National Burger Day

Today is national burger day in the UK and I thought I would share with you how I decided to celebrate at home.

Although I don't eat meat I do love a good veggie burger, but so often they go wrong, too dry or let's be frank so dull and lacking flavour that you really might as well be eating salted cardboard.

Veggie burgers are not the simplest of things to make especially if your blender as a small accident like mine but I cannot recommend the honestly healthy spicy bean burger recipe enough. It is flavoursome, can be mashed with a fork and satisfies even the most anti vegetarian palates. Unfortunately this recipe is not online but the website does have a few free recipes available such as the halloumi and carrot patties if you want to try an alternative.

Normally I would eat them with a serving of spicy sweet potato wedges and sweet salsa but when it's national burger day you need to go big.

I toped my burger with Swiss cheese, avocado and the much aligned beet root for a tart edge.

On the side I threw in some onion rights and spicy wedges (coat in a light spray of oil and roll in paprika, chilli pepper and pepper to recreate).

How would you mix up your burger?

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Giveaway- Minty Nail Kit

I am doing a give away so you can recreate R's manicure from yesterday's post at home and throwing in a contrasting colour for toes and some of my favourite hand care products. The give away includes the following:

1. Essie 3 in 1 glaze

This acts as a base coat, strengthener and topcoat. I use it all the time and gives an amazing glossy finish. 

2. Essie nail polish in mint candy apple

This was the colour worn by R in yesterday's post and it is a refreshing minty pastel green to add some zing to your finger tips. 

3. Essie nail polish in tart deco

This peachy Coral is the perfect shade for summer toes and has adorn my feet for most of this summer. 

4. Sally Hansen maximum growth cuticle pen

I am obsessed with these pens and have one by my bed, one in my desk draw at work and another in my bag. Simple click the end and swipe the nourishing oil on your cuticles. 

5. Neil's Yard bee lovely hand cream

Softening, rich and quickly absorbing, keep this in your bag to maintain soft supple hands. 

If you fancy winning leave me a note below with your favourite mid week treat. It can be anything as long as it feels like a treat to you.

I will pick my favourite on the 1st September. Good luck. 

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A little bit of Pastille

The Granary Wharf area of Leeds has undergone a revolution in the time the I have been in Leeds. It's is also one if my local stomping grounds. Traditionally it has been home to bars and eateries but nestled in Waterman's place Pastille has opened.

It is a candy coloured perfection of a nail bar offering a variety of nail treatments for women and men both on a booking and walk in bases. I booked R and I in for manicures.

I first heard about Pastille from a colleague who booked in on her lunch hour. It is open late on a Thursday so you can pop in for a post work treat like we did and unusually it is also open on a Sunday in the event that you need a weekend pick me up. It's Los conveniently located near a number of Hotels and would be the perfect place to host a hen do pamper session.

I went for the Gel mani choosing Opi black cherry berry and R had a Dash Mani in Essie's mint candy apple. I am afraid I left my camera at home but managed a few picks on my phone. if your in Leeds and fancy booking your own mid week treat check out the website for more details.

The staff are lovely and friendly. They clearly have a passion for their job and were more than happy to show us the different nail art effects including studs, stripes, quilting and marbling to name a few. As you leave you are handed a little tub of complimentary minty bath salts to continue the experience at home.

Afterwards we headed to Cuvée on the corner of Waterman's place for a pornstar martini and a cheeky shot called a Lemon meringue.

Check out the blog tomorrow for a chance to win a kit to recreate R's manicure at home.

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A little bit of a Mad Hatter's tea party

In the heart of London there is a eccentric experience waiting for you, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party at the Sanderson Hotel. I went for J's birthday as a cream tea treat.

The outside of the hotel belittles the long bar, outdoor court yard and eating area that await you once you go throught the diaphanous muslin entrance. Recently themed cream tea have become the thing to do for various celebrations from hen do's to birthday parties, to a simple but pricey catch up and the mad hatters tea is something a little bit more quirky than the average.

We arrived to find the hotel packed with various groups of revellers dressed in splashes of colour and bright summery prints, unfortunately this meant we had to wait for a while before being escorted to our seats.

The table was set up with a sugar cube containing music box, a copy of withering heights and tea sets that when placed together created a disconnected picture.

We all ordered champagne with our tea and the waitress brought over purfume bottles of their special blended tea to determine which one we wanted to have. They were strawberry and cream, mint chocolate, rubbarb and apple pie.

I went for the coffee option but I am informed that the strawberry and cream tasted a little like warm juice.

