Tag: Foodie

Blogmas 2019 Day Seven: Pretzel reindeer 🦌❤

Pretzel Reindeers

These are so cute!

Here’s what you’ll need…

○Pretzels

○Rolos

○Red and/or brown smarties/MMs noses

○Edible eyes

○Non stick paper

○Baking tray

Heres how you make them…

○ First lay out your pretzels onto the paper (on a baking tray)

○Split a pretzel or use pretzel sticks to create antlers and place two of these underneath each pretzel, in position.

○Place rolos in the holes of the pretzels.

○Pop them in a low heat oven to melt the rolos.

○When the rolos start to go gooey you can take them out.

○Press the rolos down to spread out the gooey chocolate caramel over the surface of the pretzel.

○When its still melted pop a nose and eyes onto the reindeer pretzels to make the face.

(Make sure the pretzel antlers are pushed into the melted choc before you pop them into the fridge, so that they dont move out of position.)

I made a few with red Rudolph noses and a few with brown noses to make his pals.

○ Pop them into the fridge to cool.

Enjoy!

These would be so fun to make with kiddies, as Christmas day treats or as cute little homemade gifts popped into a festive treat bag.

18 Days until Christmas!!

Ho Ho Ho

Roseanne 🎅🏻

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Holiblog: The Rome Edition

For my husband Tim’s 28th birthday I bought us a trip to Rome. As you may know from previous blogs, Italy is our favourite country and Tim’s favourite Italian city that we’ve visited is Rome, it’s been 7 years since our first visit.

Read on to see what we got up to!

Day One

It was a early start for us to begin our Rome adventure, from Gatwick!

This meant we had a whole day to start exploring.

But, first lunch! And an ice cream stop at the highest rated ice cream place in Rome, it didn’t disappoint!

Trip Advisor: Best Gelato in Rome

We stumbled upon the National Museum of Rome and this was a great find. The architecture was amazing and we had a audio guide which was really interesting.

After all our exploring and walking around we had a chilled evening back at our room. We grabbed some take away pizza slices and a couple of ice cold cans of coke zero and enjoyed a them in our cosy room.

Day Two

Today we headed out early to have a look at the Colosseum. We went inside it on our last trip to Rome so this time we just went to have a look at it again from the outside, as well as the area around it.

We enjoyed a nice lunch and some ice cream before heading back for a siesta and our evening activity.

That evening we enjoyed our Italian cooking class, the first of our three planned activities for the trip.

It was originally going to be a pizza class (my husband is obsessed with pizza and this trip was planned by me for his birthday) but they changed the menu to pasta, as a summer alternative. Even so we had a great time!

We made pasta, a similar one to tagliatelle, Gnocci and then for dessert we made an amazing summer berries and white chocolate tiramisu. It was so good and it was so fun to cook proper pasta. You can really tell the difference.

Day Three

I think this was my favourite day of the holiday.

We had a nice early start to have a look round Palentine hill and the Roman Forum. We missed out on seeing these last time as we didn’t get there early enough and it is horrendous in the heat!

So, we made our way there nice and early and spent the morning having a look at the amazing Roman Ruins.

For lunch we headed over to the highest rated pizza place in Rome and it was delicious. This was my favourite meal and the man who owned the shop was so helpful and friendly. It’s a small little shop but so worth it.

Trip Advisor: Best Pizza in Rome

In the evening we headed to Piazza Campo de’ Fiori to have our second planned activity, a ‘By night walking tour of Rome’ Our guide was absolutely brilliant, born and raised in Rome so very knowledgable.

We saw so many different sights that we hadn’t seen before, such as the Pantheon and my favourite, the Trevi fountain (Which is SO beautiful) and much bigger than I expected. I’m so glad we got to see it this time.

Day Four

On day four our planned activity was an evening walking food tour, unfortunately it was cancelled so we had another think about what to do.

In the end we booked a morning trip, including a guided tour of the Vatican city. The tour included access to the Vatican museum, the Cistine Chapel & St Peter’s Basillca.

These places were all amazing and the artwork, tapestrys and architecture were amazing, as well as the history.

After a delicious lunch of Caprese salad, Pizza and the most amazing tiramisu we headed home for another afternoon siesta!

