IMATS London 2014 Haulage

So this weekend was London IMATS and I've been dying to go for years but had always been working. But as I left my old job at the end of last year, I was free! hurrah!

Here's a pic of my swag (well most of it, I didn't snap the boring, bridal kit stuff)

First up, brushes. I was excited to see the Bdellium stand as I love their brushes and they had all the Bambu brushes up front and centre on the stand.  From left to right, I got the 949 Pointed Foundation, 945 Contour, 954 Duet Fibre Slanted Kabuki, 776 Blending brush (I got 2 of these as I have one already and love it so wanted some back ups), I got a 735 Tapered Blending (again I already have 2 of these so this is a kit back up) and a 760 Liner/Brow which I also already have one of.

Then I was happy to find that the LoveMakeup stand had some Limecrime stuff. They had sold out of Coquette lipstick which I wanted to buy but they did have the Uniliners. So I got Blue Milk and Quill. I wanted Quill because I've being trying to find a black liquid liner I like as much as my old Bourjois one, as I don't buy from them anymore and I like the brush and formula of these liners.  I also picked up the Wicked Velvetine, which is really the only one from the Clueless Witch collection that interests me.

 Swatchy swatch, it's pretty obvious which colour's which! :)

OCC, the second stand we went to (I had marked it on my floorplan!) and we went twice. Mainly because it was cash only and I didn't have enough on me for everything.  I got the new pencils (YAY) in Hoochie, Grandma and anti-feathered, which is clear so can be used with any lipstick or lip tar.  I got the Lip Tars in Hoochie and Black Metal Dahlia* and the stained gloss in Aurora and I finally got my hands on the concaeler in R1, which has been out of stock for ages on the websites I normally buy for.

* I am SO freaking excited for Black Metal Dahlia, been trying to get this for months but it's been out of stock and it's so damn purty!!

L-R: Aurora, Hoochie, Black Metal Dahlia, Hoochie Pencil, Grandma Pencil.

I picked up a couple of essentials, a small Z-Palette and some Skindinavia setting spray. Been wanting to try this for ages and I finally used up my Neve one this week.

And onto my first stop of the day. I actually marked this on the floorplan and our route to it from the entrance.  I got Olivia, which is the limited edition loose eyeshadow and I got the Sparkle Baby Eyeshadow in Candy Crush, which is a lovely sparkly baby blue.

Candy Crush top, Olivia bottom.

I also got some stuff for my kit like a new bag and a Graftobian concealer palette (which isn't vegan, hence I didn't show it) and some sponges and sundries.  

I loved IMATS and I can't wait to go back next year. I even got to meet lovely Amy/Shrinkle from Sugarpill and have a photo taken with her. I just wish I was less awkward so I could've actually talked to her.. haha ah well there's always next year! :)

Did anyone else go? Would love to see a pic of your swag if you did!

Love & Stuff

Sal xXx

THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON LOVE-LIPSTICK.BLOGSPOT.COM

Miscellaneous crap and a recipe. And MoFo!

It's been almost 2 weeks since I blogged, I can't believe it. It's been a weird couple of weeks with a bad cold, an endoscopy and another cold! But enough of that crap, on with the foodz!

This was dinner last week. I forget exactly what was in the sauce but it was tomato based, with some mange tout and baked tofu on spelt penne.


I've been digging through my cookbooks lately and remember how awesome the lentil burgers from Hot Damn & Hell Yeah were, so I made them again. SO GOOD!!! With loads of ketchup, mustard and pickles on a grainy bun.

To go with it - potato salad (with a yoghurt dressing instead of all that mayo) and a carrot salad. YUM.

This was dinner last weekend for me & my friend. I made us a salad with some pan fried tofu, sauteed onions, mushrooms and courgettes, roasted red & yellow peppers, udon noodles and avocado. Yum.

Pudding was this coconut jelly with mango in lime syrup. This was SO GOOD!! Recipe is at the end of the post, I was glad I had leftovers for the next day! :)

I bought some more smoked tofu, except this one had almonds and sesame seeds in. YUM.

