Starbucks Inspired Mango and Kale Salad Recipe!

Today I'm coming at you with a delicious salad that will be good as a side dish, or as a main meal! This meal was inspired by the Limited Edition Chicken and Mango salad from Starbucks. 

The brilliant thing about this salad is that it's so versatile. You can leave things out, put different things in, add less or more than I advise, exchange things, do whatever (although my salad is pretty darn delicious!). There's no strict rules about this, and I didn't pick up my kitchen scales once! Let's get started.

Ingredients I used:

• 3 small carrots
• 2 - 3 spring onions (to taste)
• a handful of kale
• a handful of sugar snap peas
• a handful of mange tout
• the leaves of one pak choi
• half a mango
• a thick coconut yoghurt (this is the part I would recommend not leaving out, it's honestly the best salad dressing I have EVER tasted!)

This recipe is so simple!

1) Peel and grate the carrot into long strips

2) Chop up the kale, pak choi, spring onions, sugar snap peas and mange tout. I cut mine relatively small, but it's all personal preference!

3) Wash all of the vegetables if you haven't done so already, and put them all into a salad bowl and toss them about a bit to get it all mixed together.

4) Cut the mango into pieces. I recommend small pieces so that you get the mango in more spoon/forkfuls. It adds a sweet but not overpowering taste to the salad and is delicious!

5) Serve it up. I found this makes enough for about 3-4 people as meals, or 5-6 people having it as a side dish. 

6) Drizzle some of the coconut yoghurt over the salad, this really brings this salad altogether and gives it the perfect balance between sweet and savoury!

See below for some more tips and tricks for this salad!

You may notice in the pictures of my salad that I have added some pieces of chicken. I cooked these in a frying pan with some coconut oil, and it really added a lovely texture and taste to the dish.

I can image this salad being lovely with a nice piece of steamed salmon on top, some grilled chicken or anything really!

Some other things I think may be amazing in this salad: pine nuts, soya beans, spinach, peaches or strawberries instead of mango, boiled wild rice. 

I hope you love it as much as I do, let me know if you make it, I'd love to hear how it turns out for you! 

Zoella beauty; Candy Cream Softening Body Lotion REVIEW

Hey guys! Long time no...read? It's been a busy few months for me. I've been at university, moving, doing work experience every day at a school, passed my driving test and I've even opened my own little online shop since I last posted! 

I'm back now, and I'm more committed to this blog than I ever was before. I've recently had a "holiday-at-home" where my best friend came to stay. She lives right in the centre of the united kingdom in a relatively small town so doesn't really get to go to shopping centres or the beach...and I live near the coast and within driving distance of all sorts of places that I thought would be nice to take her. She treated this as her holiday for the year, so I did too...and by that I mean, when we went shopping I spent. A lot. I bought some really nice stuff that I thought you'd all be interested to hear about though, so here it goes!

Today I'm starting with a purchase from a brand that is new to me, called Zoella beauty. Many of you probably know that Zoella (aka Zoe Sugg) is famous for making videos on YouTube. This is her second launch of products in this beauty range, however I personally didn't like the smell of the first range and so didn't buy anything. The scent of the new range, Zoe describes as, a Tutti-Frutti scent, and I much prefer it to the original scent. 

I only picked up one product from the range and that was the Candy Cream Softening Body Lotion. What drew me to this was the bursting beads inside the lotion. I'm a sucker for anything a little bit out of the ordinary and I'm really enjoying it so far. They burst, leaving a trail of pink behind it, but don't panic! The pink doesn't stay and soaks into your skin with the rest of the body lotion. 

PHOTOS TO FOLLOW

The packaging is both pretty and functional. It's a squeezy tube so I imagine when I get to the end of it, it'll be less difficult than others to get every last bit out, which I think is great. 

The smell, although not a strong one, is very pretty. It's fruity, but I do also get some undertones of floral scent too. It's not overpowering at all. A point that may be a positive/negative for you is that the smell doesn't linger. It's a nice scent for while you're putting it on and for about 10 minutes after, but after that I can't smell it. To me this doesn't bother me as I'm sometimes sensitive to smells and if they linger too long I can get a headache, but it really is what you prefer. If you want the scent to last a long time, I fear you'd be disappointed.

