I love this recipe, it's so simple and makes a great gift for someone (assuming they like coconut ice, of course).


You'll need;
1 tin of condensed milk
300g desiccated coconut
300g icing sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
food colouring

Grease and line a baking tray
Mine is a rectangular one, about 10" long.

Pop everything, except for the colouring, into a bowl and stir well.
I find that if the condensed milk is cool it is really hard to stir, so I fill the sink with about 2-3" of hot water and stand my bowl in the water to heat it up a little. This makes combining all the ingredients much easier.

Put half the mixture into the lined tray and smooth it out.
This can take a while as the mixture is sticky and doesn't like to be parted from the spoon but it gets the message eventually.

Add food colouring to the remaining half of the mixture.
I've started to use Dr Oetker Gel Food Colour as I find it gives a nice vibrant colour.

Add the remaining mixture to the tray and flatten.
Pop this in the fridge to cool for about 4 hours and then cut into chunks and eat all of it at once, straight from the tray, while no one is looking and remove any evidence of having ever made it in the first place.

Love

OK, so my attempt at blogging everyday in May didn't go very well. I had no illusions that I'd manage a post-a-day but I did think I'd do a little better than nine.

Nine, pfft!

Still, it's more than I managed in March and April combined so I'm going chalk it up as a success anyway! I wanted to get back in the habit (not in a Whoopi Goldberg kinda way), and I think it's done just that.

So, thank you to Elizabeth for organising #BEDM. Perhaps if I take part again, I'll be more organised and plan more posts in advance, rather than looking at a topic in the morning and thinking "how the heck and I going to do that today?'

Life has shown me time and time again that if I don't plan, I just potter around for days / weeks / months and then I look back and can't remember doing anything in particular, I feel as if I've achieved nothing. For example, a resolution for 2014 was to do something cultural once a month, but I'm failing miserably. If I don't plan anything and the month whizzes by and it's over before I know it.

Somebody asked me recently where I saw myself in five years time but honestly I couldn't tell you what I'm doing next week.

Are you a planner or do you just make it up as you go along, like me?

Love

The best thing about childhood? No one bats an eyelid if you skip or twirl, or have an irrepressible urge to run EVERYWHERE. Turn cartwheels, climb trees, roll down hills, squeal with delight on roundabouts and scare yourself silly by going so high on the swings that the chains slacken.

You don't care about how your hair looks or if you have mud, food or glue on your clothes. Glitter is the best. thing. ever.

All that matters is watching The Waltons, keeping your Sindy doll by your side (and out of your brother's grubby mitts) at all times, and praying for chips for tea. Again.

Finding strawberries on the plants in the garden and eating peas straight from the pod feels like the most exciting treat imaginable. The six week summer holiday seems to last forever and no one cares if you put on a pair of shorts with pale, pale skinny little leggies. Arguments are forgotten overnight (if not sooner) and a tenner seemed like so. much. money.

Good times.

I tried to turn a cartwheel the other day. Ended up in a heap, hurt my wrist, pulled a muscle in my thigh. I can't decide if this means I should never have stopped in the first place, or was a lesson telling me act my age.

Love

Today's #BEDM topic is about healthy living. The last time I was prompted to talk about this I shuffled my feet and looked at the floor, feeling rather uncomfortable, so maybe we'll just leave that one for another day...

One of the #BEDM prompts I've missed is fashion, beauty and grooming, so I've decided to go back to it. I've yammered on about clothes on this blog a lot (to the point of tedious repetition) so I thought I'd do a beauty post and tell you about my top five favourite Birchbox items. This is not the sort of post I do very often, and certainly not one I've done lately. 

I subscribed to Birchbox about 9 months ago and these are my favourites so far.


Chella Highlighter Pencil  |  £15.95
This has to be my all time favourite item from Birchbox. It's for highlighting brow bones, cheekbones, inner corners of your eye but I use it mainly as a eyeshadow primer. I've tried lots of different primers and this one works far better than any other. It also doubles up as a concealer. This post shows you ten ways to use it.

Molton Brown Ylang-Ylang Nourishing Body Lotion  |  £25.00 and Body Wash   |  £18.00
OK, so technically this is two things but I can't decide between them as it's the scent that makes me love these so much, a scent which I can still smell on my skin hours after using. The body lotion is also non-sticky which is a must for me - anyone else hate struggling to pull on skinny jeans after applying body lotion?

Molton Brown Rhubarb & Rose Replenishing Hand Cream  |  £10.00
I've become a little obsessed with hand cream recently after becoming utterly convinced my hands are starting to look old. This stuff is awesome, not only does it smell fantastically rhubarbular*, it nourishes a treat too, without being sticky.

English Laundry no.7 For Her  |  £47.00
Pear, jasmine, vanilla and sandalwood - delightful! And perfect for summer.
(They have a handbag friendly roller ball version for £16.00 that I am so tempted by)

Laura Mercier Body Butter (Ambre Vanillé)  |  £27.00
I loved this. I normally steer clear of body butters as I find they tend to sit on my skin, making me feel slimy, rather than sinking in. But the shea butter and aloe vera gel left me with super silky, non-sticky limbs and the smell was divine! It comes in Fresh Fig too, which I'd love to try sometime soon.

I can't recommend all of the items highly enough, I have to admit I'm a bit of a sucker for a nice scent (which I imagine is probably obvious). I often get face creams and masks etc in my boxes but I find a small sample isn't enough for me to make up my mind about that sort of product, although it is nice to try new things and have a bit of a pamper session once in a while.


I received May's Birchbox recently, so I've got some new goodies to try, including some Soigné Botanique nail polish, which is a lovely colour but has the most excessive packaging for nail polish known to man. Ooh Fancy.


Do you subscribe to any such boxes? What's your favourite product to come out of one of them?

 Love





*my new favourite word, invented by Sophie. I think it should be added to the dictionary.

I've had this recipe for Mexican (Veggie) Lasagne on my Nums nums (why did I choose to call it that?) Pinterest board for longer than I can remember. So when I saw that the #BEDM prompt for May 5th was 'Let's be Mexican', I thought this would be the perfect time to try it out. But of course I didn't get organised in time and ended up cooking it last night, but better late than never...

It's delicious!


The recipe comes from Bessie's Veggie Food and is really simple and easy to make. I used kidney beans in a chilli sauce for added flavour and, I don't know if I was supposed to do this but, I finished the layering with tortillas topped with cheese, which made for a lovely crispy topping.


The worst part was having to let it 'rest' after cooking for 10 minutes before we could dig in, it smelled divine and totally worth the wait. Served with a salad and black olives it made a nice change from our usual meat suppers. Next I'm going to try the slow cooker Quorn Chilli, which looks ridiculously easy to make.

Today's prompt is 'Out of the comfort zone' and this is kinda out of mine. My first ever food post got no comments. Not one *tumbleweed*... so I've always been weary of posting recipes (and yes that is a hint for you to go back an comment on it).

Love

Today's #BEDM is an easy one as I wrote about the transformation of my workspace back in October.

It looks remarkably tidy in the photos, it doesn't anymore - the shelves are groaning under the weight of it's contents and there are piles of books and papers lining the walls. I really do need to sort out some storage. I have got a new office chair, but that keeps being stolen...


...and that is the sum total of the improvements I've made since October. I really should do something about that.

Love