Sunday Lunch in Edinburgh

We recently headed down to Malmaison to try out the "Biggest sunday lunch in town".... this sounded like a challenge to me. Armed with our Living Social vouchers & stretchy trousers we headed down to Leith. 

Malmaison in Edinburgh is located on the shore & is a beautiful building overlooking the water. By some small miracle we actually arrived early, so we decided to grab a drink in the bar before lunch. I ordered a Bloody Mary, which I had been craving since leaving the gym 40 minutes earlier! It lived up to expectations, I really enjoyed it... although the celery was quickly removed. It's one salad item that I just can't get on board with.

Once we grabbed our table we got stuck into the unlimited hors d'oeuvres from the Chef's Table. I think we all had at least two trips up and feasted on bread, cured meat, pate, salad and salmon amongst other things. I think I could easily have filled up on the Chef's Table alone! However the biggest lunch was going to live up to it's name. 

For my Main I ordered the fish cake. As you can see they looked amazing, and they tasted just as good. We also ordered burgers and cod.. all the main courses were a huge success.

Finally as part of our deal we got a desert  - I ordered the sticky toffee pudding. Although I've got a very sweet tooth even I couldn't really fit this final course in. It was delicious but certainly not needed! An option of a lighter pudding would be nice... particularly as we're coming into spring.

We will defiantly be back to enjoy lunch again... next time we might not eat for the weekend before!!

Have you tried the Malmaison Sunday Lunch? 

xxx

Easy DIY party bag fillers

In a few months time I'm due to be bridesmaid for one of my childhood friends. I'm so excited.... and I'm more excited for her Hen party (because that's closer!). 

I've been putting together Hen party bags.... I always think it's difficult to make the bags look full without spending a fortune. I turned to my trusty friend Pintrest for some ideas & found a suggestion to wrap tape around tea lights. I thought I'd share my attempts.

I found this really easy and a cheap solution as fillers - I already had a bag of tea lights and tape that I never knew what to use it for.

After choosing my tape of choice I worked round the candles. As you can see once I got into the flow I decided to make a few different versions.

What do you think?

xxx

Burger Fridays

We've been eating out a lot lately, so the other Friday when we really wanted to head out but we were meant to be saving some money we decided to try The Public House at The Village Hotel. They do a deal each Friday for one pound burgers! How wrong could we go for a quid? 

The bar was absolutely heaving with lots of people drinking & quite a few burgers heading out to other tables. The Village is fairly new in Edinburgh and I'm not sure they were expecting it to be so busy, the staff seamed a little overwhelmed when we tried to order. 

Once we managed to order & get a settled in a seat our food arrived fairly quickly which was great - we were both starving!  Well I have to say I was impressed with the food. We paid £1 for each topping and for chips - meaning each burger came to a grand total of £3! You could even order a double burger for £1 extra.  

After hitting the gym first the burgers were exactly what I needed. The presentation was pretty basic but they tasted great & we got a lot for our money. The burgers were tasty and seamed pretty good quality considering they were so cheap!  I accompanied my burger with a glass of wine which made for a great Friday night tea.

If you are looking for a cheap Friday night out I recommend trying it.  We will be back! Have you been? Did you agree it was a good deal?


xxxx

Beauty update

I've had some fantastic new additions to my beauty kit recently that I thought I would share my thoughts on.

I know that every man & his wife have the Naked shadows... however I had to join them &  yup I love them too! I picked up the Naked 2 palette as I think it's the best colour mix for paler skin. Since I've had the set all of my other shadows have been made redundant. I can't recommend this enough! I also think this makes a great present.

I've recently replaced my trust St Tropez for the Cocoa Brown 1 hour tan. This has a lot to do with my last minute decisions to do a tan. I think this is fantastic & have even been known to put this on before going to work! I personally don't think the developing smell is too strong. It's also good to know that I only need to leave it on for one hour before I can shower of the top layer.

On one of my more rushed days I actually put this on before a gym class and showered after. Although I wouldn't recommend it, it did actually work and saved me from showing off my pale Scottish skin! 

Finally, when i was in america I picked up this ultra repair cream. I picked mine up in Sephora. This is a really handy cream to have around, I have been using this whenever my skin flairs up. It's done a good job of moisturising and calming down my irritated skin. Considering my skin was at it's worst when I picked this up, I was really impressed. 