PHOTOS TO FOLLOW

On the back of the packaging it says that it's packed with acai and blueberry to pamper and protect. I don't have much scientific knowledge behind this, but I know that acai and blueberry have some beneficial properties for your skin.

Whether or not its down to the berries or the other ingredients, I don't know, but my skin has been left feeling extremely soft. Softer than it has been in a long time. For a body lotion that costs £5 in your local Superdrug, I am so impressed. I've been using it for a week now and have seen a real difference in the feel, and the brightness of my skin.

For those of you who are concious of animal testing products, this specific product states it has not been tested on animals, which I am so pleased about!

PHOTOS TO FOLLOW

A little bit of everything

This past month has been filled with what seem like never ending days filled with arguments and bad news with a few great memories here and there.

My dad's currently fighting prostate cancer. It was caught early, which is good, but 2 years on from finding it, months of pain, and one surgery later they've decided they might need to actually do something real this time and are going in for a second surgery on the 26th November. I'm both relieved and nervous about this, I'm sure you can understand why.

It's also nearing Christmas, but before that I have to hand in my essays and do an exam for university. For anyone who doesn't know, I'm currently studying a Bachelor of Arts degree in Early Childhood Studies with practitioner options in the hope of becoming an Infant School Teacher after completing a PGCE. It's something I'm very passionate about doing, but getting there is somewhat of a struggle due to things happening in my personal life.

Let's move on to happier things! On the 31st October (yep, halloween!) I went down to Brighton. I'll write a proper blog post on it, but my main reason for going was to do a Tea Mixology Course at the Bluebird Tea Company. I really enjoyed it and I was really glad I went. I even want to go back for a second time, and I may be taking my sister next time. Whilst I was there I also visited Lush and bought so much stuff! It's definitely worth a haul blog post so look forward to seeing that in the near future also!

I think that's pretty much everything up to date now. I hope you're all well? How was your Halloween?

Bye for now!

Pumpkin Loaf Cake recipe

I am so sorry for not posting on here recently. Other than the usual excuse of university and coursework I am also full of horrible flu! I went to Lush earlier in the week (and again today) to pick up some of their new Christmas and Halloween range and I want to do a haul on that for you, but I can't smell anything! That will be coming soon though. For now, I'm going to stick with the Autumn season and show you my pumpkin loaf recipe. This recipe has aspects taken from other people's recipes but it's basically my own. I hope you like it, I think it's delicious and perfect for this season.

340g Self Raising Flour
2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Salt
300g Caster Sugar
125ml Sunflower Oil
3 eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla Bean Paste (alternatively use 1.5 teaspoons Vanilla Extract)
500g Shredded Pumpkin
Preheat oven to 170°c

Firstly I sift the flour, cinnamon, salt and sugar into a bowl and stir it so it's all combined.
Then in a separate bowl mix together the oil, eggs and vanilla.
Pour the wet mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix until all the dry ingredients are no longer visible.
Grab your shredded pumpkin (to get this, buy a smallish sized pumpkin, scoop out the insides and peel off the skin and blend the fleshy part in a powerful blender or food processor) and stir into the rest of the mixture. I actually do this with my hands so that it gets combined quicker without going everywhere but you can easily do this with a wooden spoon or spatula.
Put some grease proof paper into a loaf pan and pour the mixture in. The mixture should come up to almost the top of the pan. If you have too much (I did) you can put it into cupcake cases or mini loaf pans and make some little pumpkin loaf cakes.
Put these into the oven for an hour an a half (between 30-45 minutes for smaller sized cakes). Put a knife or cocktail stick into the centre of the loaf and if it comes out clean (or pretty much clean besides a couple of crumbs) your cake is probably done, if not put it back in for another 5 minutes and try again. Once you get to the point of having a clean knife you're done! It's amazing when it's warm, but comes out boiling so leave them to cool in the pan for 15 minutes before eating.

You could also put in some additional things such as: toasted pumpkin seeds, raisins, currants etc. but I decided to leave it simple.

Have a LUSH day: Lush haul and review!