In the evening we took a stroll down to the Colosseum, after dinner, to have a look at it all lit up at night. It looked beautiful!

Day Five

On our final day we didnt fly out until the evening so, we wanted to make the most of our last day.

At breakfast we had a look on Viator to see what we could do.

As we didn’t make pizza at the previous cooking class we booked onto a pizza class for midday.

We stumbled across the Spanish Steps whilst we were looking for the cooking class location which was cool! Another landmark to tick off.

The cooking class was brilliant, with a lovely group of Americans & a Canadian lady. I really enjoyed making an authentic pizza in Rome and I loved seeing Tim make his favourite cuisine too.

They were really tasty!! A great lunch for our last day.

One of the other members of the cooking class mentioned a 5D experience that they were visiting later that day and as we had no other plans we thought we would check it out too!

We went for the full package 5D experience watching the history of Rome, the evolution of life and we looked around Roman landmarks with a VR headset on.

Once we had done all this it was a good time to slowly amble back to Termini to grab our bags and get the coach to the airport.

A great end to the holiday.

We had a brilliant time in Rome and I would 100% recommend it to anyone thinking of visiting Italy, especially if you are a first timer as there is so much to see and do.

& of course the food is amazing.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little post about our trip!

I wonder what next years Holiblogs will be about!? Time to start thinking for 2020.

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Half term diaries part 2

Part two of February Half term!

Here’s what I’ve been up to.

Wednesday 20th February/Thursday 21st February 2019

During both of these days I was at work allday 7.30-6.

Working with kids is good fun though and we did lots of fun activities.

I really enjoy planning fun activities to do during the holidays.

Friday 23rd February 2019

In the morning I met up with my twin sister and my nephews for some bowling fun.

Both of the boys really enjoyed themselves as Noah only had a go at bowling when he was very little and Casey has never been before.

The boys had a great time and they were really good at bowling, it’s safe to say Auntie Ro Ro lost 🎳

Afterwards we had some lunch and some treats (of course!) DOUGHNUTS!!

In the afternoon we headed to Norwich to stay with my Auntie and cousin for a long weekend.

We popped into the Norwich Primark en-route, in order to see if they had the onesie of my dreams…

…they didn’t disappoint!! & it was the only one left 🙌🏻

Once at my Aunties, we settled down for a delicious Mexican taco feast.

Saturday 23rd February 2019

Today me & Tim started off the day with a Parkrun in a nearby village.

Once we got back we spent the rest of the morning/afternoon chilling out, having lunch and playing games.

The Pointless Mini game was a particular fave.

In the late afternoon we went and saw my cousin, his wife and kiddies for a catchup up and a cuppa, which was nice!

We rounded off the evening with a delicous meal out together at Zizzi’s.

We played a few more games when we got back too. Love a board game!

Sunday 24th February 2019

Today we went out l to enjoy the lovely sunshiny weather, you’ve got to make the most of it when you get it here in the UK!!

We stopped off for a yummy snacky lunch at a lovely pub in Ranworth.

We shared some stuffed peppers, Cheesey chips, homemade houmous, falafel & flatbread and some onion rings, yummy!

After that we went for a little walk along the river. It was so pretty and just lovely in the early Spring sunshine.

A great weekend rounded off with a scrummy roast beef dinner and baked Apple dessert, when we got home.

It’s been a great half term!!

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Half term diaries pt 1

Hi guys!

I thought I would document my half term, here on my blog. After all, I started this blog to capture memories, and so I thought that since I have a few things planned this week, this would be a nice way to document them.

Friday 15th February 2019

Half term is here!!

And what better way to roll in the half term than a delicious meal with a friend.

Me & my friend Steph met up for a long over due catch up at Wagamamas.

I tried a few things that I hadn’t had before and it was super delicious.

Then we rounded the evening off with a trip to Creams, a nearby dessert restaurant.

They do amazing crepes 😍

Saturday 16th February 2019

Me & my hubby Tim spent the day relaxing at a local spa ‘Aqua Springs’. This was our Valentine’s treat and a great opportunity to relax and spend some time together.

We rounded off the day with a couple of games of Cluedo with my mum and dad.

