The Foodie Post - Stimulatte

If you happen to follow me on Instagram, you would have probably realised by now that going out for breakfast/brunch is one of my favourite things to do. 

In my opinion, there's no better way to spend a weekend morning than going out with Tom or catching up with friends over a yummy meal, either at an exciting new cafe or our old favourite hangouts.

Seeing as I'm always snapping photos of my food on these mornings, I thought it might be fun to share a few pictures, as well as my thoughts on the places we visit here on the blog. 

Starting out with one of our new favourite finds - Stimulatte.

It's a little cafe in Subiaco with great atmosphere,  good coffee (I'm not actually a coffee drinker but Tom assures me it's good) and a interesting breakfast menu that's a little different to your standard bacon/eggs /pancakes option. Don't get me wrong - I love pancakes (which I'm sure you'll see in future posts), but I love places that offer a slightly more unique selection, and Stimulatte does just that.

On this particular day I had the

sweet corn fritters with smashed avocado and poached eggs

 (as did the two other friends we went with) and Tom chose the

grilled chorizo and salsa verde with parmesan scrambled eggs

. It was a delicious breakfast and with the generous serving sizes we were all left feeling rather full, but very satisfied!

Also worth a mention is there ice chocolate. Ice chocolate tends to be my drink of choice and it seems I've become somewhat of an "ice chocolate snob" lately. Stimulatte's one gets a big thumbs up from me, coming in at second place out of all the ice chocolates that I've tried (and I've tried a lot!)

I'll let you know where the one that wins first place is from in the next Foodie Post ;)

If you happen to be in Perth I'd definitely recommend checking Stimulatte out - you won't be disappointed!

Have a great long weekend!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx 

The Weekend Post: The Bakery, Breweries and Visiting a Lighthouse

Hello! 

Today I have another set of photos from our little trip down south to share with you. 

We had a lovely start to our  Saturday with breakfast at The Margaret River Bakery, which is my absolute favourite place to visit when I'm down there. It is such a cute little place with great atmosphere - old chairs and sofas on the veranda, photos, artwork and plates covering the walls and quirky mismatched mugs and tea cups. Not to mention

the best

tasting food!

My drink of choice is usually tea which is always presented so beautifully in one of their many adorable little tea pots. This time though, I had a chai latte (which was soo good), and avocado and feta on sourdough toast with cherry tomato salsa. Such a simple dish but it was done so well and is truly one of the best breakfasts I have ever had. 

Tom had the banana and honeycomb pancakes which were also seriously amazing!

After breakfast we decided to explore somewhere different, so after a bit of a drive we ended up at Cape Naturaliste and had a nice walk up to the Lighthouse. The view from there is so beautiful, but it was extremely windy so we didn't hang around for too long. Tom did snap a few photos for me though so you can expect an outfit post coming up soon!

Tom loves his beer so next it was on to the breweries (I'm not a beer drinker, so was happy to play the designated driver for the afternoon).

We stopped in at the Eagle Bay Brewery where Tom enjoyed the beer tasting plate and I cringed and pulled funny faces when he convinced me to take a sip (nope - beer is just not my thing).

I did however like the chalk board out the front - "I'm not addicted to beer, we're just in a committed relationship" -very applicable to Tom!

Then, after driving around and stopping off at a few other random spots, we headed to the Bush Shack Brewery which had a really nice, laid back feel, and spent a lovely afternoon just relaxing there. 

After a very fun but quite busy day, we headed back, cooked Spaghetti Carbonara for dinner and spent the night watching The Perks of Being a Wallflower (which has now been added to my list of favourite movies - partly because it has Emma Watson in it and partly because it was just an awesome movie). 

All in all it was a pretty perfect weekend away :)

Now I'm just daydreaming about the next one!

Hope you're having a great night

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

The Foodie Post - A Super Simple Spinach and Pumpkin Salad

Today I made a spinach and pumpkin salad which turned out rather well (if I do say so myself), so I thought I'd take some photos and share it here with you. It's very simple and easy to make and is perfect as a side salad or even a main meal as the pumpkin and nuts really bulk it up. I would usually use pine nuts for this salad, but as I didn't have any on hand I substituted them with cashews and I think I actually prefer it this way! Feta cheese is also a nice addition if you have it on hand!

Ingredients:

*Baby spinach

*Butternut pumpkin

*Cashews (or Pine nuts)

*Avocado

*Feta Cheese (not included this time but my favourite is Danish Feta)

*Olive Oil

*Vinegar

*Pepper

Let's Do This:

Ok so it's pretty self explanatory - basically you want to chop the pumpkin into small bite size pieces, coat with a little olive oil and pop it in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for around 25 minutes. This timing is approximate though so it may be a little longer or a little shorter.

Place the cashew nuts (or pine nuts) in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat, continually stirring so they don't burn.

For the dressing, stir together a little vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. 

Place the spinach, pumpkin, avocado and nuts into a bowl. Crumble over the feta and then drizzle the dressing over the top. 

All Done! There you have an easy-peasy, super yummy and filling salad!