I apologise for the rubbish pun in the title of this post.

Today I'm going to be showing you what I recently bought from Lush and whether I love, like or hate it. 

I really love Lush products so I'll try my best to be unbiased. 

Above is a photograph of the items I bought. 

• New Shampoo Bar - "A spicy, stimulating bar with cinnamon, clove and nettle that's especially good for thin or fine hair." 
• D'Fluff Strawberry Shaving Soap - "Taking a beloved sweet treat packed full of yummy ingredients, the inventors translated the strawberry marshmallow snack and created this lovely, light, fluffy and silly shaving foam for any part of the body."
• The Hair Doctor - "A fresh, deeply conditioning hair mask with nourishing seaweed and cleansing fuller's earth."
• Big Shampoo - "A rich shampoo with sea salt, seaweed and coconut oil to give softness and volume."
• Veganese Conditioner - "Fresh lemon juice for shine, seaweed for softness and herbal infusions for your scalp."

I'll start at the top of the list. New.

Now, with New I was expecting a really nice, warm, autumn-y smell...however I really don't like it. It definitely has the cinnamon and clove in it, but it isn't sweet at all and to me it smells almost like a medicine. With that being said I have used it and it does have some good qualities. It foams up well and in doing so means it goes through your hair nicely. I have only used it once so I can't give you a solid review, however I do think its a very good clarifying shampoo and my scalp felt quite refreshed after use. I will continue using it as a clarifying shampoo, but there are better smelling shampoos out there that do the job just as well, and it's pretty expensive for something I don't enjoy (£5.50) so I don't think I'll repurchase this.

D'Fluff Shaving Soap

I was so excited to try D'Fluff, it's been on my wishlist ever since it came out and maybe that's the reason I am so disappointed by this product. As you can see on the picture above it's a "strawberry shaving soap". There's no denying that there's strawberries in there, but the scent of this has only the teeniest tiny bit of strawberry in it. I don't know, maybe I got an off batch, maybe the strawberries they used weren't very fragrant, but when I bought this I expected it to be the nicest smelling shaving soap ever. The texture of this is not unlike Soap and Glory's Whipped Clean in the way that it takes a little work to rub it onto the skin. I found when putting this in it moulded into the gaps between my fingers than it did onto my leg that I was trying to shave. Once you do get it on your skin, however, it does work very nicely. It doesn't foam up as much as I expected but once you've shaved and washed it off it feels as though you've already moisturised and my legs feel extremely smooth. I'm very torn about this product, at £9 for 250g it is expensive but is it worth it? I think I'm going to have to keep trying it to see how much I like it. 

The Hair Doctor

Above I have included photographs of Hair Doctor before I used it, during use and after use. You have to use an incredibly large amount of product on your hair as you have to cover your whole head - including you scalp - with this stuff. I'm very selfish with product use and only use the minimum amount possible, however I read reviews on Lush's website of people using the whole tub! Once again this has a very ugly smell. I couldn't quite put my finger on it so I made my dad smell it and almost immediately said "that smells like vapour rub!" and it really does, that with a bit of menthol mixed in. Not a nice smell to be putting on your hair, but it cost £6.95 for this tub so I'm not going to waste it. I'm not sure how well you can see in the photograph, but when its on your hair it feels all matted and gross. I powered through, left it for 20 minutes (ugh the smell was awful) and then washed it out. My final verdict waaaas.....do not buy this product. It's meant to help replenish your hair, give it more body, conditioner it but it did the opposite. I mean my hair feels okay now, and the smell didn't stick around, but I only put that down to another product I've used. When I first got out the shower it felt as though I had straightened my hair with hair spray on it. It was so stiff and frizzy...it was awful. I just had to wash it again I couldn't stand it. After about 3 washes its okay now, and yes - it is very soft - but I'm certain it wasn't this product. I will not be repurchasing this. I can't even tell you if I can pluck up the courage to use the other half of the tub.

