Bag ‘n’ Shoes: Next Two Part Pointed Flats and Navy and White Striped Shopper

Yellow two part flats and striped beach bag from Next.

Summer for me is always nautical. I love nautical stuff, as I’m sure you’ve cannily realised from my previous posts. But you don’t have to spend a fortune on trends to get something stylish and practical, and one of my favourite places for affordable fashion is Next!

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Your easiest luxury Christmas shop ever!

Have you guys heard of Hello Fresh? They’re an amazing company that sends you boxes full of ingredients every week so you can make gourmet meals from scratch. Forget veggie boxes – this is where its at!

Hello Fresh have come up with a genius idea to take all of the stress out of that Christmas shop this year with their Christmas box! And, you can get £10 off with the code FOODFASHFIT, making it even more tempting! Inside the box are the ingredients you’ll need to put together a delicious meal for 4-6 people, or 8-10 people if you’ve got extended family coming over. It seems like they’ve literally thought of everything!

Included in the box are ingredients to prepare a prawn cocktail starter (my favourite!), plus turkey and all the trimmings, a Christmas pudding – and a cheeseboard! A cheeseboard! Now, that’s Christmas luxury! The food has been sourced from top quality providers, including sausages and bacon from Tom Hixson of Smithfield Market, a free range Copas turkey (which won a Great Taste award), and prawns from James Knight in Mayfair (who holds two Royal Warrants, if you please!).

The prawn cocktail starter is made using delicious tiger prawns, and for the main course there’s a whole host of goodies. For the 4-6 people option, you get a 2.5kg turkey breast, pop-up cooking timer (a Godsend!), cranberry sauce with rosemary, free range Goose fat, sage and onion stuffing with red onion, and gravy with cracked black pepper. You also get pigs in blankets, and a selection of veggies (including red cabbage, sprouts, carrots, and parsnips) to make side dishes like garlic and herb infused Brussels sprouts with toasted pine nuts (recipes included, of course)! Plus, there’s your good old fashioned spuds – which, trust me, will taste amazing with that goose fat! For pudding, there’s another Royal seal of approval from the Christmas pudding makers, Wilkin and Sons, which is accompanied by brandy butter – and you get some mince pies, too.

And, finally, that gourmet cheese board with creamy Wenslydale with cranberries, reblochon, and red Leicester, plus, a variety of crackers.

What, you thought that was it? Nope! This is Christmas, people – time to really push the boat out! You also get some treats to round everything off with – Joe and Steph’s mince pie popcorn, candy canes, Prestat choccies, and table crackers!

I’d say that with all of that, Christmas is pretty much sorted! The Christmas box for 8-10 contains the same products in larger quantities (for example, a whole 5kg Copas turkey instead of a turkey breast). They’re even going to pop in some ideas for the leftovers, too.

The Christmas box costs £155 for 4-6, or £225 for 8-10. But, don’t forget my FOODFASHFIT code, which brings it down by a tenner! You already save up to 35% on the RRP of these items with these economical boxes, and with £10 off, those savings jump even more.

I’ll be testing out a Hello Fresh box or two in the upcoming weeks, so look out for that – and make sure to use that FOODFASHFIT code if you order – its valid on any boxes, even the non-Christmas ones!

Frugal Potato Soup

This is one of my most viewed photos on Flickr – I assume people are searching for it for a simple, cheap, potato recipe. Well, it’s certainly that!

It’s a tasty potato soup that in its most basic form only requires five ingredients – potatoes, garlic, onions, vegetable oil and water. You don’t even need to add stock, but seasonings might be needed, depending on your taste. I also added milk and some bacon strips to the top of mine. This soup is also better eaten the next day, and will serve around six.

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 white onions
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 5 small potatoes
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 pint milk (optional)
  • Fried back bacon strip (optional)

METHOD

  • Finely chop garlic and onions together in a processor, then heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan with a lid, and add the onions.
  • Sweat with the pan covered for ten minutes, then add the potatoes and a cup of water. Bring to the boil, then turn down to simmer.
  • Cover again and leave for 20 mins, checking the water is covering the potatoes. If it’s not, add a bit more. Continue to cook until the potatoes are tender.
  • Add around a pint of water (around half a litre) and bring to the boil. (Note: if adding milk, reduce the amount of water used and add the milk at this point.)
  • At this point, you can whizz the soup down to a fine puree or mash it to leave it slightly lumpy. Taste for seasoning. The soup is now done!
  • Garnish with snipped bacon, as in the pic, or maybe with some chives. Or leave plain!

If you eat the soup the following day (recommended, as all soups gain more flavour the day after) then add some more water or milk as the potato tends to make the soup more solid the longer it sits.