An Afternoon In Dublin

With the end of exams behind me, I decided to visit some friends in Dublin for the weekend. With all the obligatory catch-ups, and end-of-university celebrations out of the way, we spent an afternoon wandering around the city. Dublin is a fantastic city to explore. It is seeped in history- everywhere you look there are statues and monuments to great literary or political figures. And it doesn't hurt that there is a pub every 50 yards! 

After a stroll down Grafton Street listening to the street musicians we began to get a bit peckish, so we decided it was perfect time for lunch at The Market Bar. 

The Market Bar is a tapas restaurant set within an old warehouse (supposedly it was once a pig abattoir). With its red brick walls and lofty ceilings it has a great laid-back atmosphere,  and with it's lengthy bar I can imagine it to be an ideal place for a few casual drinks and nibbles with friends in the evening. 

With our eyes far larger than our stomachs we ordered two "large plates" which were far too much food for just the two of us.

I ordered the chorizo and feta salad (much to my friend's disapproval- 'how could anyone order a salad in a restaurant?!'), however it was delicious, spinach piled high with fried, spicy chorizo and drizzled with a balsamic honey dressing.

We also had the confit of duck, which was incredibly rich (thank god we also ordered the salad!), which arrived in a thick red wine sauce on a bed of cannelloni beans. 

Other than the food, my favourite aspect of the Market Bar was the decor. One wall is completely covered in shelves of old shoe blocks, while the others held some interesting (and bewildering) pieces of art.

Branches for antlers??

Feeling rather over-full off we went vowing never to eat again... until we reached Yogism. Yogism is a frozen yoghurt shop which allows you to self-serve a variety of flavours and toppings, and then... (here's the best bit) you are asked to guess the weight. If guessed correctly you are given it for free. Who can resist dessert when there's competition involved?!

Unfortunately our guess was 1 gram off the actual weight... next time I'm going back with a better guessing strategy! The shop has a bunch of old toys and games so we settled in to play (highly competitive) a game of Jenga. 

Until next time Dublin, you've been 'great craic'!

Love,
Fiona x

Chocolate Tiffin

This recipe is a personal favourite of ours and it is over-the-top chocolate-y and super easy to make. We call it 'chocolate tiffin' to make it sound somewhat fancy but really it's just 4 ingredients squished together to form one big delicious mess. 

It involves barely any cooking which is a huge plus for certain family members - Samara (last time I tried to use the oven I set fire to the oven gloves). 

Most people would probably want to add in some extra flavours such as raisins, marshmallows or something of the nut variety- but we like to keep it sweet, simple and chocolate-y to the extreme! (Also, we call raisins, 'satan berries' in our household so they are not welcome in the chocolate tiffin) 

Begin by breaking up 300g or so of dark chocolate and putting it in a heat proof bowl. We've tried this recipe with all sorts of chocolate varieties but we think dark chocolate gives it a much richer taste than milk chocolate- any brand will do.

Add in 100g of butter and 3tbsp of golden syrup into the bowl.

Golden syrup and chocolate- winning combo.

Melt this mixture over a pot of boiling water and stir it until it becomes liquid and looks like this...

In a colander placed over a plate, smoosh up 230g of digestive biscuits into little pieces. The colander is super useful as it gets rid of all the annoying little dust-like crumbs. We found using the end of a rolling pin is a very effective method to break up the pieces. 

Combine the smooshed digestives with the melted chocolate and mix it all up. Feel free to do a few taste tests- just to check it's all okay!

Pour the mixture into some kind of shallow tin lined with greaseproof paper, in order to avoid the gruelling clean up!

Pop it in the fridge for about 2 hours (or as long as you can bear to wait), until it's solid. Then take it out and cut it into reasonable (ish) sized portions. This time we made ours smaller in an attempt to make it last past today- so far half of it is gone so it's not going too well..

Finished! We promise you, any chocolate fan out there will love it- it is unbelievably good. Let us know if you experiment with any successful added flavours! We love the original so much we're yet to stray from it.. 

We're off to go eat a few more pieces before dinner now. 

