Happy Halloween for yesterday! I hope everyone had fun. I celebrated (do you actually celebrate Halloween?) on Saturday, Sunday AND Monday. I was invited to a friends Halloween dinner party on Saturday night and was told that my costume had better be good and better be scary. Well, I’m not sure it was either of those things but it was fun to dress up as……

MEDUSA… I sewed mini snakes to my dress and attached loads into my backcombed hair. I also had a fake snake as a necklace and bracelet. I arrived at the party with 9 snakes, I left with 3. Apparently my friend keeps finding them all over her house! Sorry about that. Things may have got a little out-of-hand at the dinner party, especially when we started swapping items of fancy dress. I’m not sure that a leather waistcoat and aviators went that well with the rest of the outfit.

Ej went as a stab/axe victim. The butcher’s knife was really uncomfortable for her to wear so she took it off almost straight after we arrived at the house.

On Sunday I met up with some friends to support my friend Jess for the final of a singer/songwriting competition. Unfortunately we had some car trouble on the way (strange unexplained screeching sound coming from the front wheel, possibly a bit of metal that was caught) so we actually missed Jess sing. I am sure she was amazing, she has been when I have seen her in the past. Check her page out!  Unfortunately she didn’t win, but she definitely deserved to!

Afterwards we headed to Outsider Tart, an American bakery in Chiswick for cake and tea. They had an amazing Halloween selection including this sponge cake, with raspberry cream icing inside and lemon icing and raspberry sauce on top and icing fingers around the edge.

We shared a whoopie pie, brownie, piece of cake and a savoury sausage roll between four of us and still couldn’t finish it all!

This chocolate and peanut whoopie pie with a peanut spider on was so cute. Unfortunately the cinnamon brownie was devoured before I could get a picture of it.

Whilst in Outsider Tart we had an unexpected visit from Joe who was out on a run sporting his new ING New York Marathon top (no he hasn’t run it but is running London with me in April), and Steve who had just finished a Sunday lunch with his family. We were all shocked when he said he couldn’t manage our left over cakes! It must have been a big lunch as Steve can eat A LOT! ( I mean this in the nicest possible way, Steve goes to the gym more often than anyone I know and is normally quite healthy!)

So nice to spend Sunday afternoon with friends.

On Monday I had some friends from Uni round for a Halloween supper. I made everyone wear an item of fancy dress – Nadia went all out and wore a zombie nurse outfit (unfortunately no photos,
 sorry). We ate Pumpkin and Pine nut ravioli in sage butter, followed by Barbecue Lamb and Lemon Tart. I’d had a frustrating day in the kitchen so most of I have to confess that I bought the pasta and tart. The lamb was homemade though!

Still sticking to the Healthy Challenge;

Day 5
peas
2 clementines
vegetable stir-fry (AT LEAST 2 of my 5 a-day)
2 figs

Day 6
30 blueberries
1 banana
vegetable soup
2 clementines
1/2 red pepper

Starting to think about what next week’s healthy challenge will be. I am going to keep up my ‘Eat 5 pieces of fruit and veg a day’ challenge and take on another. Don’t worry, I will stop sharing my daily fruit and veg with you once this weeks’ challenge is done!