Despite being a massive food lover and having loads of compliments weekly on my food dishes my blog has so far been very short on recipes. This is because so many of the dishes you see posted on Instagram were created using someone else's recipe and I feel it would just be wrong to post the recipe. However just before I moved to Glasgow I created this little dish using my own initiative. 

I picked up the cocoa pasta from Hotel Chocolat not long after it opened in Aberdeen. Admittedly I am not a huge chocolate person but I find it hard to say no to an opportunity to experiment in the kitchen. I hit up the recipes on Google but found that cocoa pasta usually accompanies...meat. I cooked the one veggie recipe I had unearthed which involved mushrooms but I just wasn't feeling it. The savory taste of a mushroom and the bitter taste of the pasta just wasn't mixing well in my mouth.

A FYI, at the time of the original Instagram I got asked whether or not is tasted like chocolate. It depends what your definition of chocolate is. If you only know chocolate to be a creamy Dairy Milk bar then no, it doesn't taste like chocolate. If however you know that true chocolate is bitter when not mixed with anything, then yes, it does taste like chocolate. Bitter dark chocolate. It is also naturally vegan, though this recipe isn't.

It was then a few days later that I spotted the cream cheese in my parents fridge. And I realised this could be a balance to the bitter flavours of the cocoa pasta. 

    

Ingredients

50g cocoa pasta

100g cream cheese (can add more)

2 spring onions, chopped

1 teaspoon chili flakes

1 teaspoon oil to fry

Method

1. Put the pasta on to cook. My method is to boil water in a kettle, then add to a pan of pasta, then bring back to the boil before simmering until needed.

2. Slice the spring onion.

3. Heat the oil in a frying pan.

4. Gently fry the onions, be careful not to brown and burn They will soften - that is them ready.

5. Add the chili flakes.

6. Take of the heat

7. Put the cream cheese in a bowl and mix until it softens.

8. Add the onions and chilis

9. The pasta should be cooked by now - may need a few more minutes - drain when ready

10. Mix the cream cheese into the pasta

11. Serve

A bit of a new mix up for my first outfit post since September! Firstly I took me and my camera, and my tripod (and a old holdall) to a near empty car park and snapped myself in public. Completely scary biscuits but after taking the last few outfit posts in my parents back garden I really feel as though a backdrop can really add to a picture. Some blogs do suit the plain white background but as my blog has a cream text area I feel that's why a non-white background works best.

Secondly the text on the photos. I took this idea from Sarah of yesandyes.org and whilst she isn't a fashion blogger (but still one of my favourite blogger EVAR!) it was a nice touch that allows a reader the chance to get info without digging right in. I am slightly in two minds as I'm scared it might distract from the outfit itself, but I have time to play with fonts to get it just right (the fonts don't match in the three photos above for experimental purposes.).

Thirdly, the prefix on the title is now "work attire" rather than how I looked. I was never sure how I felt about how i looked but kept it anyway almost two years later. Because I now mainly live in office suitable (but still fashionable - I think) clothing work type outfits are going to start popping up more often. So just as I categorise out my fancy dress outfits, I'm probably going to start doing so with my work outfits. Also because I don't know of any other blogger who posts their office clothes! 

What does everyone else think? I'd love some feedback.

Usually whilst I'm in Lush picking up some of my regular products (which we should all know by now is near half my products) I'll pick up an extra product just to try out. These tend to be lower priced products that usually just help me make up the full value of whatever pound note I'm paying with. The Jungle Solid Conditioner was one of these. I chose it because the forever travelling (and amazing!) Sarah von had mentioned that solid shampoos/conditioners are great for when on the move and I wasn't long home from Africa and though 'damn wouldn't it have been handy to have already sourced out the best solid shampoos and conditioners sooner'. Along that lines.

Whilst I did buy it with an intention of just 'trying it out' I was very surprised to discover it was quite the gem and it became my general conditioner until it ran out very recently. My hair is naturally fairly oily and I use henna to dye it so my hair doesn't suffer terrible dry ends (despite it length) however it can get very tuggy and I found a few strokes of this in the shower helped sort that out.

This was my first time using a solid conditioner as opposed to a liquid one and it was something to get used to. When I first got in the shower I imagined I'd rub it between my palms and it would lather up into a light cream. Not quite. I had been using it for a few weeks before I realised that the more effective creamy bits lie inside not towards the more outside layers which have been exposed to the elements. My advice is to cut it in half and use the inner layers to do your hair instead of rubbing the thing along your ends (which I originally did).

Overall, I really liked this product. Admittedly it won't become my every day conditioner because it's not as luxurious and is damn harder to use than its bottled counterparts! However for a situation where I might decide to go hike it out in a developing country, jet off for a weekend with just hand luggage and need to keep my liquids to the pesky allowances or finally get around to checking "go to a festival" off my bucket list, then by all means a re-purchsing situation may be on the cards!

(And by 'may be' I mean that I am planning to experiment with more solid hair products in preparation for these moments)

And it's up! The Halloween costume that got me so many hearts on Instagram, Likes on Facebook and compliments from drunk people. The date will be edited to make it appear as if it was put up in November but for those of you already following you'll know how late the true date is!

It may not be a particularly big secret that I love fancy dress and plan my costumes for Halloween/Eurovision/my themed birthday months before it happens. Though I'll admit with the moving across the country situation this idea came a bit late to me and I had to pray the costume arrived in time. But I really think this may go down as a favourite (and I've dressed up as Katy Perry, a Ghostbuster and even a Crayola crayon!).

As for the make-up, the green face paint was Smiffy's (though I'll admit I have no idea if they are a cruelty-free company) which I found among the countless 'goth shops' along Queen Street in Glasgow. I also wore Urban Decay Babydoll lashes which truthfully I found a bitch to apply as they wouldn't bend to the shape of my eye easily. This was the first UD product I've ever used so I don't want to bad mouth it - but it really has put me off the eyelash range (and there has since been the whole being bought over by L'Oreal fiasco). The eyeshadow was also the first time I used my Blink + Go eyeshadow and blush kit which I received in a Glossybox ages ago, and was very impressed by. I only ever use coloured eyeshadow for fancy dress purposes but I found this really pigmented and lasted all night. 

And where did I wear this amazing costume? Because I'm now in a full-time job and many of my other friends have similar grown-up commitments Gillian threw a pre-Halloween weekend bash at hers in Edinburgh so I toddled along there for a night of hand-made cupcakes and bowls of punch. Followed by a night at Potterow. (Fun blogger fact - did you know me and Gillian have known each other since we were nine? You do now!).