liking, but I guessed most people would have been headed there for Valentines night rather than at lunchtime.

To start we shared a platter of different types of pork which was delicious (apart from the unnecessary addition of watermelon, yuk!) then I opted for the roast lamb while he devoured a huge steak. I was secretly jealous of his chips which looked divine. The food was perfect and just what we wanted. I'd definitely go back, especially as the outside space looked like a gorgeous place to spend a summer evening.

We spent the rest of the day back in York watching the Six Nations at the pub, then cosied up with a DVD. All in all it was a perfect day and so nice to be able to spend some time together outside in civilization, not imprisoned by having to work on the house.

How did you spend your Valentines Day? Let me know in the comments or send me a tweet @btwncandc

Humans.

I spent ages trying to find an inspirational quote that could put a positive spin on the truly awful week I've had, but settled on these simple few words. What I want these words to convey is that I really don't understand how selfish some people can be, especially at a time when people, your own family, are hurting.

I know grief is hard. I understand the need to take care of yourself and do what's best for yourself, but what I don't understand is people who are so blinded by their own issues that they can't take anyone else's sadness into account.

We're all human. We all go through things. So let's just be nice to each other even in our darkest moments, ok?

Bathroom Situation/Inspiration

A few weeks ago we were dangerously close to getting the bathroom finished. We'd finished painting, the tiling was all done. The bath and shower were in, the radiator was on and working. The final piece of the jigsaw was just the plumber fitting the sink and toilet unit. Alas, like most other things so far, it didn't quite go to plan.

Once the plumber had fitted the toilet, he realised that where he'd put the radiator was too close to the edge of the toilet so would need to be moved unless we fancied burning our kneecaps every time we sat down to do our business. Pretty epic fail #1.

Meanwhile a damp patch had started to appear in the ceiling over the shower which for ages we told ourselves was condensation. However, after a lengthy process of elimination it turned out to be a leaky pipe, that the plumber had not long ago fitted underneath our brand new ceiling. Definitely epic fail #2.

So now we're sort of stuck in limbo until we can get the new bit of ceiling put in and re-fit the shower. Sucks big time.

The only thing that keeps me going is planning all the finer details with the help of Pinterest so I can try and imagine what it will be like when it's done. Here's the kind of vibe I'm going for...

Ohhh I just want it it be finished. We've gone for white tiles and black grouting, and I'm keen to try and find some vintage green glass wear to add a bit of colour.

The only thing I'm debating over at the minute is what kind of mirror to have above the sink. These three are topping the list at the mo.

John Lewis

Argos

Tesco Direct

Decisions decisions. Hopefully The Boyfriend's Dad will be helping fix the bathroom ceiling soon so I can crack on and get it all finished. Can't wait to show you the before and after pics! Watch this space...

Project House: The Beginning

If you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen that I spent most of my weekend getting covered in Polyfilla dust thanks to sanding down the endless filled-in cracks in the walls. After doing the first full week back at work after Christmas and spending two days on my hands and knees rubbing the walls like a woman possessed, it's fair to say I'm bloody exhausted! But it definitely feels like we're making progress as should be able to start painting the dining room soon. Hoorah.

#TakeMeBackTuesdays

Now I remember why I'm so rubbish at keeping this blog up to date. Being back at work after the Christmas and New Year break has brought it all back about how quickly the evenings go when you're back to the daily routine. By the time we've gotten home, made dinner, cleaned up, prepped the next day's lunch and cleaned up again I already feel like crawling into bed. I honestly don't know where the time goes.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year folks! And here's to my first blog post of 2015. Hope you had a fun time celebrating. I spent last night cosied up at home with The Boyfriend and I'm not even sorry I didn't go out in town or to a party as I was a smug member of the hangover-free club this morning.

We spent the night drinking prosecco, eating a beige buffet, playing cards (there were shots involved to save us from being totally tragic) and watching The Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I didn't enjoy it as much as the first one, mainly as James Franco was only present in memory form, but was still good. I have a strange fascination with films that depict a decaying, apocalyptic planet earth. Anyway we finished the film just in time to see in the New Year with a chinking of our glasses while watching the footage of the fireworks in London.