Love, 

Samara and Anna xx

Nails Inc InStyle Colours

After a particularly nasty exam, I decided I needed to treat myself with an edition of InStyle for a fix of fashion heaven concentrated into 187 glossy pages. I was particularly excited when I saw that with each magazine they were giving away a free full size Nails Inc nail polish! Given that these polishes are normally £11 each, I thought this was a pretty good deal.

They are offering three summery shades - 'You're A Peach', 'Its Red, Babez', and 'Totes Pink'. I opted for the peachy shade as it's a new colour addition to my nail varnish collection. Although I'm not a massive fan of the names, the shades make up for it with their pretty colours, and impressive quality!

The bottle suggests that you paint two coats of the colour over a base coat, and finish with a top coat, but I found that due to the amazing pigmentation, you can get away with just one. So far they haven't chipped, so the lasting effect seems to be good. The peachy shade is perfect for summer, as it makes your skin look really tanned!

These colours are exclusive to the June edition of InStyle, so pick a copy up quickly before they're gone!

Love,
Anna xxx

Alphonso Mangos

Earlier this week we received the most exciting of presents. What might look like a fairly inconspicuous box actually holds one of the finest pleasures in life; the alphonso mango. These mangos grow primarily in India, and have an extremely limited season of only 2 months from March till May, which makes them all the more special. They are smaller in size than your typical mango, but certainly not lacking flavour. 

During the mango season, our Dad makes a weekly pilgrimage to the wholesale market to buy these little gems, which is conveniently only open before dawn- an endevavour only for the true alphonso addicts! 

When perfectly ripe, these fruits are deliciously sweet, soft and juicy, to the point where we grew up being instructed to only eat them in the bath- it is incredibly hard to avoid getting covered in their sticky juice!

Supposedly, the sign of a perfectly ripe mango is the visible 'cellulite' on its skin.

These fuit are good enough to eat on their own, in fact, they rarely stick around long enough for you to get more creative!

Alternatively, my favorite way to eat them is chopped over a bowl of greek yoghurt- what a perfect breakfast!

Until next year, Alphonsos!

Love Fiona xxx

Chocolate and Caramel Sandwich Shortbread

If you hadn't guessed already, we are a family of chocoholics. Give it to us in any form - baked goods, drinks, or just plain chocolate, we'll take it. When I found a recipe for these little wonders in the book 'Bake' by Tina Bester, I straight away had a utter yearning for them. My friend was celebrating her birthday that evening so I decided to whip up a batch for everybody.

275g butter, softened
160g caster sugar
300g flour
150g cornflower
275g dark chocolate, melted

For the caramel:
1 x 385g tin condensed milk
3 tablespoons golden syrup
60g butter

Before you start,  preheat your oven to 160°C. 

To make the shortbread; cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Then, fold in the flour and cornflour and roll into a sausage. 

The recipe calls for a 6cm- diameter sausage, and being a rule follower, I stuck to the recipe. However, next time I  make them I think I would make them slightly smaller- maybe 4 cm in diameter, so that they were more bite-size.

Pop your shortbread sausage in the fridge for about an hour, wrapped in clingfilm, to firm up before slicing. If you can't wait, then pop it in the freezer for 15 mins- should do the trick!

Next, slice the sausage into 4 mm-thick slices and place the slices on a lined baking sheet. 

Bake for  10-15 minutes.

While your shortbread is baking, melt the chocolate.

Then, once your biscuits are baked and cooled, dip each biscuit into the chocolate (covering half the biscuit). Let the chocolate harden - I put the biscuits in the fridge to speed up the time.

While the chocolate is hardening make the caramel by place the condensed milk, syrup and butter in a pot. Simmer gently for about 5 mins, stirring it all the time until the caramel thickens and darkens slightly.

Spread the caramel on the biscuits, and sandwich them together. Voila!

I would seriously recommend you make these biscuits - they are super super tasty. I took them to my friend's birthday dinner, and they were gone in seconds, so I can safely say that everyone enjoyed them!

A nice tea and biscuit break in between masses of dull revision.

Lots of love, 
Anna xxx