We then found the table laden with all variety of delicacies and treats. Ranging from rolled sandwiches of egg cress, cucumber and cream cheese, salmon and ham.

There were little quiches and an olive scone with herby butter to round off the savoury dishes. It was however the deserts than made this meal. There was a drink me potion of passion fruit and pannacotta to consume through a straw.

A chocolate tea cup with mouse containing popping candy (my favourite item).

A Victoria sponge and white chocolate cheese cake with a mango yolk. The cheese cake was probably my least favourite dish.

This was then topped off with strawberry and cream mashmellow and a carrot shaped confection with ginger filling.

As J summed it up it was a posher more expensive version of man versus food.

We then headed to the Westbury Hotel for another drink before heading off into the night.

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A little bit of Y Not Festival pt2

Following a thundery night of torrential rain L and I revised our plans and decided to head back to Leeds following the final act on the second day rather than stay for part of the third day.

The second day was themed hero's and people really took to the theme. I was running low on juice so I had to ration the photographs but as you can see from these photographs some people really took to the theme.

Following the rain the ground started to resemble a churned up rugby pitch.

As you can see it had all got a bit muddy and my new Hunter Wellies got a fair bit of use. In fact they were my hero's on hero day (yep I cringed as I typed it too) 

One of the tents required you to remove your shoes which was something that more than one person struggled with!

This then lead to a bit of confusion as to whose wellies were whose.

We tried to get a last Pint of Greensleeves in but unfortunately they had run out so we opted for Saxon's Ruby Tuesday which is a red cloudy cider. According to L it tasted like cherry sours, personally I'm not convinced that it did but it is the red equivalent of Greensleeves.

It had all got a bit too much for these superheroes.

We packed up the car and head to a final stretch of bands. Ash were on the big gin stage, L decided that she wanted Tim Wheeler's shirt which you can just about make out.

Here is some more of the bands we saw.

If you are interested there are a limited number of tickets on sale for Y not festival 2014 through the official website.

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A little bit of Y Not Festival pt1

As you will be aware L and I headed off to Y not festival this weekend. When we arrived we set up camp with the patent two person tent before lining up to get our program. Here is tiger tent.

We then headed to a tent and worked out who we wanted to see and wandered round the site.

We stumbled upon this area. I'm not really sure what it is but I really liked the hanging lampshades.

This year there was a salon which catered to more quirky, less mainstream and more acoustic sets. It's also served a pretty good elderberry fizz. On the first daywe saw this chap. But we also saw the red paintings and I suggest you check out their cover of  mad world 

We also indulged in some of Saxon's best cider - Greensleeves, it literally tastes like applesours and is a cloudy flat tart cider. It is so good that it had sold out by 1pm on the second day.

Check out this guy who was dressed in full Yorkshire get up. I'm not really sure what the man in the for ground is doing either.

There were a lot of different wellies around but these jelly bean wellies really attracted L's eye.

We headed to see Dan Le Sac v Scoobious Pip but the set was cut very short by a terribly rude electric thunder storm which resulted in the whole area being evacuated and sent back to their tents. I'm afraid that I did not take any photo's of this but the weather was impressive.

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Web Inspiration: Apartment Therapy's Style challenge

There are a number of websites that I trawl for inspiration and Apartment Therapy, which is American based, is one such website.

During August they are running a Style challenge to help you refresh the style of one (or all) of your rooms. Whilst I rent and therefore there is a limited amount that I can do to change the style of my flat , my bedroom could do with something, so I thought I would sign up o the challenge and see if I can give my room a little something else.

The first day requires you to make an assessment of your taste using their quiz. I'm not going to replicate the quiz as you can check it out here but I will share the outcome of my analysis.

My analysis
Personal Style - questions 1&2
My answers are fairly eclectic but tend towards classic with a an edge or a twist. My influences all have a little something unexpected or was innovative at its time. Experiences seem to feature heavily in my personal taste with my answers being related to specific memories.

What I find pleasing- questions 3&5
These showed me that sociability and a welcoming atmosphere are important with little touches. I found it interesting that the two rooms I picked were very uncluttered but lived in and allowed for movement. One element that was present was warm dark wood and neutral walls and a focus upon natural materials in unusual ways.

Aspirations- questions 4&6
These questions point to a welcoming, elegantly comfortable space which allows me to display mementos.

So why not take up the challenge if nothing else it's a useful tool to make you actively think about the space you inhabit. I will be making a pintrest board to help me identify my influences. What are your inspirations?

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