Wednesday 13 February 2013

Homemade Popcorn

Soooo it's Valentine's day tomorrow and I am guessing movie night as well?

If you are anything like me then you probably love to eat at the movies. Lol. I will eat anything - ice cream, sweets, popcorn. Yup, popcorn, the most common movie night snack.

We all know I am on a budget so any valentine plans for me, myself and I will have to be budget-based. I have been a good girl and of my £30 I still have £5 to spend for the rest of the month. Lol.....that's £5 for 2 week *gulp.

My plan this year is for a home-based Velentine's day. I am trying to play around with standard ideas using what I have at home. Afterall, nothing beats a home-cooked meal from a loved one...I hope *side eye

I think this recipe will be useful for mums as well as it is cheap and you are able to control what goes into your kid's snack. Here is my recipe for just 1 person. It took less than 10 minutes from start to finish.

I am using just these ingredients. You can use butter instead of oil. You can also add sugar and/or salt. I usually keep my meals simple and as fat-free as possible. It was still tasty without the extras! I promise :)

Gently pour in your oil so it completely covers the bottom of your pot with a very thin layer.

Add your corn to the pot and spread evenly so it completely covers the bottom like this. Turn on your cooker

Replace the lid and cover the hole. Be VERY CAREFUL as the lid and pot will get quite hot. I suggest folding the napkin multiple times before you cover.

You can see the steam trapped in the pot because the hole is covered

Corn is starting to pop

Once your corn is popped, remove your finger and napkin. DO NOT OPEN IMMEDIATELY!! WAIT FOR THE STEAM TO ESCAPE!!!!!!!

 
Every single one went - POP!
I just made this and headed straight to my computer to blog about it and it's already gone! All of it *coversface

.....Ah well, it was made to be eaten :-D
Take care lovelies,
LW xx


Wednesday 6 February 2013

The Guardian features the Wombles

Whoop Whoop!

Yesterday evening, I was going about my business oblivious of the fact that the Guardian newspaper had released a feature on me and mine. Apparently, the world wants the Wombles back! It's ok world, I'm here! *hehehehe

Here's the feature and you can link in to the actual publication by Stuart Jeffries here


                      The Wombles at 40 – why we need them more than ever

They play golf, live for three centuries – and turn 40 this week. Here's to the gang of stuffed raccoons from 1970s kids' TV who showed Britain how to recycle

ITV Archive
Time for a party … Wombles showed selflessness and community spirit, writes Stuart Jeffries. Photograph: ITV/Rex

Who would win a fight between a Womble and a Teletubby? Why did the Wombles' 1970s mission to teach a nation not to litter fail so abjectly? How did they, as Marvin Gaye would put it, get it on? Forget about the wonders of the ice age: as the Wombles of Wimbledon Common celebrate their 40th birthday, these are the questions that need answering.

Let's tackle the first question. Obviously your Teletubby, while having much the same BMI as your mature Womble, is bigger and thus more terrifying in a smackdown scenario. That said, the former's gaudy colour scheme (Tinky Winky purple, Laa-Laa yellow) would make a surprise attack unlikely on even a very slow-witted Womble (I'm thinking of Tomsk, who has the lowest womble IQ and, as axiomatically follows, likes golf). Plus, because each Teletubby contains a sweating actor who's going to sack their agent as soon as they get out of their fur suit, they aren't exactly going to chase down their preys like cheetahs. Wombles are stuffed, and have no such motivational issues. Wombles, unlike Teletubbies, have vicious little eyes and snouts that suggest powerful teeth – both good in a scrap. They also have retractable claws, decisive in close combat – and definitive proof that 1970s kids' TV is better than today's.

Wikipedia puts about the nonsense that wombles are raccoons. Do raccoons wear scarfs, spectacles and hats? Aren't raccoons, in fact, known for tipping up bins rather than initiating community-wide, proto-recycling initiatives? A Womble's life span, unlike a raccoon's, may be as long as 300 years (the Womble song Minuetto Allegretto refers to Great Uncle Bulgaria as being a lad in 1780: you do the maths). This may explain how Great Uncle Bulgaria beat Britain's fascistic immigration system. Long-lived, species-non-specific stuffed animals rarely require visas, even when travelling from outside the EU. The great tragedy of the Wombles is that their mission to make Britain tidier now looks like a sick joke. The concept was dreamed up in 1968 by the late children's author Elisabeth Beresford, and later adapted for TV by means of Ivor Wood's brilliant stop-motion animation, an adorable Bernard Cribbins' narration and Mike Batt's undying theme music. It is as laughable as the Keep Britain Tidy campaign. Think of how last month's snow encouraged some dog owners to believe they had a free pass to let their pets befoul the pavements, rather in the way that Mike Batt's Wombling Merry Christmas befouled the singles chart in December 1974. Actually, that's unfair: there was much worse stuff (Mud's Lonely This Christmas, for one).

