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. 

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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.

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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!

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