Food for the January Blues

Now, we all know that January can leave people feeling all kinds of glum, its the come-down from Christmas and the depressing weather no doubt.  This January has felt particularly bad with all the wet weather and floods the UK has been having, its been difficult to keep ourselves upbeat.  Every week, each Monday seems to have been given the Blue Monday tag, probably meaning people feel sad just thinking about it.

However, the best way to keep yourself chirpy, is with some serious comfort food, nothing better than a bit of stodgy food and cake to banish those blues!  And you know what, sometimes only some beans on toast or grilled cheese will do, but for those times when you just want a little something extra, we bring you some tasty recipes to try.  Your welcome!

We all know that Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and so why not start with pushing those blues away at breakfast time!  These Overnight Oat recipes from A Beautiful Mess are on the wish list of things to make.  They will give you a great boost first thing to help you deal with your day and so its the perfect thing to try.

Next up is some tasty treats to help you get through the day.  These Toffee Ginger cupcakes look amazing and they are Gluten Free!  The girls over at Domestic Sluttery do some great Gluten free recipes and so there are no excuses to get that cake fix, sorry.

Or, if you are a biscuit fan rather than a cake fan, these Raspberry and White Chocolate cookies from the Turquoise Lemons blog are making us drool as we type!  We are partial to this particular pairing of ingredients and what's not to love about a cookie with a cup of tea?  After all, tea solves everything, right? 

Over to some serious savoury dishes for dinner.  You can't beat a big dollop of Shepherds Pie to warm up your cockles on a dark and dreary day.  This recipe from Rosalilium just makes you want to dive right on in there.

For the veggies, or just don't fancy the meat tonight, there is always Mac and Cheese!  This used to be one of H's old housemates fail-safe dishes for making her feel better and we can see why.  Pasta, cheese and more cheese, yummy.  This one is from the Eating well website and so it is a little better for you than the usual.  Guilt free comfort food, even better.

And, last but not least is your dessert to round off with.  This Toffee Apple Crumble is going to happen, alot!  It comes from the BBC Good Food website and does not disappoint.  H love's to make a crumble and has never had any complaints, but this little beauty looks like it will surpass her other versions.  The only last decision to make is whether it should be covered with cream or custard!

Well, that's the round up of some favourite recipes to banish those blues.  Do you have any recipes you like to use on those glum days?  Let us know in the comments below and we can have a go.

Remember that Food feeds the soul, and so it would be rude not to feed it right?!

H & Sammy

Live it: Domestic Sluttery Q&A at Made.com

Last week we hot-footed it up to London to go along to a Q&A with the lovely ladies of Domestic Sluttery.  The Ladies put on the event in order answer those questions, that they are always asked by us bloggers in training, all in one go.

Domestic Sluttery was set up about 5 years ago when home style blogs here in the UK were rare and blazed a trail. The site brings together lots of different writers who have a passion for all things domestic; cooking, homewares, travel, and just plain fun stuff - 'Cute or Creepy' anyone?

The event was held at the Made.com HQ and so we got to have a little nosey around there before the Q&A got started.

It was tough not buying up everything they had, but we resisted and H opted for a free pencil instead!

After the pre-event drinks we all sat down for the Q&A.  After a few short words from Sian - the founder and editor-in-chief, we were into questions.

It was great to be able to ask all those things that other people usually gloss over, especially in larger conferences.  There was about 60 of us there on the night and so we all had a chance to ask questions - after the initial 'no hands going up' of course!

They spoke honestly about advertising and inspiration in the first half of the night, with questions about optimising posts and links in your posts.  Also about how social media is a must for all us bloggers with questions about how to find which platforms work for you and how to use them to your advantage.

There was then an interval filled with cocktails and cake!  Amazing.

In the second half, it was talk about freelancing and how to do it - or in some cases how not to do it.  All the writers who work on Domestic Sluttery have freelance careers or full-time jobs and so for us, this was really interesting.

It was a great chance to find out more about what the ladies do and how they go about their normal lives around the blog - something which as full time workers and bloggers ourselves found really refreshing.

Seeing the individual personalities of all the girls was great too and they obviously get on just as much as you would imagine a bunch of girls to do, they just happen to write about beautiful and fun things too.

We had a lovely evening, that felt like hanging out with Domestic Sluttery.  We found some new and inspiring people to follow on Twitter and some good information to check out - so watch this space for how it might inspire us and our work here on our blog!

We also bumped into our friend Zoe from Craft Candy who let us into a few exciting developments with the site, can't wait to tell you all about that soon.

If you are a blogger or interested in freelance writing we would totally recommend keeping a look out for future events from these ladies. Head over to Domestic Sluttery and sign up for their newsletter, go on you know you want to.

H & Sammy

Link for the week: Wedding guest dresses via Domestic Sluttery

Currently, I have 5 weddings to go to this year (strangely this is not a record) and so I am always on the hunt for dress ideas so that I don't leave it till the last minute and then there is less chance of me turning up in the same thing as someone else.

I was hunting around the internet this week and found this: 

http://www.domesticsluttery.com/2013/05/amazing-dresses-with-sleeves.html

and .... the best thing about all these dresses is that they all have sleeves!  This may be a minor point to some, but as a person who is not a fan of showing her arms, its great news. I am particularly in love with the blue flower dress, which is strange as I am not really a flower girl, but I LOVE the button top detail.

This may be worn at a wedding near you soon!

Love it

H

Link for the week: Brownies via Domestic Sluttery

Ok, so most of the time I am led by my stomach and so although I try to be good, I can mostly be found staring at cakes! - luckily my niece takes after me, so I will have a permanent cake partner!

This recipe caught my eye as I love brownies, but mostly when I go to buy them in shops they have nuts in - not allergic, just don't like them.  I know its confusing but it does amaze me how many cakes have nuts in these days considering there are so many nut allergy sufferers out there. This not liking nuts basically means I don't end up getting something I want - annyoing - which then makes me want something more!  I blame it on that anyway.

So for this week I thought I would link the recipe for beginner after dinner mint brownies, as they look sooooooooooo good.  I want to make them for someone's birthday I think!  or maybe just for myself.

http://www.domesticsluttery.com/2013/04/baking-for-beginners-after-dinner-mint.html?m=1

The website its from is pretty cool too - Domestic Sluttery - and has loads of foodie and fashion tips to check out.  That's when you have stopped looking at ours and of course not forgetting to vote for us in the company style blogger awards! 

Make it

H