Did the Wombles clean up their own mess? A rhetorical question: of course they did! When they went for a walk, Tobermory would lead the way, followed by Orinoco, who carried a bag for Tobermory's waste, followed by Bungo, who was tasked with bagging Orinoco's. Tomsk, Wellington, Madame Cholet, Stepney and even Cousin Cairngorm McWomble the Terrible would follow in orderly fashion. Otherwise, Wimbledon Common would have become a vast Womble latrine. Who bagged Tobermory's waste? We may never know.

The selflessness and communal bonds that the Wombles demonstrated weekly from 1973 to 1975, the basic respect they urged for our streets, commons, one another and by extension, the planet, are widely missing from our age. We need Wombles in 2013 – but where are they? The likely truth is that the Wombles have retreated underground for good, never again to shake their snouts at the overground mess we have made. The same is true around the world: Elisabeth Beresford imagined that each country would have a Womble colony, but they are now nowhere to be found. Apart from the Singapore Wombles, who can and often do eat their dinners off the city's pavements, so clean is it there. (True story.)

Finally, how do Wombles get it on? Well, first they retract their claws. Empathetic in so many ways, they are, we must suppose, thoughtful lovers. And then? None of your business.

Tuesday 5 February 2013

Hair update

'A mind is a terrible thing to waste
......a waist is a terrible thing to mind'


I dunno why I wrote that? Maybe because I can? Lol. Happy new month everybody! I am just so excited I finally get to go grocery shopping. Lol. I said I was sticking to a budget in this post and so far I have spent £12.27 on items with long shelf lives.

I have been getting tons of private emails about my hair. Lol. I have stuck to my deep conditioning method I blogged about on this post and I took some pictures of my hair on Sunday. The only change has been to omit the Avocado. Avocados are no longer in season and so are hard to find. That means if I do find them they will cost me an arm and that I am not willing to pay!

I tweaked my 'recipe' and I have omitted avocados ever since. I have also trimmed my ends 4 times since that post. WAIT! Before you scream, 'that's a lot', I haven't had a trim in forever! The first couple of times was me trimming my ends equally and the other 2 were 'search and destroy' missions where I trimmed strands that looked......should we say distressed? Lol.

Look at all that shrinkage! Lol. My hair is now BS length and I can tell it has grown since my last post which was also the last time I bothered to check the length. Bear in mind I have trimmed it 4 times and this is what's left. Lol

I have a jar of Mayo I use exclusively for my hair and this cost me 45p. My jar of honey cost 99p and my hair still grew. Do the maths and give your verdict. Lol

I finally finished my Boots shampoo on Sunday! Whew! Now I can hunt for a sulphate-free alternative that's better for my hair. I have some Lush bars I have decided to try. We will see how it goes when that happens. Lol.

And I have to mention I finally succumbed and installed a weave! The last time I did that was in July of 2011. I gave them up because the stylists I went to always competed to see who could pull my brains out of my scalp! I am not even joking! They braided my hair so tight my edges were non-existent! This one time, my scalp actually bled from the middle *shudders. I just got tired of the whole thing and decided to never subject my hair to all that torture.

It hasn't been easy keeping up with my hair and I admit I still don't do it as much as I should. Well on Sunday I caved in. I remembered this abandoned pack of weave from back when I used to have them, sat in front of my laptop and put the thing in myself! No aches, no pains, no breakage, my scalp's fine and my hair's protected. Lol.

Quite proud of my closure. This was my first look in the mirror and I went back to 'fill in the blanks' Lol

Some parts needed attention and I fixed that after taking these shots. I was quite proud of my work at the end of the day and will probs be doing this again. Lol
 Finally, my jar of honey is empty and before I recycle, I had to pay tribute to the Tesco value brand. Lol. This was replaced by the Tesco Everyday value brand and I will never see this label on the jars again. Quite sad. Tesco value and I have history mehn! Emosh! Lol.....plus I prefer the old brand on the honey jars! Yes! I said it! I don't always like change :-(

Gone but not forgotten........*throws into the recycle bin
P.S

Happy World Nutella Day!!!

I was going to post a recipe, I promise but in the end I started with this one and ran out of nutella :-(

You will need:

A teaspoon
1 jar of nutella
A mouth full of 'sweet teeth'

Method:

Unscrew your jar of nutella.....easy, easy does it, you have to coax the lid off like you are soothing a baby.

Grab your spoon, climb into bed and stab that jarful of chocolatey brown goodness......because in life, everyone deserves a break.

Love you darlings! xx
LW