Have you used any of these products? What did you think?

A long weekend in Milan

I recently had a lovely weekend in Milan with my mum ... to celebrate a rather big birthday (for her)!

One of the best things that we did was the food tour. We were really lucky to have a day when it was just me, my mum and the guide. We were taken around a range of different foodie places & even included a wee Aperitivo! Aperitivo is my absolute favourite part of Italy. Our guide was so enthusiastic and gave us so many ideas for the weekend - I really felt like we learnt a lot from the tour.  

The tour really informed the rest of our trip & we ended up spending a lot of time in the Brera district. Mostly looking in shoe shops and tasting the Prosecco!  We visited N'ombra de vin - where we had a lovely glass of prosecco. We spent quite a lot of our time admiring the Milano fashion, The D&G Martini bar & Armani hotels were fantastic places to check out the fashion.

Our one very touristy activity was going to the roof of the Duomo. The views are absolutely unmissable!

xxx

Moisturiser switch up

After finishing my latest Elemis Pro Collagen  moisturiser I decided (again) to try to find a more affordable substitute. 

I've been through this process quite a few times but I always return to Elemis slightly disappointed in the rivals. This time I ordered Emma Hardie AM/PM moisturiser to see if it was up to the challenge!

The 50ml size was much more resonable than my normal 30ml Pro Collagen moisturiser. I ordered this from Feel Unique and got the normal super quick delivery. Time to get testing!

So far I am really enjoying using this moisturiser. It's thicker than Pro Collagen however I don't find it too thick on my skin. The moisturiser absorbs quickly making it easy to wear under make up. I tend to put on a little more at night. Plus, the smell is Devine!

Now that I've tried this I'm not surprised I've heard a lot about Emma Hardie. I certainly want to try her cleansing balm now.

So will AM/PM moisturiser replace My staple Elemis Pro Collagen? I'm not sure that I would go that far ....but I am sure I will be using this in between my ProCollagen  splurges!! 

Getting out of our food rut

Sometimes we fall into the worst food ruts... you know when you eat the same thing every night! More pasta pesto anyone?  

I've been making an effort recently to switch things up and try to have a few more exciting dinners. I thought I would try to share a few of my ideas and recipes with you.

I always aim to make something quick that I can throw together after the gym, the other night  home made fishcakes were on the menu for the first time.

My first attempt at fishcakes - tasted pretty good too!

I was surprised how easy these were to make.

Combine mashed potato and cooked salmon with some Piri Piri sauce (to add a little spice!!) chives and seasoning. Once fully mixed through this mixture can be shaped into fishcakes and breadcrumbed. At this point I did have a small panic that we would end up with glorified mash - trust me with persistence the shapes will hold!  Dip the fishcakes into the flour, followed by egg & breadcrumbs. Once complete fry off the fishcakes and serve with salad & a slice of lemon.

Let me know if this recipe works for you too!

xxx

Flower School

I spent my evening a couple of nights ago at an Easter Flower workshop. I had such a lovely night & I wanted to share it with you. I wasn't sure what to expect when we signed up for flower arranging... was it going to be full of old biddies making floral displays for their front rooms?

I have to say it was the opposite! bringing the cool to flower arranging! The class was around 3 hours long and was held in a big empty warehouse in Edinburgh. With a few well placed decorations the warehouse was transformed into a more glamorous version of itself - ready for our attempts at making beautiful arrangements.

Lovely welcome to Narcissus Flower School!
Some potential wedding inspiration too?!

We were welcomed with a lovely glass of fizz when we arrived. They even a selection berries in the glasses - lovely! We were given a little time to enjoy our drinks before the first demonstration.

Some sparkles to start the evening

We were making a relaxed Easter display in a large vase followed by some Easter baskets and eggs. 

Now how to turn this pile of flowers into a lovely display....

What do you think? The aim was to have a relaxed floaty flower display. I struggled with this unstructured look at first however it's now really grown on me. Particularly as the tulips and blossom have bloomed.

Step two was the eggs & nests. I wasn't brave enough to balance mine on the arrangement!

I really enjoyed my evening and would highly recommend heading along to Narcissus Flower School!

xxx