I’ve been wanting to play for ages but it’s not so good with just 2 players so we’ve had to wait.

I love their original Cluedo board!!

Unfortunately, I was the only one who didn’t win a game 👎🏻

Sunday 17th February 2019

Today, me & Tim visited my uni friend Kirsty and her little ones in London.

It was lovely to have a much needed catch up and Tim got to meet the newest edition to the gang, little Bella.

We had a great time chatting, playing some silly games and eating pizza.

Monday 18th February 2019

Today me and my friends Steph met up again, but this time in the day time so that I could see her boys too.

We had a lovely time at the soft play centre, a bit of lunch and then back to hers for a cuppa and a chat.

In the evening we went round to my mother in laws to see her and give her, her birthday present.

Another nice cuppa and a catch up to round off the day.

Tuesday 19th February 2019

Today me and my older sister Charlotte, and my niece Evie, went for Afternoon tea.

We successfully resisted any treats in the staff Room for the whole of the half term, and this was our reward.

We havn’t been here for Afternoon tea before but it didn’t disappoint!

There were four different finger sandwiches each (Chicken, Tuna, Cheese & Ham)

And a lovely warm sausage roll 😍

There was also a scone with cream and jam and a assortment of cakes, very nice!

Once we had finished we got the bus back into town, visited Elmer and then went back to Charlottes for a play.

My favourite girly 💜

What have you been up to this half term?

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Blogmas Day 23: Festive afternoon tea 🍰

Yesterday afternoon I hosted festive afternoon tea, at our flat, for my mum and two sisters. The kiddies came along too.

I thought it would be a fun way to start the Christmas hols and we all love afternoon tea so why not!?!!

What was on the menu?

Sandwiches

Egg mayo

Ham

Cakes

Mums ‘Blasts from the past’

Victoria Sponge

Mr Kipling Candy Cane slices

Jam tarts

Mini Mince Pies

Savoury

Cheese pastry Christmas tree

Pigs in blankets &

Quorn cocktail sausages (Veggie)

Crisps

Drinks

PG tips Tea

Yorkshire Biscuit brew tea

Coffee

Fruit Juice

It was really yummy and fun to think of ways to make normal afternoon tea festive.

A tasty & fun family afternoon.

Happy Christmas Eve eve!

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Blogmas Day 21: Our Festive Snack table 🎄😁🍴

As I have said previously, the festive food goodies are one of my favourite bits of Christmas.

It’s great to enjoy some yummy treats, surrounded by friends and family.

There are a few treats that we get every year and this year we (mainly me haha) have taken that a bit further and have been creating a ‘Festive snack table’.

Everytime we’ve gone to a supermarket or seen a tasty, tempting snack we’ve picked it up for the table and it’s starting to look rather good.

This is great for cosy evenings and if any guests come over during the festive period.

Here’s what we have included on our snack table…

Chocolates

Festive chocs are a must! Especially for a chocoholic like me!!

A Christmas classic is the matchmaker style chocolates. I picked these up in Aldi in both the chocolate orange and mint flavours.

I also got a selection of truffles.

We have the new Malteaser truffles that are amazing and, my husband’s favourite, the Lindt Lindor truffles. I picked those up in the original milk chocolate flavour and the new Mint flavour, they look so festive 🎄

You have to have a tub of chocolates at Christmas time, it’s a must. Whether your favourite is Heroes, Celebrations or Quality Street these just feel so Christmassy.

My favourites are Heroes (Cadburys ftw!) Where as my husband’s is Celebrations.

Biscuits

Shortbread is my absolute favourite biscuit and a Christmas must have. I love those festive tins too. I have my favourites, the Tesco tin, and I’m also trying out the Aldi shortbread too.

Mince Pies

I’ve really been enjoying mince pies this year and I’ve been testing as many different ones as I can (It’s a tough job but someones gotta do it!!)

Co-op have come out on top so far but I’ve also been trying the Tesco, Aldi and M&S ones, just to be sure! Haha.

Specialty items

I discovered my love of Panattone last year when I was gifted one, so this year I purchased one of Aldi’s Pandoro, I can’t wait to try it.

Savoury Snacks

Our savoury snack choices this year were of course Pringles and Aldi’s version, stackers as well as Twiglets and Mini cheddars.