I mainly ate it with salad or in sarnies, but it did have some with couscous and pinenuts ....

Also, when I bought the tofu, I picked up some chocoreale - this stuff is basically vegan nutella and it is spanktastically awesome!

I wish I had something classy that I did with it to show you but to be honest it's best like this.......

Straight out the jar on a salty pretezel.

Last week my dad made some awesome carrot & coriander soup when I was staying with him and mum. I even got some to take home with me! YAY. I made some soda bread to go with it, but I forgot to take a pic. Boo Sal!

Um this was a fairly uneventful dinner - risotto with some edamame beans (ran out of peas!), sweetcorn, peppers and the last of that smoked tofu.

So onto the recipe for the pud I talked about before. I should say that on its own, the coconut jelly is almost bland and way too rich! But all together, it all works in perfect harmony. Give it a try – it’s soooo easy! This makes more syrup than you’ll need but it keeps in the fridge for a while and can go on any boring old fruit salad to jazz it up!

Ingredients:
1 (400ml) can of coconut milk
1½ tbsp agar flakes
1 cup (250ml) water
¾ cup unrefined caster sugar
Juice & zest of 1 lime
1 ripe mango

Method:
Mix together the coconut milk and agar flakes in a saucepan and leave aside for 5 minutes. Then put it on the heat and bring to the boil without stirring. Once boiling, turn it down to a simmer and stir occasionally until the flakes have dissolved (about 5 minutes). Once dissolved, pour into 4 ramekins and let cool, then put in the fridge for at least an hour to firm up.

To make the lime syrup, mix together the sugar, lime zest and water in a small saucepan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves. Then turn up the heat and boil it for 2-3 minutes. Take off the heat and add the lime juice and also throw in the empty juiced lime halves. Leave to cool at room temperature, stirring occasionally.

To serve, peel the mango with a veggie peeler and cut the flesh off the stone in long wedges. Pour some syrup over the mango and stir it around. Unmould the jelly by cutting around the edge and using the knife to pop the vacuum created and it should drop out. Spoon the mango around the jelly and some of the syrup over the top.

I can't believe it's almost October already!! Less than 2 weeks till my best friend gets married and only a couple of days until Vegan MoFo!! Last year I loved MoFo and I've been feeling a bit blogged out lately so maybe this will challenge me to think up some new ideas!!

You can go to Kittee's ace blog for info on MoFo (or check out the MoFo room on the PPK)!

I've been lax about keeping up with everyone else's blogs too so I'm off now to start catching myself up!

Laterz

xXx

Iron Man, Iron Man, does whatever an iron can ....

So here it is, my first entry into the Iron Cupcake challenge. I’ve seen this on a few blogs and it looked like so much fun I had to take part! (Details of Iron Cupcake can be found here.)

This month’s ingredient was basil. I spent ages trying to come up with ingredients that would compliment basil and not make my cupcake taste like a salad gone wrong. What I came up with was lime & ginger.

The smell of these is gorgeous but also weird because cake just shouldn’t smell of basil!! But they are surprisingly delicious and I would make them again!

I had grand ideas of a topping made from almonds but it just didn’t work the way I wanted it to, so I went with a buttercream flavoured with fresh lime, fresh grated ginger and a basil leaf dipped in chocolate and a big glob of green food colouring for good measure. I’m really happy with the way they came out!

Here is my submission:



Sal’s Basil, Lime & Ginger Cupcakes
Dry Ingredients:
2 cups plain flour
1 cup caster sugar
Zest of 2 limes
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ cup crystallised ginger, chopped
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp dried ground ginger
Wet Ingredients:
Juice of 2 limes
¾ cup non dairy milk
⅓ cup sunflower (or other light) oil
2 tbsp ginger jam
½ cup basil (not packed just lightly placed)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Frosting:
¼ cup vegan margarine
¼ cup vegetable shortening
3 – 3½ cups icing sugar (depending on the desired consistency
Fresh lime juice (up to 1 whole lime)
2 tsp fresh grated ginger
Green food colouring (optional)
Optional Decorations:
Slivers of lime zest
Basil leaves dipped in melted, dark chocolate

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

Mix together all the wet ingredients, including the basil and blend with a hand blender until smooth as you can get it.

