Club Burrito

Seeing as this is my first post in two months, it's obvious that this blogging-whilst-at-uni thing is working out fantastically, but as an apology I have a little gem to blog about.

I first went to Club Burrito a couple of weekends ago with some friends, I had seen it before, hard to miss seeing as it's canary yellow exterior stands out so brightly against the other shops, but hadn't got round to going in, but ever since the boys took me in I've been back at least four times.

You basically choose whether you'd like a burrito, nachos, a salad or a tacos, then your meat, chicken, pork or beef and the girls behind the counter make your dreamy mexican cravings turn into reality.

But one of the coolest things about Club Burrito is the bar, after your order has been made up you go up to the bar to pay, and the wall behind the till is lined up with cool and colourful mexican bottles, mainly made up of different types of tequila.

I had been banging on to Faye about the place ever since I had first gone and we decided we would go to cure our woolly hungover heads with the bright interior and comfort food.

I think it's safe to say that Club Burrito has gained yet another fan, because a couple of days later, when the rest of our housemates moved out Faye and I were at a loss of what to do with ourselves.
She looked at me, and I looked at her, one of us said "Club Burrito?"
5 mins later we were on our way.

To try and avoid a very likely food coma, we went to the park with a football and a frisbee.

Not many games were played because the fact that we were so full made rapid movements challenging, so we made do with strolling around in the sunshine and people watching.

The weather has been so hot and lovely recently, I've got some exciting things planned this summer so hopefully long may it continue!

Sensing Spaces

A couple of days ago I spied a picture on Instagram, I can't remember what it was, just that it was about an exhibition that was coming to an end very soon, Sensing Spaces at the Royal Academy. 

I showed mum and yesterday we went up to the big smoke to check it out.

There were seven different installations, each aiming to generate senses by using body, volume, vistas and smells.

This was the first piece, an enormous wooden castle by Pezo von Ellrichshausen, you had to climb up one of the four towers to reach the top of the fort.

When you reached the top there were several peepholes, but this one was my favourite, because when you peeked through you came face to face with one of the beautiful gold angels that holds up the ceiling.

This was most certainly the liveliest part of the exhibition, Diébédo Francis Kéré had made an enormous pyramid which was formed out of plastic with lots of holes in,

You grabbed yourself some straws and had to stick them in yourself, all the littlies in the exhibition loved this, and they weren't the only ones,

Mum definitely had a lot less trouble than I did, I was tiptoeing around for ages trying to get them in,

(Sporting a lovely skiing tan beard, but that's a story for another time)

 We walked through a curtain made of strips of material and found ourselves in a snowy woodland,

One of the architects, Li Xiaodong, had transformed one of the rooms into a woodland maze, we could hear a faint crunching noise but we didn't really think anything of it...

Until you reached the centre of the maze which had been filled with stones, and the littlies had been stomping about, creating a stark contrast between the peacefulness of the wood and the noisiness of the gravel!

An enormous mirror made the room double in size, and out of all the pieces, I think this was my favourite.

But that doesn't mean that there isn't more to see!

We slipped into another room through a curtain and into a blacked out room, where Kengo Kuma had created these beautifully lit up, for lack of a better word (sorry Kengo), sticks, which had been fragranced to bring in the sense of smell.

The last one I want to show you is by Grafton Architects, which was really quite scary because the slab  was so oppressive and intimidating, it felt like it could fall on you at any minute!

It's a shame because the pictures, no matter how hard I tried, could capture how impressive each piece was!

Skinny Topcorn

I'm a little bit addicted to popcorn.

In fact, I'm so addicted I had to stop writing halfway through this post to go and get some, and here's the proof:

It's my favourite snack, and before every lecture (and sometimes in the middle of lectures too) I make Leonnie come with me to the University cafe to get some.

Depending on what's on offer, she gets Sweet 'N' Salty or Salted, and I go a little off the beaten track and get Wasabi Glaze or Heat 'N' Sweet.

Touchdown cafe is the only place I can find that sells snack bags of nearly every flavour of Metcalfe's popcorn, apart from Sainsbury's, where I go to get my Heat 'N' Sweet fix in the form of a sharing bag- which certainly isn't for sharing.

And to top it off, for Valentine's Day this year I got given this:

A bulk box of 12 bags of Wasabi popcorn... Delish!

Amazon sells these babies too.

Salmon & Avocado Mash

The other night Faye and I found some salmon steaks in the freezer and decided to get cooking. 

This was so easy to make because all you do is pop the salmon in the oven and get cracking with the quinoa, which, by the way, is really quick to cook, speedier than rice and pasta!

I heard about avocado mash from Russell from SBC on Instagram, and considering that I love avocado,  and I love quinoa, it seemed like a match made in heaven.

I've made it several times and it's a tasty alternative to rice or pasta, because, frankly, I do get quite bored of those.

Two Salmon steaks

1 medium sized leek

Quinoa or Bulgar wheat, amount depending on portions

1 vegetable stock cube

1 clove of garlic

1 avocado

2 tsp lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 200C, and whilst you're waiting for it to heat up, chop your leeks into disks and pop half into the bottom of a little foil parcel, place the salmon on top and season with S&P.

Whilst the salmon is cooking away grab a pan of boiling water, add the stock cube and the quinoa or bulgar wheat,  I used a mixture of both, boil until fluffy, and drain using a sieve.

 Mash up your avocado so it's completely smooth, and mince or finely chop the garlic.

Add both the garlic and the avo into the quinoa, 

Squeeze in a bit of lemon juice and season.

It should go a slightly unappetising light green colour, but persevere, because it's really tasty.

After about 20 mins of the salmon being in the oven, take it out and check it. If it's done, all systems go,  pile it all on a plate.

  
I can't have dairy, Faye and Tilly had their suppers a little differently, they had their salmon cooked with a little cream cheese and served with what looked like the creamiest mash in the world, I didn't mind though because the avocado makes the quinoa taste so creamy that you wouldn't know it was dairy free.

Term 2 Catch-up

I'm a bad, bad, bad, bad blogger. I know.

My first term literally flew past, and now that I'm nearly in the middle of my second semester I thought I'd share some recent and not-so-recent pictures with you!

This beautiful girl is Leonnie, she's my PR partner in crime but sadly she doesn't actually live in Canterbury, she commutes from about 40 minutes away. 

She came down for a sleepover and put up with my pokey room one Monday night so we could have a night out together!

Two weeks ago Mum and I went to Yo Sushi in Westfield. If I'm honest, I'm not too keen on Westfield, unless you want to get up at ridiculous o'clock, it's usually crowded and people barge, you really have to have a pep talk with yourself and sharpen your elbows if you want to get anything done.

It's actually a smack bang half way point for Mum and I, between Suffolk and Canterbury making it perfect for lunch to eat my favourite cuisine ever.

These two, I will willingly admit are my two favourite boys in the world.

What a statement to make, but they are absolutely hilarious, and I'm just as good at them at poker, which is great

James // Lottie // Harry

I finally did it.
I had my first ever Dominos pizza, I know I'm a little bit late to the table but it's life changing, plus I can choose to have a pizza sans cheese.

Being able to order pizza from my bed and skip down to the door in my pyjamas to collect it from the delivery man wasn't really something I needed to get into

Let's hope this posting malarky becomes more of a regular thing xxx