Blogger's Brunch

Last Thursday I finally met up with two of my favourite bloggers, Ibbs and Emily, super close to home in Cambridge.

We went to Bill's, a restaurant that I had never been to before, but read lots of good blog posts on so was keen to try.

Annoyingly, I was late, but the girls ordered for me and luckily, the food came just after I arrived.
The best bit about eating with bloggers?
Totally normal to take photos of your food!

And Instagram it as well, obviously.

 Ibbs went for the Bill's breakfast, with sausage, fried eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, smoked bacon, toast and bubble and squeak. 

Em went for scrambled eggs on toast with salmon.

And I went for the Bill's vegetarian breakfast.

I am not a vegetarian, but I easing myself into the world of eggs, up until a few months ago I wouldn't eat them (stuff like cakes doesn't count because I can't see them)

My eggs were poached (my fave) served on two slices of toast, one with guacamole and one with red pepper hummus, with mushrooms and fried tomatoes, drizzled with sweet chili.

It sounds like a weird combination, but it ticked every single tickable box and I intend to recreate it.

I have a confession, I haven't ever eaten a proper, full English breakfast, I've had bits of it, but this is the best I've ever had and appeals way more than the norm.

As we walked out, I snapped lots of pictures of the decor, which is probably one of the things that Bill's is known for.
I didn't realise until after, but these chalkboards had recipes on them:

It's full of interesting knick knacks, most of which you can buy. Cool is an overused word, but for lack of a better one, it's a really cool restaurant.

I am defo coming back here ready to buy some pots of excitingness!

After brunch we sat and talked for a couple of hours, then Emily showed Ibbs and I the sights of Cambridge!

It's so fun meeting bloggers, I forgot that I hadn't actually met these girlies in person before and it felt like I had known them for ages, plus no bizarre "what are you doing?!" looks when you whip out your camera and snap a picture of some eggs!

Stuffed Aubergine

Stuffed vegetables are one of my favourite autuminal meals, stuffed marrow, stuffed pepper, oh heaven!

Last night I cooked my mum and I dinner, and I did stuffed aubergine.
Except, it wasn't really stuffed, it was more piled high with Bolognese deliciousness!

For 2 for dinner, or 4 for lunch:
2 aubergines
Salt & pepper
A little olive oil
Stuffing (Bolognese is best, but ratatiolle with mozzarella could work equally well!)

Preheat your oven to about 200 celcius, split the aubergines in half, score them in a criss-cross kinda way, lightly drizzle with oil (not too much because aubergines have a tendancy to soak up any oil when it's about and you don't want it slimy) and season with S&P.

Leave them in until you can stab them easily with a fork, it takes me about 25 minutes.

Scrape out some of the centre with a spoon (I found a grapefruit spoon worked best)

Stuff them full of deliciousnessness, mixing the sauce with the flesh of the aubergine and put them back in the oven for about 10-15 mins.

Serve with your favourite side and feast away!

A Night Of Over-Eating

Last night Maisie and I went round Charlotte's for dinner, as you know, I like to eat lots, so this was perfect because, once again, I ended up in pain and with a stitch from eating too much. Thank goodness I was wearing leggings. 

Char gave us sushi to start, I could live off sushi and I think that I could cope with being vegetarian if I got to eat sushi all of the time, but only if I was allowed fish sushi too.

 This picture makes me seriously want some sushi..

We had an enormous bowl of my favourite things in the whole world.

They're not a new discovery to me but Tesco sell frozen soy beans, and when these little babies are defrosted they taste exactly like edamame beans which is because edamame are basically young or baby soy beans! They're only £1.60 for all of these!!

I just defrost them by running them under hot water, sprinkle salt on, then scoff away!

For the main, we had cajun chicken with roasted veggies
We marinaded diced chicken breast in a cajun spice mix that we found in Char's cupboard, organised, then pan fried it until it was cooked.
For the veggies we cut up 3 carrots, 1 pepper and 2 red onions into chunks, drizzled in olive oil and seasoned, then popped them in an oven at 200 celcius for about 40 mins.

Whilst Maisie sorted out her pudding, I looked out of the window..
Charlotte has 49 ducks.
49.

Maisie did poached pears in spiced red wine, I'm going to recreate this soon, so I'll save the recipe, it was so so nice, and I don't even like pears but I loved them in this,. it would be the perfect wintery pudding because it tastes just like mulled wine!!

 

My offering was red velvet brownies, someone told me this week that they were the best brownies that they'd ever tasted. Woohoo!!

We also freezed three bananas, added 3 dessert spoonfuls of cocoa powder and 1 of peanut butter, blended them and had dairy free ice cream, we didn't have much of this because by now we were in pain!

We spent the rest of the evening sat talking in the bathroom (?!), going through Char's wardrobe (I needed to borrow some clothes) and even more talking, I'm going to miss them big time when I go to uni!

Aldeburgh Carnival Part 2

After coming back from the shops some of the boys got a bit peckish, and seeing as I was the only girl in the house at that time, one of them asked me "Lottie, please can you make us something?"

I had a look in the fridges and one thing was for sure, we had a lot of bacon.

Bacon sandwiches it was!

 

A few hours later we decided it was about dinner time, and even though I was completely full, I wouldn't say no to pizza, who says you have to be hungry to eat?

 
This genuinely is one of my favourite foodie places, apart from "PIZZA", I don't really think they have a name, but they often have a stall in my local town's market place, after spying them stone baking pizzas on request and it only taking a maximum of 4 mins to actually get that pizza from a ball of dough into a delicious stone baked pizza gripped between your hands, it's the ultimate fast food, sorry McDonald's.

Plus you get to see them make it, I'm nosy so I think this is a big plus.

 

Josh went for his favourite, ham and pineapple.

And I went for my favourite (and Josh's worst nightmare because he detests mushrooms), ham and mushroom.

The staff were really acomodating and didn't put any cheese on mine, thank goodness!

Then some of us couldn't hold on for the 1 minute walk back to the house..

But when we were back, we feasted.

  

  Because the house was rented, and because there were so many of us staying there, glasses and drink containers became limited. I did spy Bridie drinking wine out of a tea cup, but Josh , G and Charlie had better ideas, Pinterest eat your heart out, they used jars.

After we finished our pizzas and drinks, we made our way out onto the beach.

As it gets dark the town takes part in another parade, only this time there's no dress up, you each have a lantern, you start in the town centre and finish on the beach. I used to do it every year when I was younger but we had forgotten about it until everyone turned up at the beach with their lanterns.

I was seriously kicking myself for not bringing my Canon with me, but it would have got broken, so these will have to do!

After everyone arrives at the beach there's a beautiful firework display.
These big ones are my favourite, the ones that sneak into the sky quietly, then explode with a loud bang!

Then last but not least, we ended up at the fairground to go on Rock City.
Yes, I know, it may be over priced and tacky, but it's my favourite ride and so so so much fun!!

 I just wish I hadn't have had to come home the day after!!