Autumn Daze and Pumpkin Pies

I love autumn. There I said it. Does this make me super basic now? Is that even a bad thing? I don't know. But I do know I love autumn. In an effort to annoy strangers everywhere I've been basking in my 'basic-ness' (is that a word, it is now anyway) and enjoying everything autumnul.

Little Lush Pumpkin Purchase 

I ended up spending far more than I could justify at the grocers on pumpkins and sqaush to decorate the house with. I still had to be forcable restrained from buying more. I managed to create a bit of a fall decor, and decorated some pumpkins for by the door. Am I increadibly sad yet? probably so.

For the first time ever I attempted to make Pumpkin Pie. Since my trip to New York I've been obbessed with american food, which has so far invloved me walking up and down the american section of Tesco's waiting for them to bring out candy corn. On a side note, why don't we have candy corn in the UK? Is there a petition to sign ? First on my list of American foods to try at home has been Pumpkin Pie.

 I've got to admit having never actually eaten a pumpkin prior to this I was a little nervous about the whole thing but apprently it was unwarrented. For the pastry I used the standard sweet shortcrust pastry I always use which is from Paul Hollywood blind baked it to avoid the infamous 'soggy bottom'. I used the filling recpie from here since it was the only one I could find where all the ingredients where already found in my cupoards.

The Green Smoothie Recipie

A few months ago in an effort to make mornings more productive, and nutrious I ditched the cherios in favour of green smoothies. After a few months of experimentation I've feel as though I've finally found a recipie that is tasty, nutrious and doesn't leave me starving by 10 am.

Since I started to drink this for breakfast I've seen my energy levels soar (which I'm pretty sure is thanks to the spirulina more than anything), the clarity of my skin improve, and really just felt like a heathlier person. This recpie isn't super exact since nobody's got time for weights and measures first thing in the morning. But nevertheless heres roughly what I do. 

The Green Monster Smothie - makes around two large glasses 

1 Large handful of spinach or other leafy green 

1 stick of celery 

1/4 cup of cucumber 

2 tsp of Spriulina Powder

2 tsp of Maca powder

1 tsp of Ground flaxseed

1 to 2 dates 

1/2 cup of coconut water 

hanful of ice cubes and enough normal water to reach the desired texture. 

Pop it all into the blender on high and enjoy. 

My Week In Pictures: New York City

 Since this year marks my Mum's 50th Birthday and my graduation we both decided to go on a little trip to New York.  A venture that as you can imagine I was particularly excited for. Growing up we were never able to have family holidays, my Mum hadn't been on a plane since I was born, and I've only ever been on one once on a school trip. Altogether we where just plain excited (geddit?).

Whilst we where there we stayed at the beautiful Westhouse Hotel, which was not only a stunning building filled with lovely staff but being only a 5 minute walk from Time Square seemed to be close to practically all the major tourist locations. Since we only had a week (just under actually) we spent most of it doing the major tourist things we'd always heard about: Empire State building, Rockefeller Centre, Tiffany's, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Sephora.

Also being major musical theatre nerds we had to go and see a few Broadway plays, 'Its only a play' which was in previews during my visit was hilarious, both my Mum and I found ourselves getting ridiculously excited everytime Stockard Channing took to the stage. As for actual musicals,  we managed to see Les Mis, which has been on must watch list for the longest time. We were especially excited to she Ramin Kamilroo as Jean Valjean. We'd seen him previously as the Phantom on the West end and loved his performance both times.  Finally we went to see Wicked, I know this is super popular in the musical theatre community but if I'm honest it was just OK (Please don't hate me). The theatre itself though was amazing, I'm pretty sure we where the last leave we couldn't stop wondering around searching out all famous names and faces in the hall of fame.

My Mum is far to excited for Stockard Channing 

In the end, we basically spent the week eating junk food. Cake Boss cannolis, Juniors and Magnolia bakery were all on the menu. Along with a scarily large amount of hot dogs, burgers and chips - which were all delicious. New York; I love you.