Other

These cute Robin treats were part of Aldi’s Christmas range and we couldn’t resist. On the right is a hollow chocolate robin character and on the left is a chocolate orange celebration cake.

I hope I can bring myself to cut into them, they are pretty cute!!

So, that’s our snack table! What’s your favourite festive snack?

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Blogmas Day 19: Rocky Road Bombe recipe.

Here’s another delicious, festive recipe for you guys to try over, the Christmas period.

Its super easy and quite quick to make, but it looks impressive and really festive on a Christmas buffet/party table.

This is a Rocky road (are you sold already!!!) Bombe, decorated to look super festive as a Christmas pudding.

I love this idea and it’s so effective!! As soon as my husband saw this recipe he wanted us to give it a go.

The great thing about the Tesco Real Food website is that it has everything you need to know to make the recipe, tweak it if you want to add an extra festive touch but also, if you are doing your food shop you can add all the ingredients that you’ll need to your basket in one go, no hunting for everything you’ll need!!

You can add or take out too if you don’t want to strictly follow the recipe.

I’ll leave the link to the recipe below for you, definatly take a look at the page and some it their other yummy recipes too.

Tesco Real Food recipe

1. Melt the dark chocolate over some boiling water.

2. Whilst it is melting crush up the biscuits, don’t crush it too finely.

3. Once the chocolate has melted, pour it into the biscuit mix.

4. Add the raisins and mini marshmallows and stir altogether.

5. Make sure everything is coated in the dark chocolate.

6. Pour into a medium sized plastic mixing bowl. Flatten the top.

7. Leave to cool down and harden in the fridge.

8. Once it has cooled for an hour or so, take out of the fridge and ease it out of the bowl. Turn upside down onto a plate and lift off the bowl to reveal the dome.

9. Melt the white chocolate over boiling water. Once it has all melted pour it over the top to look like the icing on a Christmas pudding.

10. Garnish with a little sprig of plastic holly, to add the finishing touch. Serve.

Yummy!

Let me know if you have a go at making this.

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Blogmas Day 16: My work Christmas meal 🎅

On Friday I had my annual work Christmas meal. Every year we go to Ask Italian but, this year we decided to try somewhere different. .

..Not that different though, it was still an Italian haha but we went for Zizzi’s this time.

I think we had picked the same night as a lot of work groups, it was very lively!!

It was officially Christmas jumper day on Friday too so I wore my newest festive jumper to the meal.

The food was really good and I thoroughly enjoyed my meal.

I went for the Super Festivo menu starting off with the Mushroom style bruschetta (I can’t remember the official name)

Anything with cheese and mushrooms is brilliant in my book and this was very tasty.

For my main I had my favourite calzone from their menu, the pollo al spinaci.

I’ve always been a fan of the creamier pastas and sauces so this is so up my street as it has a white sauce instead of a red sauce. I was filled with a delicious creamy cheese sauce, mascarpone, mozzarella, spinach, chicken and mushrooms, SO.GOOD.

It also came with a really yummy tomato dip which was perfect for dipping bits of the crust in 👌🏻

Dessert was absolutely fantastic. Hands down one of the best desserts that I have had in a long time. It was a Christmas special and is a combination of two of my faves. It was half brownie, which was so rich and decadent, and half panattone, so orangey and fruity and festive, it was incredible.

Plus, you got an adorable chocolate pine cone on top!! How cute.

Amazing.

It was a lovely evening and nice to have some yummy food and a chat, away from the workplace.

Have you had your Christmas do yet?

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Blogmas Day 10: Mini mince pie pastry bites

This is my first foodie post of Blogmas 2018 and it’s a tasty recipe for all you mince pie fans!

I have developed a real love of mince pies over this recent festive season but as I follow the SW plan I’m trying to find ways to enjoy my favourite festive treats and stay on plan (ready for the inevitable over indulgence on the main days of Christmas)

So, this recipe, although SW friendly is still great for anyone looking for a twist on a classic, a bite sized treat of Christmassy goodness that won’t add to the waistline as heavily as a traditional mince pie might.

This recipe uses Light puff pastry, so a bit different to the traditional short crust.

