Blythe dolls.

Have you heard of these? I really love them. They are pretty unknown over here, but have a massive cult following in Asia. I like the fact they are slightly weird and scary looking.

Originally manufactured 1972, the original Blythe dolls was produced for only one year and then was retired because of poor sales. Which meant for 28 years, Blythe was a curiosity that only doll collectors were interested in. However, in 2000 the dolls made a comeback in Japan when and illustration agency produced a TV commercial for Parco department store starring Blythe. After the TV spotlight they became very popular in Japan and Asia.

I would love to own one, but alas they are rather expensive. One day one will be mine though! Ace.

Cake bed!

Yesterday i was on Pinterest. I spend a lot of time on Pinterest, in fact hours can go by with me happily scrolling through the different pictures people have posted. Do you find that?  Anyway, i found this bed and i think it's fab.

A bed made of cake. Genius!

Pulled pork.

Wow, this weather is amazing! Finally summer has hit, which means lazy afternoon on the beach, BBQs and many many ice creams. Yay!

The other day we had a work party and decided to make the most of the sunshine with lots of summery tapas and lots (and lots) of sangria. Fab! My offering was pulled pork. I have never made it before but it is a favorite of mine so i thought i'd give it a go. Also Waitrose were doing a recipe card (a Heston one no less) so i followed that.

I have to admit it was fairly labour intensive, plus used so many weird and wonderful ingredients it felt a bit like George's marvelous medicine!

Basically, you make up the cooking liquor and then the pork is cooked in this slowly for 90 minutes. I used pork chops, although i think any cut of pork would have worked just as well. After this time you take out the pork and shred it with two forks.

The pork is then placed back in the liquor, which has (supposedly) turned into a thick BBQ sauce.

I actually cooked it off for a while longer (which is didn't say to do) as there was still more sauce then i wanted, although after about half an hour it had thickened nicely.

And the result? It is very rich and a little goes a long way. But in a sandwich with some coleslaw it's pretty damn good!

Dairy free cupcakes.

Good afternoon! Did you miss me? I had a wonderful relaxing week away. I am now back by the sea, refreshed and happy. Did you have a good week? What did you get up to?

One of the things i did whilst away was try and make some dairy free cupcakes. A friend of mine cannot eat dairy but still wants to eat cake (who doesn't?). So to help him out another friend of mine, Anti, and i set about trying to create a dairy free version.

We started with the basic Hummingbird vanilla cupcake recipe and then did some tinkering. First off we replaced the butter and the milk required in the sponge with soya aternatives. So far so good. We halved the mixture and made one half into lemon cupckaes by adding some lemon zest.

They went in the oven and cooked perfectly.

We then tried to make the butter icing, again replacing the butter and milk with soya aternatives. This is where it all went a wee bit wrong. Basically the mixture came out a lot runnier than it usually would. Not a distaster as we just added more icing sugar, but even then the consistency was a little odd. Oh well they still look good!

The result: lemon and vanilla dairy free cupcakes. But how did they taste? Well, i have to admit, they really were rather tasty. Well, Mr dairy free thought so anyway. Yay!

I'm off on holiday!

But seeing as i am a bit broke at the minute, i am going on holiday to London. A whole week away up in the big smoke with my chums! And i cannot wait, it's gonna be fab.

So i'll sign off till i get back. I hope you also have a fab week. See you soon!

Happy birthday Mrs Wise-Stewart!

Well hello there lovely people! I hope that you are having a good Monday, even if it is pouring with rain (well, it is here...hopefully it's not where you are).

I have just had the most dandy of weekends, lots of merriment was had by all (along with a few tequilas!). I went up to London town and had a wonderful weekend of fun, jazz and laughter....the best kind of weekend in my book!

It was a very dear friend of mine's birthday on Saturday so we planned lots of fun. We started off with a quick mooch about Venn Street weekly food market and picked up a few bits and bobs for a picnic on Clapham Common. Yummy.

Along with lots of other tasty things we bought some vegan cupcakes. None of us are vegan but they looked too good to pass up. I was dubious, but they were delicious!

We then headed to the Abbeville road summer fete. We wanted to enter my friend's (tiger) cat in the pet competition. Unfortunately they wouldn't accept cats, which is a shame as he would have kicked ass!

Later that day we all headed in to central to Ronnie Scotts, which was amazing. After that it all gets a bit hazy....as we might have had a few cheeky ones by then. Brilliant weekend, but slightly sore head!

The night was finished off by some late night sheesha and some food. Perfect.

Good times!