Mix together the dry ingredients, then pour the wet ingredients in and mix until just combined, don't overmix.

Pour into muffin tins and bake for around 25-30 minutes, until a cocktail stick comes out clean. Cool in the tins for at least 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack until completely cold.

To make the frosting, cream together the margarine, shortening and icing sugar with a fork. Add the lime juice a tbsp at a time, until desired consistency is reached. Add the ginger and food colouring bit by bit and beat with an electric hand beater till the icing is fluffy and smooth. Pipe or spread onto the cupcakes and add a chocolate basil leaf if required.

Here’s a bonus pic as well.... I split the batter between a muffin tin and a sheet pan and cut a couple out with a square scone cutter, to make a couple of square cakes. I sandwiched these together with buttercream and then decorated the top with stars of buttercream and a chocolate basil leaf.

The winner of this month’s challenge gets prizes provided by Etsy Artist METAL SUGAR so be sure to head on over and have a look, and don’t forget to visit the sponsors of the challenge too:

HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS
HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson
JESSIE STEELE APRONS
CUPCAKE COURIER
TASTE OF HOME


Voting starts Sunday over at NO ONE PUTS CUPCAKE IN A CORNER - so go vote for me! Pretty please. And if you want to sign up for next month’s challenge go on over to http://ironcupcake.blogspot.com.

Cooking to: Chemical Brothers - Brotherhood

That’s probably it from me until I get back from holiday, so hopefully I’ll be posting pics of delicious foodz from Cyprus in just over a week.

xxx

Warning - crap food maybe closer than it appears!

Long post / rant follows.....

I’m home. Hurrah.

Two weeks of venue catering and hotel/local pub food and I really cannot put into words how glad I am to be home (although I’d be lying if I said that was the only reason I was glad to be home!).

The hotel food was the usual crap, pasta & tomato based sauce, cheeseless pizzas yada yada yada... but there was one good Chinese meal and that was about it.

The venue catering on the other was dire. The first day I got lucky! The veggie option was a really delicious morrocan veggie tagine with squash and sweet potato and cous cous. The next day, the veggie option was some cheese infested cholesterol-fest, but I could eat salad, potatoes and rice. Day 3 however, it became apparent that the course co-ordinator had not passed on my dietary requirements to the caterer and I was stuck with dry bread and cucumber. I didn’t sit there and complain to everyone though – unlike the insufferable asshat, with the ridiculous eyebrows, that whinged on and on and on about how much he hates fish, for pretty much the rest of that day! What a tool.

So anyway the next day I was told they were now aware of my ‘special diet’ and the waitress asked me if I would eat plain chicken?? Hmm, is it vegan if it’s plain – that’s news to me! So I politely said no and got a lunch of soggy veggies and dry new potatoes, instead.

After that, the food ranged from just about edible to damn right shite. Examples are the mushroom stew veggie option thing, but without the cream & tarragon sauce (so that’s plain mushrooms then), a sweet potato with sun-dried tomatoes and mushrooms on top, that was still hard in the middle, the most disgusting stir-fry in the world which consisted of courgette (PUKE), broccoli and chewy cabbage doused in a little soy sauce (and that was IT aside from some dry bread!) and an incinerated aubergine with flavourless veggie mush on top.

So I got back home yesterday and I’m so freaking glad and to celebrate I cooked up some portobellos with home-made pesto on top and grilled, with mashed potato and VCON corn & edamame salad (well almost, I forgot what was in it and was way to lazy to get the book out so it was my take on it).

