Where to Eat

Food: Comforting Chocolate Brownies

Bleak, wet weather calls for one thing… Comfort food! Ordinarily, I’d be heading to my local Starbucks for a latté and chocolate fudge brownie but as it’s ‘No Spend November’ I needed to get a bit more creative with stuff lurking in my cupboards!

Chocolate brownies are really pretty simple in terms of ingredients – all you need are eggs, butter, flour, sugar and of course chocolate. I also like to add vanilla essence and chopped walnuts but as I didn’t have these in store, I figured it doesn’t make that much difference! Cooking chocolate is obviously very bitter so a lot of recipes call for a lot of sugar to balance this out but I’ve found no one has ever complained when I’ve reduced the sugar – kids included!Read More »Food: Comforting Chocolate Brownies

signature bake

Food: Signature Bakes

What does the acronymn GBBO mean to you? If it doesn’t conjure pictures of cake, bread, pastry and Mary Berry goodness, then Iet me try to educate you! Bake Off signals a happy time of year for me, it’s TV where people are genuinely nice to each other (even with last year’s bin gate) and it’s really hard to watch without feeling a little happy by the end. Also, it’s a time of year that I get baking again.

I find it very hard to watch the GBBO without wanting to get in the kitchen and try recipes out for myself. A few years ago my Mum and I decided that we would  challenge each other to make one thing from each episode. It could be our own take on whatever it was but would have to generally follow the rules of the episode. We had to be honest about how everything went, take photos and occasionally have family members chip in but then we would come to a mutual decision about who won that week. Our friend Craig soon joined in and this year, despite the arrival of baby Thomas five days before the first episode – we baked along with Bake Off.
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Food: Sunshine on Leith food market

Food markets are a highlight of Edinburgh weekends for me. So with the arrival of a sunny weekend, I took the opportunity to meander round the Shore at Leith whilst checking out the new(ish) food market there.

Katie had been up at half-five that morning so I guessed she wouldn’t be up for a long walk. Rather than being deterred I stuck her in the buggy and set off at a decent pace for once! She asked to get out (when spying the canons) but on the whole was happy to sit and take in everything that was going on. I did think she looked a little ridiculous as her legs are so long now that they almost drag on the floor. However, I caved into demands and gave her a dummy so thought maybe she would just look like a rather large baby.
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The Best fishmongers in Edinburgh

We have been having some beautiful Autumn weather in Edinburgh recently. Although there has been a definite chill in the air it has been accompanied by bright sunshine and the air is lovely and crisp.

I had all three children with me today so spent some time playing outside to make the most of the good weather but also had a fair amount of menial chores to get done such as food shopping. When I can, I like avoid the supermarkets as think it’s more fun to go to local shops – they usually have nice displays and the staff are often chatty. One of our top shops for this purpose is Welch Fishmongers in Newhaven.

Read More »The Best fishmongers in Edinburgh