Today I came downstairs to a beautiful smelling kitchen thanks to the bouquet of lilies and eucalyptus I picked up yesterday. Such a lovely combination, will definitely be picking some up again soon. Even though our kitchen/dining area is still pretty chaotic I think having some fresh flowers adds a bit of normality and joy to the place!

We started the day's feasting with bacon, Brie and cranberry sandwiches on, would you believe it, soft white bread. Haven't had the white stuff for ages so felt like a sinful treat (how rock and roll). The rest of the day was mostly spent chasing channels in the plaster where cracks have appeared. Oh the joys of newly plastered walls.

Then this afternoon we enjoyed the most epic roast dinner ever; one of the perks of having the oven back in after twelve weeks of suffering samey one pot meals cooked on a camping stove! As we didn't get to see each other on Christmas Day we decided this would be our equivalent feast together, so piled our plates unashamedly high with roast pork, roasted apples and potatoes, cauliflower cheese, green beans and honey glazed carrots and parsnips. Not forgetting the apple sauce of course. I'm just gonna go ahead and say that it was possibly the best roast ever. Definitely a great start to the year!

After I'd recovered from my food coma I treated myself to a New Year's Day bubble bath while sipping on some more prosecco and reading We Need To Talk About Kevin (I think it's going to be a good-un). It was a perfect way to end a rather lovely day.

What did you get up to this New Year? Let me know in the comments if you were in the hangover-free club too.

So Long, 2014

Not quite getting the hang of this blogging malarkey am I? The last post I wrote was all the way back in February, and I just found a draft post from April titled M.I.A that I never got round to publishing. What a fail. I think I meant to tell you back in the spring that while I had planned on making 2014 the year I properly got into blogging, life got in the way in a very big way as this year turned out to be the year we bought a house instead!

All the way back in March we very luckily were leant some money for a house deposit by The Boyfriend's brother, so had a whirlwind few weeks of scouring Zoopla for our perfect purchase before having an offer accepted on our little doer-upper by the beginning of April. After a very long-winded process of getting our mortgage sorted (I'll tell you all about this another time!) we got the keys in July, started work on it while we still lived in our rented flat, and finally moved in in September. After which we spent 12 weeks without a bathroom or kitchen (another long story I'll tell you about later...) It's been a massive adventure and I feel like I've aged about ten years in the last 9 months but buying my first house definitely tops my list of highlights for 2014!

My other 2014 best bits:

- Travelling to Dublin with my 91 year old Grandad to see the street he grew up on
- Speaking about social media on a panel at the Travel Technology Europe Conference in London *
- Winning xameliax's Instagram photo challenge all the way back in January
- Taking in the views from the top of the world's tallest building with my mum in Dubai
- A girly hen weekend in Liverpool followed by my friend Vikki's gorgeous wedding
- Spending a whirlwind 24 hours in Barcelona with Capital FM *
- Riding on the world's tallest roller coaster at the Port Aventura theme park *
- Winning a bronze medal at the It's A Knockout Challenge to raise money for St Leonard's Hospice
- Soaking up the sun in the beautiful Algarve with The Boyfriend and his family
- Being treated to a spa weekend with The Boyfriend for my birthday
- Catching a glimpse of Kate and Wills at Harewood House for the Tour de Yorkshire
- Meeting Joey the horse backstage at War Horse and seeing the truly amazing poppies at the Tower of London *

Not a bad year really! Here's hoping 2015 is even better. Plans for the New Year are mostly focused on finishing the house, but blog wise I'm hoping to be able to post more often, and let you all in on the progress we're making. I love looking at home makeovers so if you do too then stay tuned! I've also been thinking about starting up a YouTube channel as haven't really come across any homey style Vloggers. If you know of any please let me know in the comments below!

Until next time.
Kirstie xo.

* All thanks to www.superbreak.com

The views expressed in this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of SuperBreak.

Montmartre Memories

The best meal I've ever eaten was in a teeny restaurant on a cobbled street of Montmarte, Paris. This highly esteemed dish was provencal style chicken casserole with Dauphinoise potatoes and green beans. Gorgeous, garlicy, creamy deliciousness so good that five years later I still remember how it tasted. Last Saturday I decided to treat the boy to an epic home made meal inspired by this French classic, with my interpretation of this dish.