Big

If I had to marry one of these products, it would be Big. Not only because Carrie from Sex and the City marries Mr. Big and that makes me happy, but because it is honestly the most amazing product I have ever tried. It doesn't look pretty, I'll give you that, but the results it makes are beautiful (see picture below). It has coarse sea salt in it which - I believe - helps to exfoliate your scalp. It gets rid of any build up, has seaweed and other ingredients in it that makes your hair soft. It's just a-ma-zing. Lush say it makes you feel like a mermaid and in a weird way, it does! You get that beachy feel but without the stickiness of the sea spray in your hair. It foams up amazingly well and you barely have to use any product. In fact, the picture taken above was after washing my hair 5 times with it. I am so impressed with this product, it's pricey at £11.95 but I will definitely be repurchasing it. It'll last forever and gives soft bouncy waves and curls, feels amazing and does exactly what it says it does. In the picture below my hair has not had any heat on it, the only products used on it were Big and Veganese, it was brushed and then just left to air dry, and these were the results:

Veganese

Veganese is a very citrus scented conditioner. This small bottle cost £4.45, so pretty steep however, it works well with Big because it's light so it doesn't weigh down my hair or get rid of any volume created by Big. The problem I have with this is that it's so light that I feel I need to use more and more, this also isn't helped by the fact it's very hard to work in and spread it all over your hair. I've used up quarter of this bottle already and I've used it 5 times (the same as I've used Big). It's a very lovely product, and I might be tempted to buy this again if within the next few washes I start to learn to use less and just work it in better. It's advertised as being good for your scalp, I don't personally use it on my scalp but if you have a dry scalp maybe give this a go. The citrus in this, I imagine, would be very refreshing. 

What are you supposed to do when your world comes crashing around you? You've been avoiding all the big chunks of falling debris and only get hit with little bits of rubble once in a while, until you become trapped in between mountains of all the little pieces of rubble that have been piling up over time and suddenly they fall on top of you and trap you. You can't get out and you start to panic, you can't breathe because of a lack of oxygen and each sharp stab of a rock hitting you feels like the end of the world. 

I know you have to get up and remove one piece of rubble at a time, but that moment of anxiousness and panic where you can't think rationally is the worst.

My mind is a cloud of fog right now. I can't finish off thoughts and I can't focus on anything.

a little bit of random

I don't really have a title for this post, it's just a bit of random.

Today is my day off from university and after arguments between the other housemates everything's a bit awkward. Everyone's being civil but you can tell there's a bit of tension...it is a bit awkward for me particularly because I don't really know these people well yet, and everybody was crying and I didn't know what to do. In situations like that I usually make hot chocolate with marshmallows because I'm not so good at the comfort talk thing...but I have no marshmallows. I still made them hot chocolates though and then left them to it for most of the night.

This morning one of the housemates asked if we would like her to cook for us all, we all said yes (because lets face it, pork with potatoes and veggies sounds amazing!) but to try and say thank you I asked one of the other housemates to help me make a pudding. We decided on apple crumble and my home made vanilla custard, went to the shop and bought all the items and then remembered one of the housemates is allergic to apples. Ugh! We did ask if they liked apple crumble and custard though and they said yes so...it isn't really our fault! I did feel a bit bad though, but they said they would just have some of the crumble and custard.
Me and J went to the shop to get the ingredients, and we got everything we needed. I frantically looked for marshmallows too, but they didn't have any! They didn't even have flumps! I was so disappointed. What am I supposed to put on hot chocolates now?!
We made the dessert and it looks amazing. We haven't put it in the oven yet because we thought it would be best to put it in after dinner's been cooked so that its delicious for then! After I take it out the oven I'll make the custard so that the pudding has time to cook down to eating temperature. I'm so excited but I'm pretty nervous as cooking/baking is the only thing I'm good at, especially desserts, so if it doesn't go well I'll be so embarrassed.

My boyfriend of 6 months is finally coming to visit next week. Next week. When we were planning it I thought it was like 3 weeks away, but nope. I'm so excited I could cry. I don't want to tell everyone about it because if something happens which means he doesn't come I have to tell all the people I told why he isn't there and I'll feel even worse about him not coming. He's going to be staying for a minimum of one week, but hopefully longer. I never want him to leave, if he was in Chichester forever life would be amaaaazing. He lives so far away :(
I'm counting down the days!