It is so simple, and those recipes are the best kind.

Ingredients

-One roll of Tesco light puff pastry (Not frozen)

– A jar of Tesco Mincemeat

-One egg, beaten. (To egg wash)

-Sweetner (To sprinkle)

(This post is not sponsored by Tesco but I did an online shop when I ordered these and wanted to keep it simple when working out the syn values using the Slimming World app)

Recipe

Roll out the pastry flat and cut into squares (roughly 5cm x 5cm)

I weighed each square to make sure that it was 20g each. If you aren’t on SW you won’t need to be so particular.

On each square add a teaspoon of mincemeat.

Fold over the pastry from one side to the other and crimp along the edge to stop any leakage.

Lay the back onto the baking parchment that the pastry comes in, on a bakig tray.

Beat the egg and brush over the top of each one to help them turn golden.

Sprinkle each one with a little sweetener.

Bake in the over for 10/12 minutes on 200°.

Enjoy hot or leave to cool.

I prefer them warm with a cuppa.

These work out as 5 syns each which I don’t think is too bad. One with a cuppa would be perfect to get that festive mince pie hit.

20g (ish) of light pastry 4.5 syns

1 tsp mincemeat (0.5 syn)

Total: 5 syns each.

Enjoy!

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Holiblog: Florida edition pt 4

FOOD

Of course I had to include food in this little series because,lets be real, if you’ve been to America you’ll know that the food is INSANE and so tasty.

I will include my favourite foods/meals and the best places that we visited to eat too.

My favourite American eatery was by far…. Denny’s!! I loved it.

Denny’s

It was everything I imagined an American diner to be and the food was incredible.

My favourite meal (I had it both times that we visited) was ‘Moons over my Hammy’ A delish breakfast sandwich served with their Hash browns on the side.

Their hash browns are a little different to ours but they are super yummy.

I also loved the Dennys milkshakes, I had the Oreo one the cake batter one too.

The cake batter one was amazing, cake-tastic!

Chuy’s Mexican food

My sister noticed this Mexican restaurant when we were in a taxi on our way back from Wal-Mart. The food was incredible, probably one of the best Mexican meals that I’ve ever had.

You were never going to go hungry as they bring over lovely warm and salty tortilla chips (refilled as soon as the basket is empty) These go perfectly with the guacamole 😍

The meals are insane, typical giant American portions but so flavourful.

I went for a combo, which was great as it was made up of different Mexican meals, perfect if you want to try lots of different dishes or can’t decide what to go for!!

We all really enjoyed this meal.

Enclave Suites

Our hotel served some amazing food.

The breakfast was all inclusive and thanks to Virgin we were upgraded 👍🏻

The hot buffet & continental options were fantastic and they changed each day.

My favourite were the Mickey Mouse waffles 😍 Pancakes & their incredibly crispy bacon, it was to die for (put the pancakes & bacon together and your onto a winner)

I also discovered a love of fruit loops too haha!!

Their lunchtime food was also delicious. They did a lovely BBQ on a Saturday which included the usual burgers and hot dogs, as well as some A-MAZ-ING nachos. All very reasonably priced too.

They did delicious sandwiches, crispy fries, quesadillas, platters to share and more. I loved the sound of everything on the menu tbh, it was always a hard choice so we often got the platters to share, as a group, so we could try a bit of everything.

Universal Studios

Now of course the Harryer areas of Universal were my ultimate fave! But the food was actually pretty good too.

At the two separate parks (Islands of Adventure, Hogsmede & Hogwarts castle and Universal Studios, Diagon Alley) they have eateries based on places from the Harry Potter books.

Me and my twin sister Sarah ate at ‘The Leaky Cauldron’ in Diagon Alley during our Harry Potter day and on our last Universal day we all ate as a group at ‘The Three Broomsticks’ in Hogsmede.

They served traditional British food and the fish and chips were to die for!! I had them both times because they were so good.

The ice cream at Florean Fortescues in Diagon Alley was amazing too. There weren’t that many good ice cream places in the area that we were in so this ice cream was a welcome treat and they did some really interesting and very yummy flavours.

The food was so amazing in America, one of my favourite cuisines.

Definatly one of the holiday highlights.

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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