3 delicious lunchbox salads

A typical lunch at work in the Netherlands looks like this: Yes, that’s a bit of cheese on a slice of brown bread (and in this photo at least the bread looks like a nice seeded loaf!). I’ve actually read a few different books and articles that mention why the Dutch keep lunch so plain and simple (post-war rationing, frugal mentality, etc) but this is one local lifestyle that I won’t be adopting anytime soon.

I make my lunch every morning to take to work and I love making delicious lunchbox salads, choosing 2 or 3 a week to have for a couple of days each. Now, I have no idea about calorific values or percentages of proteins to carbs to fats but I do know what’s delicious and what fills me up through the afternoon. I also give myself no more than 5 minutes of my morning schedule to prepare lunch so it needs to be quick and easy as well.

These are three of my favourite lunchbox salads to make

A week of eats #1: GoodFood 101 Budget Dishes

Millions of cookbooks are sold every year, but most of those book owners are probably a lot like me and leave these recipe books decorating a shelf, rarely opened.

As I love to cook but have been struggling for ideas recently, I’ve decided to turn to some of the cookbooks I have for inspiration. To kick off this blog series – A week of eats – I’ve picked GoodFood 101 Budget Dishes to use for

4 reasons why brunch is the best meal of the day

Brunch is the perfect combination of breakfast and lunch. Whilst I tend to reserve brunch for a weekend activity, when I have time to relax and eat for hours, I’m envious of anyone whose life allows weekday brunch as well.

In today’s post, I’m going to share my top 4 reasons why brunch is the best meal of the day.

French toast at De gillende keukenmeiden, Zwolle

Let’s talk about the food in New Zealand

From my various social media accounts, many of you will know that I recently spent two weeks in New Zealand to catch the British & Irish Lions on tour.

Whilst the number one reason for going was to support the Lions and watch some rugby, we also planned a huge travel route to see as much of the country as possible.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may recall that I’ve been to New Zealand before but it was on a pretty limited budget (I went after my fresher year of uni). This time round, I have a full-time job so I’ve been saving like a crazy person for nearly two years.

After scrimping on going out to eat the last time I visited New Zealand (a backpacker’s budget allows for very few restaurant meals), we made the most of it during this trip.

British Street Food Awards

The weekend saw the Central heats of the British Street Food Awards take place at Spotlight – home to Digbeth Dining Club – across Friday and Saturday.

The British Street Food Awards comprises five regional heats with the winners heading to a live, national cook-off, judge by members of the public as well as top chefs. This year sees an added bonus in that the British winners will represent the country in Berlin at the European Street Food Awards.

The Central heat line-up consisted of 17 vendors, some who are ‘regulars’ on the Birmingham street food scene

An evening of desserts for Pirlo’s 1st birthday

Non-blog life has been a little consuming and stressful over the past few weeks so I apologise for not popping up here to post very often. I should be able to share a bit more about what’s been going on in some future posts but for now, I was thoroughly relieved to get an opportunity to get out of the flat for a fun evening last week to go and eat my bodyweight in desserts!

Pirlo’s Dessert Lounge in Digbeth has been open a year and to celebrate its first birthday, I attended a tasting event

My favourite cafés in Birmingham

The food and drink scene in Birmingham really is outstanding. From restaurants and bars to coffee shops and street food vendors, Birmingham has so much to offer no matter what your tastes.

In particular, Birmingham has no end of highly-rated and recommended cafés, with an ever-emerging number of independents keen to provide great coffee, cakes and more in comfortable surroundings. Today, I’m sharing my favourites with you.

A boozy Christmas

For no particular reason, there are some drinks that I only drink at Christmas time and I know I’m not the only one. Yes, I’m thinking of Baileys, port, sloe gin, brandy and anything hot and mulled.

To really make the most of some of these drinks, I’ve pulled together some great cocktail recipes from Difford’s Guide and with the experienced help of my brother and sister-in-law so that you won’t be dragging that bottle of Baileys from one Christmas to the next (you know I’m not wrong here!)

Food, food, food

As we prepare for the biggest week of eating most of us do all year, I thought I’d post a few healthy Christmas snack suggestions so that we can at least pretend that we’re not forgetting the well-balanced meals and snacks we’ve tried hard to stick with throughout the rest of the year!

To avoid you having to spend even more money on food, I thought about what people are likely to already have in the house as part of the ‘big shop’ for Christmas.

Mulled wine and mulled cider

It’s been so cold and foggy the past few evenings that it makes me want to curl up with a blanket in front of a fire and drink delicious hot drinks. Whilst I’m not a big tea or coffee drinker, I’d happily drink mulled wine or mulled cider. The smell alone of these cooking is enough to make me feel instantly warm and cosy, and of course festive too.