White Rabbit Lime & Coconut Cleansing Water

White Rabbit is a cruelty free and vegan skincare company, all handmade in Scotland.  I've known the founder for ages through Twitter and it's been great seeing her business grow!  I wanted to try some bits for a while but I had to wait until I'd finished up another skincare items otherwise they end up not getting used and going to waste...

Click read more to see my thoughts on one product in particular.

Empties #18

Hello!  I've really been struggling to fit in blogging round my job and other activities recently, especially with the dark nights making taking photos near impossible!  As I've moved away from home for work, a lot of my weekends are taken up with either going back up or having people down visiting.  However I managed to do some bulk photography which should keep me going for a while. Does anyone know of any decent daylight bulbs or lights?  This would make life a lot easier, can't wait for light nights again!

Bath Products Stash & Storage

Over Christmas I accumulated quite a lot of bath and body products so now that I am back down in my flat I thought I would sort them all out nicely!  To start with I have organised my bath bombs/melts by taking all the Lush items out of their paper bags and wrapped them in cling film so that I can see what everything is quickly.  If you have quite a few and want to keep track of what they are, you could write their names on the sling film using a Sharpie or permanent marker.

Household Empties

I'm not sure whether to make a series out of this style post but just wanted to test the water with it!  I thought it would be quite interesting to do some mini reviews of household items.  Now that I have moved out I can make sure all the products I buy are cruelty free and I'm enjoying trying out lots of brands that are available!  Let me know you found it helpful and would like to see more of this post!

Lunch at Prezzo

Recently while my friend was down visiting me for the weekend and we went for lunch in Manchester city centre before she got the train home.  We wandered through The Printworks looking for somewhere to eat and came across Prezzo where neither of us had been before.  At a quick glance the menu looked pretty good so we went in.  First impressions were that we were ignored and walked past by a lot of the staff until finally Louise asked the next staff member we saw for a table.

However after this disappointing start everything got a lot better!  After properly reading the menu there were loads of things I wanted, a pretty good vegetarian selection.  Although a lot of them involve goat's cheese and butternut squash so if you're not a fan of them it might not be so good!  Fortunately I love these two things and went for the Goat's Cheese and Vegetable Risotto which had butternut squash, courgettes and green beans in it.  Louise went for Spaghetti Carbonara, but we were really hungry so decided to share the Large Bread Board as a starter.

The bread board turned out to be AMAZING!  How good does it look?!  It's made up of tomato and pesto bread, mozzarella and garlic bread, rosemary flatbread and ciabatta with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping.  I could just eat this over and over...  This was £5.35 between us.

I nearly forget to take a photo of my main and had started eating when Louise reminded me ha, hence why it looks a bit dishevelled!  Sometimes risotto can be really creamy, sickly and samey but I really enjoyed this.  It wasn't too creamy, with the creaminess mostly coming from the goat's cheese which there was a perfect amount of.  The different bits of veg made it more interesting too.  It's quite a small portion considering it is £10.95 but I don't mind as it was the perfect size for me, I managed to finish it with ease and without feeling too full.  I think if I hadn't had the bread before I'd probably been able to eat more so I'm glad we decided to have a starter.  My only criticisms would be that I'd have preferred larger pieces of butternut squash and probably a slightly larger portion - only because I have a fairly small appetite so it might not be enough for other people! 

I'd really like to go back and try some of the other options I was eyeing up!  See their menu here.

Have you got a favourite at Prezzo?

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Beefayre Rhubarb & Raspberry Candle

When I was offered the chance to try something from Beefayre I was thrilled as although I hadn't heard of the company, after some quite googling I knew it was right up my street.  Beefayre was developed by artist Sharon Jervis and her son after visiting beekeepers in Romania.  The products are handmade in England using high quality ingredients, avoiding any petroleum by-products.  They also donate 3% of their profits to bee conservation and research which I think is brilliant! 

Nars Blush Collection - with swatches

I'm a big fan of Nars blushers, they're all so pretty!  I used to work for House of Fraser so was lucky enough to get 10% off beauty items which I took full advantage of and have built up and small collection whilst I was there.

Click read more to see my collection and swatches of everything.

DIY Frozen Sweet Potato Chips

I had no idea what to call this post!  Basically it's a 'recipe' for making a big batch of sweet potato chips which can be stored in the freezer until needed.  I love doing this as I always have them to hand to shove in the oven for lazy dinner nights.

Sweet potatoes are so good for using as an alternative to normal potatoes for chips or wedges but can be a bit time consuming to make from scratch each time.  I've used this method a few times and it works out great.  I live by myself so it's handy having them in 1 portion sized bags that I can just bring out and use when I fancy them.

As well as being super yummy, sweet potatoes are really good for you!  They are full of vitamins C, D and the minerals iron, magnesium and potassium.  [source] 

Start by washing your potatoes - use as many as you like.

Cut them up into relatively similar sized chips/wedges.  You can peel them if you like but I love the skin!

Boil a big pan of water, enough to cover all the potatoes, and add them to the pot.  Leave them boiling for a few minutes.  Meanwhile, prepare a bowl with cold water and add ice cubes.

Transfer the chips from the pan into the cold water and leave until cool.

Once they have cooled, separate them into portions and seal in freezer bags.

Put them in the freezer! 

To actually cook them, all you do is bring out a bag and run the chips under cool water to thaw slightly.  Spray a foil lined baking tray with oil, place the chips on the tray and spray with some more oil.  Leave them plain with some sea salt and pepper sprinkled over or rub in mixed herbs or spices using olive oil for some flavour.  Place in the oven at about 200c for 18-20 mins.  Voila!

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