How to make pasta

So I thought I would do a blog about something a little bit different. My fiancé mentioned that I should do one about making pasta as my mum bought us a pasta machine at Christmas. It's taken a few weeks for us to do it (mainly as we were too lazy to buy the correct flour) but this weekend we decided we would and here's how it went....

We found many different ways of doing it, which was very confusing. So we put our trust in Jamie Oliver and followed his recipe. We needed 300g of 00 flour... We just bought pasta flour, guess it's the same, and 3 eggs. After mixing it together in out hands we noticed it was a bit crumbley so I read the back of the flour packet and mentioned to add some oil, once we did, the mixture came together much easier. This also made the kneeding easier. We kneaded for a couple of minutes and popped it into the fridge for around 30 mins.

I feel like I need to add at this point that when I say we I mean my fiancé... As you know I'm lazy.

After resting in the fridge, we (my fiancé) tore a orange size shape off the dough. We then covered the work top in flour and in turn we proceeded to roll it through the machine. Jamie said to do it through the widest setting and fold over the dough in half and repeated 5-6 times. Once we had done this (now I do mean we, I started to get interested as it looked fun) we worked through the settings from 1-9 which made it very... very thin. We had decided that we were going to make tagliatelle so put it through the cutter, this was very exciting!

It made loads and we only used an orange size amount! So decided we would only use that. We put it in a saucepan with boiling water and salted well. We cooked it for a couple of minutes (we were rebels and didn't follow Jamie) it tasted done so took it off the heat and drained it. Once drained it looked a little slimy. We added some meatballs and a tomato sauce to the pasta. I must admit the pasta did taste a little strange but with the sauce you couldn't really tell. Next time we won't be rebels and research how to cook it!

I would recommend making your own pasta, it's really cool especially with the machine and it is pretty easy. Just make sure you follow the recipe and method, otherwise you will just end up with a mess. Also our recipe said it would serve 2-3 more like 2-300! I'd say 100g of pasta flour and 1 egg with a tsp of oil would be enough for two but I'm not a chef so don't blame me if its not!

Enjoy!

france louise
xoxo

Winter saviours

To follow on from my last post, I thought I'd write about some of my winter saviours.. Not literally saviours I'm not a doctor or anything but what I use/wear to make the cosiest season manageable.

I know not everyone does, but I LOVE WINTER!!! A perfect day for me would be a bright crisp sunny day to go for a long walk along the beach/river or in a wood. Wrapped up in a scarf, gloves and a bobble hat with a cosy coat and comfy boots, sipping a hot chocolate. The only thing that would make it better would be to have a dog walking along side us. (I long for a sausage dog!)

As I mentioned in my perfect day above, another reason why I love winter is the fashion. I live in a scarf in winter. My go to outfit would be, a jumper or a long sleeve t shirt, ripped skinny jeans, boots and, of course, a scarf. I also love a good jacket/coat. I usually plan my outfit round one of these items because my love is so strong for them... I'm not even joking...

Here a few piccys of my winter styles.

But I can understand why people don't love it as much as me. It never snows just rains, rarely bright, just grey and windy...very windy. And this is no good for our body and skin. This sort of weather makes you eat comfort food which, in turn makes you a slightly larger version of yourself. It also makes your skin all dry and lips chapped. This makes for a very upset person. Trust me I can get like that too!

But I find winter quite magical. This might be because I am a winter baby but it is defiantly my fav season.

So this is why I thought I'd share with you some of my saviours and I hope this will make you love winter just a little bit more like I do.

As I mentioned, you MUST have a good solid collection of scarfs. I don't even want to count how many I own! You also must have some cosy gloves and a bobble hat for those bad hair days. Invest in a coat that will carry you through the season and last for many many more. You won't regret it!

