Monday 29 February 2016
Thursday 25 February 2016
Tuesday 23 February 2016
THE BEST SATAY SAUCE EVER
So to kick off the new and improved food section of my blog, I wanted to share one of my favourite and most used recipes from a surprisingly cheap and cheerful little book me and my mum use very often.
It's called The Takeaway Secret and you can buy it here for just 1p plus postage on Amazon (WHAAAAT!?)
It's a recipe book full of takeaway style food including lots of my favourites - the perfect curry sauce base, dreamy homemade pizzas and doner kebabs. Except less grease than the type you get at 4am after a night out.
This is a recipe I have been cooking at least once a week recently as it's just so delicious. Luckily I have a boyfriend with the appetite of an elephant so it means I get to try out lots of recipes without having to eat everything and pile on the pounds!
Now I'm not necessarily a big peanut butter fan, I never eat it on its own but in a curry sauce OH MY GOD it is to die for. Even if you hate peanut butter just give this a whirl and tell me you don't love it! It's such a simple, foolproof recipe.
I usually double this recipe as it says it's for just 1-2 portions. We're usually cooking for 4 so I'm going to use the measurements I would use for 4 people. Obviously if it's just 1 or 2 of you then half the below, but its always nice to make extra and keep leftovers in the fridge for another day.
For the sauce you will need:
A splash of oil (I prefer olive oil)
1 small onion
2 teaspoons mild curry powder
6 tablespoons peanut butter (I prefer crunchy)
4 teaspoons light soy sauce
400ml coconut milk (or coconut powder and water)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Pinch of dried chilli flakes
You can read the recipe in the above photo but basically: finely chop the onion and fry it in the oil for 1-2 mins. Add the curry powder and fry for another minute or so.
Add 6 big tablespoons of peanut butter until it begins to melt. I usually eyeball it and pour in enough coconut powder and about 400ml of water. You can add more water later if it becomes too thick.
Then go ahead and throw in the soy sauce, brown sugar and chilli flakes, simmer on a low heat for a minute or so and you're done!
I don't follow this recipe exactly, so at this point I'll take 80% of the sauce and put it into a bowl for now. I then add more coconut powder and water to the remaining sauce so it's runny and that becomes my marinade for the chicken. This part is optional, if either you just want the perfect satay sauce recipe, don't eat meat or whatever. But I'll go ahead and pop my chicken slithers into the marinade and leave for a while (the longer the better, but I'm usually in a rush to eat so even 10 minutes is okay).
Then heat up a wok and throw the whole chicken marinade into the wok (this can get very hot and spit so be careful) and fry until the chicken is done.
Then you're pretty much done! We'd usually serve this with egg fried rice and stir fried veg but that's pretty straight forward to make.
Boyfriend rating: 7.5/10
Boyfriend comments: "I like the crunchiness of the nuts and the sauce is nice and sweet and yummy. The chicken was nice and moist too."
Lulu XX
FOLLOW LULUTRIXABELLE...
A TRAVEL RANT
Gili Islands
I have wanted to go travelling since I was 18. I’m now
23, and have been putting it off for years because no one would come with me. So I’ve
decided to go on my own.
I live in a town where people rarely move away, everyone stays in the
same 9-5 jobs for their whole life, goes to the same boring places with the same faces every weekend. I am not about that life. I’ve always felt like I
don’t belong in this town – I’ve always been that girl that dresses a bit different and puts her face on YouTube. “You gonna put me on your blog Lucy?!
HAHA” friends/acquaintances would joke.
Oh please.
I know there is so much about myself that I am yet to learn. I feel sorry for people my age who have no aspirations in life, no desire to leave the town they grew up in. I want to explore, I want to see the
world and I want to meet interesting, open minded people. It makes me sad me when people think they can’t just get up and leave their jobs. I know in certain people's situations that is a no-go, but at the end of the day, it’s just a job. Why
do you think you are tied down forever? If you can't travel now while you're young and free, when can you?
Cinque Terre, Italy
I came across a
quote recently which reflects my thoughts perfectly:
“You were not born to just work, pay bills and die.”
“You were not born to just work, pay bills and die.”
The other day I was looking at vintage globe my mum picked
up from the car boot sale, that sits on our windowsill. I realised just how
tiny the UK really is. In comparison to the rest of the world, we just seem so
unbelievably small and irrelevant. Why would I want to stay here forever? It
got me thinking, what is my purpose in life? I was not put here to work a 9-5 job for my whole life, to just pay my way, buy a house, have kids and and be skint all the
time. After being a shopaholic-spendaholic for so many years, i've finally realised that experiences beat having material things.
When I was younger I thought there was nowhere better to go
on holiday than Ibiza. I’ve been there, done that, 4 TIMES. Why do I need to go
to Ibiza 4 times? Yes it’s fun, but there’s so much more fun to be had in this
world. So many more amazing places to party, sunsets to see and more interesting people to meet.
What I like about the thought of travelling solo is
you can literally be whoever you want to be. If you’re a shy person like me,
it’s a chance to be the person you are in your head, without a care in the
world, because you'll probably never see these people again. I’ve read many blogs where
someone’s gone a completely shy, anxious person and come out way more confident,
independent and open-minded than they’ve ever been. I want to be the person I
am inside and I know starting my travelling journey on my own, going to a
country where nobody knows who I am, is a great way to do so. It forces you out
of your shell, forces you to talk to people, because you have no one else. It
makes you approachable – if I’m on my own in a bar, I’m sure it wont be long
until a group of people ask me to join them (or so I have heard - I hope!). I’ll be able to make my
own decisions, go exactly where I want to go, travel exactly how I want to
travel, and tick off everything that’s on my bucket list.
You can not let shyness stop you from living your life. Sometimes you just have to take risks, even if you're scared. At the end of
the day, if I don’t like it, I can always come home. But I might love it. I
might make best friends for life, who live all over the world, who I can go and
visit! Meeting new people is one of the biggest positives of
travelling. Everyone I know who’s done it, has said it was absolutely the best
decision they ever made, and changed their life, and did miracles for their
confidence.
I am tired of waiting. I’ve had people over the years get me
excited to book a trip together, like “yeah I’ll definitely come with you”, and
when it comes down to me saying “okay, let’s book it now” they always back
away. I swear it’s been impossible for me to book a girly group holiday, everyone ends up
dropping out. “I could NEVER afford to go travelling” i've heard people say. Well,
what are you working every day for? If I worked every day and couldn’t afford
to do the things I want to do, then I think I’d realise i’m living the wrong
life. If you are like me - young with no responsibilities mortgage/kids etc) then there's no better time to go than now.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
But Lucy, aren’t you in a relationship? Yes, I do have a
boyfriend - a very lovely one who encourages me to travel, and wants me to follow my
dreams and do whatever I need to do. He really does bring out the best in me. Unfortunately he can't join me on my first trip due to rugby committments (cry), but we're gonna work around it and fit in lots of short trips in the future. Yes we’ll miss each other unbelievable amounts, but he knows it will be
SO good for me. One of the reasons I put this off for 6 years is because I was
in relationships with people who didn't want me to go, who told me it would be
the end of us if I left. I thought a relationship couldn’t work if I wasn’t
around for a while - then I realised it totally can. If I lived my life to keep other people
happy, I would never do anything that I want to do.
Similarly to how I turned fashion blogging into a job, I
hope I can turn my adventures into a full blown travel blog! This might just be
the start of something new for me...
I am alive, right now, so why wait for people who might
never end up leaving?
Where would I like to be right now?
To be continued…
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