On to today and to prove remind myself that it’s easy to make something vegan and delicious I’m posting the directions. Hey maybe I’ll direct them to this post when I email them to tell them how easy it really is to cook good vegan food!!

Vegan Lasagne – the ingredients are approximate because I didn’t really measure anything.

Tomato Sauce Ingredients:
1 can of chopped tomatoes (blended with a hand blender)
250ml (1 cup) hot water
1 tsp vegan Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried sage
½ tsp paprika
Salt & pepper to taste
Veggies of your choice
I used ½ a green pepper, ½ a yellow pepper, 1 small onion, around ½ cup edamame beans defrosted, 1 large mushroom, ½ a pack of spinach, ½ large aubergine. – all diced to around the same size.
White sauce ingredients:
2 heaped tbsp vegan margarine
2½ heaped tbsp plain flour
250ml (1 cup) soy milk
1 tsp Dijon mustard
About ½ tsp veggie stock concentrate (optional)
Slack handful (around 2 tbsp) nutritional yeast
Salt & pepper to taste

Dried lasagne sheets
Vegan cheese (optional)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F

Mix together all the tomato sauce ingredients (except salt & pepper) and stir well. Over a medium heat, bring up to a low bubble and then turn off the heat.

Sauté the onion in a little olive oil for a few minutes, then add the rest of the veggies (except edamame and spinanch) and cook for around 5 minutes. Add the spinach and cook till wilted, then add the edamame and the tomato sauce. Stir well and test for seasoning.

Heat the soymilk over a low heat but don’t let it boil. Then make the white sauce by melting the margarine on a low heat (make sure you use a pan you can use a metal whisk in). Stir in the flour and whisk well with a small whisk. Cook for a minute or so then add a little bit of the warm soymilk and mix gently till incorporated. Repeat this process until all the soymilk is incorporated (you’ll need to use a bit of elbow grease!!) and the sauce is smooth and thickened. Add the rest of the ingredients, mix well and take off the heat.

I used a 9.5 x 9.5 in lasagne dish for this, any bigger, you’ll need to increase your quantities!

To assemble, line the dish with a layer of lasagne sheets (2½ ) covered mine. Then add a third of the veggie mixture and spread it over well, then a third of the white sauce and spread around. Repeat this process 2 more times and spread the top layer of white sauce well over the top. If using, grate some vegan cheese over the top (I used smoked cheddar sheese!) and then bake, uncovered, for 50 minutes.

Cooking to: Incubus – Light Grenades

And because I’m feeling really spiteful, here is a quick, super easy pudding that seriously takes around 5 minutes from starting to shovelling in your gob:

Chocolate Lime Custard / Pudding

Ingredients:
250ml / 1 cup non-dairy milk
Zest of ½ a lime
4 tbsp / ¼ cup non dairy chocolate chips (I use Dr Oetker dark baking chips)
2-3 tbsp sugar (depending on your taste)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.5 level tbsp arrowroot

Method:
It could not be easier, it could try – but it would fail! Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan and mix until the arrowroot is dissolved.

Stir constantly, over a low heat, until the chocolate chips have fully melted and incorporated and the pudding reaches the desired thickness. This usually takes around 4 or 5 minutes and just as the mixture is about to come to boiling point, it’s done.

Serve immediately. If you want to leave it to cool or make double and leave some, you need to cover it straight away (with parchment paper or in an airtight container) to stop a really gross looking skin forming. Although it’s no biggy if this forms – just mix the bugger back into the pudding.

Yummy, light, tasty and chocolatey and the lime provides enough zing to stop this being sickly!

Cooking to: Matchbox 20 – Exile on Mainstream

Tomorrow I have big plans for dinner and recipes!! Watch this space to check if it all works out!!

Oh and a bonus pic – today’s lunch, cold sesame noodles. YUM!


I kept getting the same sort of questions from omnis this week - oh don't you miss cheese / chocolate / chicken .... not with food like this I don't.

They can take their squidgy aubergine and cholesterol laden puddings and shove em up their a-holes!

I'm not bitter though.