Hen Do Party Antics!

It’s been a long time coming, but finally one of my best friends will be getting married in 3 weeks time – eeeek! With all the lockdown restrictions over the past year and a half, this will be the third time they’ve had to move their big day, so fingers crossed it will be third time lucky.

For the original Hen last year we had a big weekend in Bath lined up, but with so much uncertainty over the past year or so, we decided a girls night get together at home was the safest and least stressful option… and it certainly didn’t mean we had any less of a good time!

We had the perfect setup in the bride-to-be’s gorgeous family home garden complete with cute hen themed decor of course. A generous spread of crips, crackers and dips to accompany our cocktails and pink prosecco, we were set for the evening ahead.

A few drinks deep and we got the hen party games going. The maid of honour did a brilliant job of preparing the games including a fun quiz, a ‘guess who’ game and later on ‘swing the ball-sack’, hilarious!

What a laugh that was; simple but very fitting and extremely funny game to get us on our feet. The bride-to-be was the overall winner too 🙂

With their outdoor pizza oven, we were even treated to our very own personalised pizzas each. I chose to top mine with olives, sweetcorn, basil and rocket – delish way to soak up the alcohol!

Overall an absolutely fabulous night with the girls laughing, giggling and just being silly, the way a Hen Do should be!

Girls just wanna have fun… am I right? ❤

Simple One Ingredient Recipe; Cashew Butter

Happy sunny Sunday babes! It’s a scorcher of a weekend here in the UK so I’m taking a little break from the sun and doing some recipe testing. In fact, this can hardly be called a recipe when it literally uses only one ingredient – cashews!

It’s so hard to find a good quality, creamy cashew butter in the supermarket, so I prefer to make my own to achieve that desirable, silky smooth consistency.

Simply roast a batch of raw cashews for 10 minutes and let them cool, before transferring to a blender and whipping them up. It does take quite a bit of blending and mixing, but it’s super satisfying to see the cashews transform from powder, to a sort of dough until finally becoming nut butter.

I’ve always used my Magic Bullet blender which does the job for small batches like this, I just make sure to let it cool a little every so often to avoid over-heating.

My personal preference is to add a generous pinch of salt to my cashew butter to bring out that delicious roasted nut taste, but this is of course optional.

Super simple, cheap and healthy home made cashew butter perfect for drizzling on porridge, dipping apple slices into or even spooning straight from the jar – delish!

English Red Rose

Sunday’s Euros football final marked a memorable day in history for the England squad. Not only was it a massive achievement making it all the way to the finals, but the entire country was on a high as everyone united in celebration together again.

In honour of the English rose I wore red for the occasion and it was a joy to see the pubs everywhere packed out and buzzing with excitement. Whilst we didn’t quite bring it home, they certainly did put up a fight against Italy and made the country proud; well done boys!

Bottomless Brunch; Grind London Bridge

It doesn’t get much better than a boozy brunch on a Saturday arvo with the girls. With it being one of our besties birthdays this weekend too, it was the perfect excuse to book in for a table at Grind in London Bridge and let the boozy brunch commence…

Grind has always been my favourite cafe spot in town to grab a good coffee or nice evening cocktails with the ladies. Knowing how great their food is too, I had high hopes for their bottomless brunch deal at £15 per head free flowing prosecco for a whole 90 minutes! They even have the proper champagne coupe glasses which really is the only way bubbly should be served.

Arriving at 2pm for our reservation, the place was already buzzing as everyone was getting merry on bubbly. In fact, the general atmosphere in London was electric as the nation geared up for the England football match taking place that night. It was great to see the city alive again and people just having a good time following lockdown life.

Service was fabulous at Grind and the food delicious. I had their sweet potato harissa cakes served with yogurt and a poached egg cooked to perfection. The girls enjoyed theirs too and I just had to have a taste of my friend’s buttermilk pancakes which were divine.

The hour and a half sure did go quickly, but we certainly did make the most of our prosecco top-ups, my glass was never less than half full! So then we enjoyed a sobering walk along the South Bank via a quick stop at Borough Market where the birthday girl got a box of free doughnuts 😉

We ended our evening at an outdoor pop-up on South Bank Between the Bridges where there was live music, food trucks and more booze of course. The warm summer air made for the ideal setting to enjoy outdoor sundowner drinks.

I would highly recommend the Grind bottomless brunch and will most definitely be booking in again soon myself. Overall a top day back in London Town having fun and getting boozy with my besties ❤

GRIND LONDON – https://grind.co.uk/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-MeOs4HK8QIVh-_tCh37fgMkEAAYASAAEgJZk_D_BwE