Posts by elaine

I like clothes and I like shopping for them but over Christmas I looked at my wardrobe and decided enough was enough; no more fast fashion, and I’ve been looking for guilt free shopping alternatives ever since.

I’ve adopted the following Fashion rules

• Do I really need a new…..?
• Will I wear it more then once?
• Is it really worth the cash?
• Is it well made?
• And no more fast fashion-stores; Primark being at top of my list.

In January my first initiative was actually selling old clothes which I no longer wear on ebay and using the money to either buy vintage items that I couldn’t usually afford, expanding the organic fibres in my wardrobe or saving the money for a rainy day. This has been working brilliantly as I’ve sold in total 22 items and made some shrewd purchases including a pair of Vintage Terry de Havilland wedges. I’ve only had to make a couple of trips to the post office and in the process cleared space in my wardrobe and am now the proud owner of a great pair of shoes with some cash put aside for that rainy day.

In February I attended a

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Banana Beer, Banana Cake, & errm . . . Bananas!

Whether you’re bloated on bananas or you’ve simply bought too many; there’s only hours left of Fairtrade Fortnight’s Go Bananas campaign!

So here’s another way to get peeling and get eating to help set the Fairtrade banana-eating record attempt.

Try this simple recipe to make your very own scrummy Banana Cake . . .

• Take 3 medium bananas (Fairtrade, of course!) and mash up; add lemon juice to prevent browness

• Combine 150g soft butter and 150g soft brown sugar (Demerara) and mix well

• Add an egg and 150g of self raising flour to the sugar butter mixture and beat then repeat and add another egg and 150g of self raising flour

• Then add 80g of walnuts or sultanas (or both!) roughly chopped and stir through

• To finish add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to keep the cake moist and stir through

• Line a loaf tin with grease proof paper and add the wet mixture

• Place in a preheated oven on 190c for 40 – 50 minutes depending on how temperamental the oven is then take out of the oven and leave in the tin on a rack to cool down for 20 minutes.

• DONE!

Try it over the weekend and let us know how you get on, or if you’ve any other suggestions on how to use up those bananas before they’re past their best drop us a comment below. . .

For my slow cooker challenge I’ve tried to do the easiest cheapest and most flavoursome slow cooked recipe which requires minimal effort.

So here goes with Easy Slow cooked Moroccan lamb.

The ingredients

Lamb neck fillet chopped into bite size pieces you don’t need loads about 300g
1 massive sweet potato or the equivalent of about 400g
1 Tin of tomatoes chopped
Fresh tomato’s if you have any
1 Jar of Biona Harrissa relish
1 medium red onion
1tblspn plain flour/1tsp cinnamon/1tspn ground cumin (used for coating the lamb)

The Method

To start with I chopped the onion and then fried it off / softened it with a little olive oil and added it to the bottom of the slow cooker.

I then took a bowl added a tablespoon of flour a tsp of cinnamon and some ground cumin and

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As the second ‘Souper cook’ to take part in this weeks lunch time soup challenge the bar had been well and truly set with John’s carrot and coriander number.  It had set the bar high not only on cost , flavour and ethical values but also on presentation (I noticed John’s post neglected to mention his smart place mat’s and designer salt and pepper mills!)

The pressure was on and I had to deliver a home made soup that was not only flavoursome but different as my main ingredient would also be the humble seasonal orange carrot!

So after much debate I came up with a stock cupboard favourite Carrot and Lentils with a Moroccan twist. A really easy recipe to put together which would also allow me some  extra time to create a couple of homemade naans, to accompany  the dish and maybe score me some extra brownie points…game on.

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