After a quick google I decided I was feeling confident enough to pretty much make up this recipe as I went along! Some suggested I added olives but as I can't stand them I decided to leave them out.

In the end the ingredients I decided on for the casserole were:

- 4 de-boned chicken thighs

- 3 sausages (the variety I had were mysteriously labelled 'herb' flavour. An Aldi special)

- 1 onion

- 1 red pepper

- a shed load of garlic (I lost count after a while. May have been a whole bulb...)

- splash of white wine (I used whatever was left in the fridge but think any dry variety would work)

- tin of chopped tomatoes

- handful of green beans

I loosely stuck to a BBC food recipe for the Dauphinoise as I'd never made them before so for these I used:

- 3 baking potatoes

- 4 cloves of garlic

- 300ml double cream

(Serves one hungry Francophile and one greedy rugby player.)

 

 Carnations optional

I started off by pre-heating the oven to 160C and heating some oil in a large pan. I popped the sausages and chicken thighs in to brown while I chopped the pepper and onion.

I let the meat cook pretty much all the way through before adding in the onion and pepper. After the veggies had softened for a couple of minutes I went to town crushing in the garlic. The smell of cooking garlic wafting through the kitchen is one of the best smells in the world don't you think? Once this had all cooked through I added a splash of wine and let it simmer down while the alcohol cooked off.

Next I added the chopped tomatoes, turned the heat right down and let it just sit bubbling happily while I washed and chopped the green beans.

 

Once the beans were looking a bit neater I transferred all the ingredients from the pan into a casserole dish, then topped it up with a bit of water and dropped the beans on top. Lid on and into the oven it went.

Next it was onto the spuds. I'm not much of a knife ninja so some of my discs were a little bit fatter than others, but I was aiming for them all to be around 3mm thick. As I was peeling and cutting the potatoes I popped the discs into a bowl of cold water to stop them from browning.

Once all my discs were ready I drained them then put them back into the bowl to mix with the cream, garlic, salt and pepper. I found that the garlic sank to the bottom, which may have been because I didn't grate it fine enough so had to scoop a lot of it out when adding into the baking dish.

After I'd mixed the potatoes with the cream I started building the layers in the dish. At this point I realised just how badly I'd cut some of them! Definitely need to work on chopping like a pro. The BBC recipe recommended squishing the layers down with the back of a wooden spoon which was a pretty nifty trick. Once the layers were all pressed together I poured over the cream from the bowl, until just below the top layer of discs. Then into the oven it went, happily set next to the casserole.

After an hour of trying not to spy in the oven I opened the door to the amazing site of a perfectly golden, bubbling dish of potatoes and the smell of garlic heaven that took me all the way back to that Montmartre restaurant. 

Needless to say that when I dished this up to the boy he was hugely impressed. The potatoes were amazing but the casserole, while it was delicious, wasn't a patch on my 'best meal ever'. Guess there's only one thing for it. I'll have to go straight back to Paris for recipe research!

What's your best ever food memory? Let me know in the comments or on twitter!

Escape To The Country

Next week me and the boy have a week off work during which we'll be heading from Yorkshire back down to middle earth. We're staying at his parents house and plan on taking a few trips out to surrounding cutesy villages in The Cotswolds, and I'm still working on getting him to take me to Oxford for a night. One of the nicest things about spending time back home is visiting his Nan's house; she has an amazing garden filled with the most beautiful flowers.

I'm not sure it will be as pretty as during the summer when we visit next week but I'm hoping there's at least a few snow drops poking through. I'm planning on blogging some of our week away which might include some more snaps of the garden if the weather's nice. But for now, I thought I'd share some of my favourite photos from when we took an impromptu drive 'dahn sahf' last July.

Such a gorgeous house.

 

 

 

Peekaboo!

 

 

 

 

 

 My favourite.

 

If you want to spy on what I get up to in The Cotswolds next week, make sure you're following my Instagram account. Foodie snaps and flower porn pretty much guaranteed.