I like making salads like this as you don't need to be precise and you can throw in whatever you happen to have on hand. That's the kind of cooking I enjoy - adding a little dash or this or a handful of that. I'm not fond of really precise cooking where you need to measure everything out exactly - this probably explains why baking is not my forte! 

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this slightly different kind of post. I always planned for this blog to be a bit more varied and not

just

fashion based - so hopefully this will be the year that I mix it up a bit!

Let me know if you have any favourite salads. I'd love to get some ideas!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

On a completely off topic note, while I was eating this salad tonight I watched

"It's Complicated"

and I had forgotten how much I love that movie - it is

hilarious

, and Meryl Streep is fantastic as always. 

Just thought I'd mention it in case anyone's in need of a fun feel-good movie suggestion!

Baking Gingerbread

There's just something so Christmassy and lovely about the smell of gingerbread baking in the oven. I made it for the first time last year, and it's a pretty simple recipe so I thought I'd take some photos this time and share it with you.

Gingerbread is perfect as a little home-made gift, or just to bring round if your'e visiting a friend. The recipe I used is from last years

Kikki.K

Christmas catalogue and is super yummy!

 (On a side note, Kikki.K has some great gift packs if you're Christmas shopping for stationery lovers!)

This recipe makes 60-70 cookies. I didn't read that part last year and decided to double the recipe... That was a big mistake - unless you want a crazy amount of gingerbread!

Ingredients

For the Gingerbread:

* 200g butter

*250ml golden syrup

*400g white sugar

*1 tbsp ground cloves

*1 tbsp ground ginger

*1 tbsp cinnamon

*250ml cream

*1 tbsp bicarbonate soda

*7-8 cups plain flour

For the Icing:

*2 large egg whites

*2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

*3 cups icing sugar (sifted)

*food colouring

Method:

Gingerbread

*Note - you'll need to prepare the dough a day in advance

1. In a medium saucepan on low heat, melt the butter and combine the syrup, sugar, spices and cream.

2. Pour the mixture into a large mixing bowl and add the bicarbonate soda and 7 cups of flour. Mix to combine ingredients into dough.

3. Leave the dough to rest in the fridge overnight

*

I suggest taking the dough out of the fridge about 10 minutes before you plan to roll it out so it has time to warm up a bit (otherwise it's very hard to work with!)

4. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius

5. On a floured bench, work the mixture with your hands as you add the remaining flour. 

This is what the recipe said, but I basically just scooped out a chunk of dough from the bowl, added flour as needed and rolled it out as thin as I could. 

6. Cut out shapes using your cookie cutters and place on a tray lined with baking paper

I actually found it easier to roll out the dough, transfer it onto a piece of baking paper and roll it out again a bit more thinly. This way you don't have to transfer the cookies from the bench to the paper and risk decapitating the poor gingerbread man.

7. Bake for 5-6 minutes or until golden brown

8. Cool on a wire rack - Ensure the gingerbread is completely cool before you start icing them. 

Icing

1. Beat the egg whites with the lemon juice or vanilla extract until frothy

2. Add the sifted icing sugar and beat on low speed until all combined, smooth and shiny

3. Beat at high speed for about 5 minutes until stiff and glossy

4. Separate into bowls and add food colouring

5. Scoop into sealable sandwich bags, cut a tiny hole in one corner and pipe the designs onto the gingerbread. 

I made a mistake with the yellow and cute the hole a little too big so ended up with quite thick icing. Just experiment and you'll find the best way to manipulate it.

I hope you enjoyed!

Let me know if you give them a try!

Lauren

xxx

My Style Diary - New Boots and Breakfast

Good Morning! Happy Saturday :)

I've just been having a rather chilled out start to the day - drinking tea, painting my nails and getting other bits and bobs done around the house. It's so nice and sunny today so I think I'll be heading out for some breakfast soon which I'm excited about as I am starving!

This is what I wore out for breakfast last weekend. We tried out a new place in South Perth called Gusto Food, which was absolutely delicious - I highly recommend the Eggs Benedict with pulled pork and the French Toast which was served with bacon and a huge slab of fresh honeycomb. The french toast was actually Tom's breakfast, but I ended up eating a fair portion of it... it was soo good!

It was a bit drearier last week so the tights and boots still had to be pulled out, but I really wanted to wear this new dress I picked up from Transit a couple of weeks ago. Actually, looking at the photos now I've realised that most of what I'm wearing are new things (which is very bad of me *slaps self on wrist*, as I really don't need to be buying any more clothes!) The problem is the bargain hunter in me and the fact that I just can't turn down an amazing deal! A prime example are these boots from Saba which were 60% off and the last pair was in my size! How can you say no to that?? I don't regret it as I know they'll become a wardrobe staple, but I probably didn't need to buy yet another pair of boots!

I have decided though that I'm just going to stop going for my weekly stroll around the shops after I finish work (I finish early on Thursdays and have developed a rather bad habit of just popping in to have a "quick look" on my way home). If I don't see all the bargains I won't be tempted!

Anyway, I hope you're having a fab Saturday!

Lauren

xxx

Dress -

Glamorous

from Transit

Cardigan - Pull & Bear

Boots - Saba

Belt - Marcs

Bag - Jigsaw