chewy cherry chocolate cookies

I woke up one Sunday in the mood for baking so ransacked the store cupboard to see what I could rustle up. After consulting with my favorite recipe book- Veganomican I had the perfect recipe- chewy cherry chocolate cookies.

measuring cups at the ready

First you mix the rapeseed oil with the jam ....

You separately mix the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa and sugar)

Oh I should probably mention here the recipe was for rasberry cookies but any jam works and the cherry was tasty! Slowly mix together the dry and wet ingredients.

Roll into balls, flatten and then bake...

Stick in the oven and take a few photos while they bake..

And...here they are. They tasted so good I made them again the following weekend.

The cherry cookies are lovely and small, two are perfect with a nice cup of tea when you crave something sweet. I love that they are vegan and the cherry and chocolate are a fantastic combination. They also score 'brownie' points as you can make this with ingredients from the store cupboard....

Royal Teas by guest editor Ms JD

I'm delighted to introduce my first ever guest editor Ms JD. This is hopefully the begining of a new phase for the blog as I welcome additions from my nearest and dearest. Lady J shares my passion for the sweeter things in life and supermarkets too. It's a beautiful friendship- what more common ground could you possibly need?

Ms JD has a flying trip to London and stayed in Greenwhich, which is lined with gorgeous independent shops.

Royal Hill shops, towards Greenwich Park

http://www.royalteascafe.co.uk

At Royal Teas Cafe Ms JD had Eggs Florentine with a cappuccino on a Friday late morning - when everyone else had to work - was very chilled and relaxing

Royal Teas

eggs florentine

The location is perfect - off the main road, in the quiet "Royal Hill" road towards Greenwich park - with cute little independent shops (cheese board, fish monger, a local butcher, tiny vegetable shop, flower shop)
 
 

just over a month to go

Exciting news, we have a civil partnership on the horizon. Lots to do, lots to arrange, lots of fun, lots of love. Here's the invite....Shell took the photo which is a fusion of our two personalities and shot on our balcony. I love the invite. I love Shell. I can't wait to sign the important piece of paper and celebrate with family in Ireland and friends in London.

I've not been blogging so much on crockery and cakes and caffs, although I am still 'researching' but I seem to be spending all my mac time on ebay collecting decorative bird cages, vintage playing cards, tea sets and arranging specially made bunting. Roll on September!!!

up the effing- the morning after the night before

One thing about camping is that it is noisy, very noisy! We woke up the next morning not feeling like we'd had a good night sleep, but absolutely happy as Larry at waking up the 'great outdoors' 

The sun was shining very strongly, and we were listening to the Archers. Plus there was tea on tap. All the makings of a perfect Sunday morning if you ask me.

Plus we had poached eggs which had been freshly made by Beryl and Cheryl.

up the effing

One lovely sunny Saturday we packed up bags and bags of yummy food and headed the the Epping Forest for a night's camping trip. We had bunting, we had Pimms, and we had lots to barbeque. All the makings of a perfect weekend. When we arrived early in the afternoon and tried to find a spot with some evening. Once we'd put up essentials like the tent and bunting, I swiftly made us a jug of Pimms.

After quaffing back the Pimms and collecting wood for our fire that evening, we got started on the BBQ, we had vegetarian kebabs with vegetables and halloumi, plus mushrooms stuffed with blue cheese and chives.  We had a third quenching G & T to accompany the preperations. I insisted we include a slice of cucumber, as according the The Guardian's fashion pages this is was 'going up' on the measure.

BBQ prep 

The best bit of the BBQ for me was making up my Jamie Oliver sweet potatoes. You wash the spuds and in a bag mix cumin, chili flakes and sea salt and toss the sweet potatoes in the bag. Wrap up in foil and stick in the coals of the fire for 20 minutes.

sweet potatoes under the fire

the end result- a perfect BBQ

dinner smoking away

strawberry muffins

One weeknight M decided to whip up a batch of strawberry muffins. I haven't much to say except they were light, fluffy and filled with English strawberries. Best thing was the birthday gift from my Aussie BFF got an outing...I adore the tea cup muffin bakers...

seaside trip to see the pumpkins

Freaky window display

It was a terribly rainy day when we set off to St Leonards to see best buddies M and B aka 'The Pumpkins', we got stuck in traffic on route and missed our train. But the rainy weather suited our reflective mood and we were so pleased when we finally arrived at St Leonards. It's such a cute little seaside place, and I adore M and B. So we set off and had a stroll round Hastings and a delicious lunch, which I did not photograph, and I have no idea what it was called. I only know that the food and wine was good!

Hastings is packed with lots of fantastic shops like Rob's Rummages and we bought oursleves some lovely tea cups for our civil partnership evening do. Having a nosy around the shops is lots of fun.

bunting galore

After a fantastic stroll around we headed back to the boys place for some tea, cake and ice cream. Three of my favourite things. B had freshly made the ice cream and cake and they were both divine. The cake was light and fluffy, just like a Victoria Sponge should be. The ice cream was so tasty, I was convinced B had used an ice cream maker but it was all done by hand. YUM.

Lovely touch with the gingham napkins, dainty spoons and glass plates. Heavenly! And look at the tea- a perfect colour, and the most gorgeous little tea cup.

The ice cream was so tasty- must get the recipe.

So will full tummies and happy hearts we boarded the train back to London. Always lovely to see the boys, just always too short a time together. Must get another date in the diary to look forward to..