You need to have a good skin care regime. I must admit I'm pretty lazy but I do feel better when I stick to the regime. Mine includes, daily cleansing with bareMinerals Purifying Facial Cleanser which I use to take my make up off. I also use No7 Early Defence eye cream twice a day along with day and night cream. The day cream has SPF 15 too, bonus! Twice a week I use Lush Mask of Magnaminty face make that exfoliates as well as nourish and helps with those pesky spots. Don't forget to use lip balm! It's a must! I live in Maybelline Baby Lips.

Don't forget to treat yourself, you deserve it! When it's just too chilly to venture outside, run yourself a bath, fill with bubbles, chuck in a bath bomb, sprinkle some bath salts, light a few candles and relax, get out and paint your nails. I find painting my nails very therapeutic and how cute are this mini OPI bottles and such lovely colours!

Embrace Winter and look after yourself.

For now,
Frances Louise
Xoxo

Aussie Winter Miracle | Review

I love a beauty product, but I find it quite terrifying not knowing what to get. There are sooooo many different products for one area. Say the face, there are millions of products, and that is not an exaggeration! From moisturisers to day creams (what is the difference?!) to cleansers to lip balms and so on. So when on the product it tells you exactly what it's for, this calms me down and my breathing returns to normal. 

This is when Aussie came in with a limited edition winter collection. Well it is winter. I've heard Aussie is a good product (I google EVERYTHING before I buy it) therefore I should be using it. What you should know about me is that I am a bit of a sucker for a promo, limited edition, gimmick and so on, so this immediately drew me in and I am so glad it did!

I bought the shampoo, conditioner and 3 minutes miracle mask and the first thing I noticed when I used it was the smell, the smell is devine! Smells like berries and unlike most hair products the smell lasts for days. The next thing was how silky soft my hair was during washing and when dried, this also lasts for days too. My hair feels a billion times better when I use the 3 minute miracle mask and I'm surprised that it actually lived up to the hype, as I find most beauty products don't.... 

I know that when it comes down to beauty products it can be quite subjective as everyone has different skin, hair, nail types but I am a total Aussie convert now and can't wait to try all their other products. Spesh their summer collection but obviously I can't use that till summer, or my OCD will go into overdrive as it's not summer and that is not right... right?! 

I got my Aussies from Superdrug but most supermarkets and chemists sells it. I got 3 for £10 offer but I know many places do different offers for the Aussie products.

Now my lovelies go and get the Aussie Winter Miracle Collection, you will not regret it!

Till next time,

frances louise
xoxo

Sales sales sales

This is my first blog post so I thought I should write about something I know well... Very well...

Ever since I can remember, one of my fav past times is shopping, especially clothes shopping!
It might sound shallow and materialistic but it makes me happy so don't judge me. Anyways, I think majority of people may feel the same way I do... I hope. So if this sounds like you too then you may enjoy my blog as it will probably be mostly about shopping. Not always clothes but also beauty, accessories and even maybe food too! I am also getting married at Easter so may be a few posts about that. I may also do a few about lifestyle and cooking, basically about the things I enjoy and I hope you do too.

So here we go...

One of my favourite things about Christmas is the sales. I absolutely love Christmas! And when Christmas Day is over I (like most people) feel a bit sad, but then I remember the sales. It's like Christmas Day all over again when I go sale shopping especially when I get a few bargains. Most years Topshop is my treasure chest of cheap goodies but this year it was Urban Outfitters. I usually find it too expensive (and ashamedly a little too cool for me) but when they have a sale it's one of my fav places to go. The only sale items I got this year were from Urban Outfitters. I am extremely happy with them especially my boots xD I love them! like... really really love them. They should last me a good few years too.

I also got a denim skirt, a taupe top, two hair clips, a purse, a beautiful scarf and EOS lip balm in vanilla bean (the only one which wasn't in the sale) all very 90s! BTW totes my fav decade mainly because of the Spice Girls and Friends.

Well I think this is the end of my first blog post, keep it short and sweet. I have tipped my toe into the blogging world and am already thinking of my next post, think it will be a beauty one, bit of a teaser.

I am very grateful if you have read this and please look out my next post :)

frances louise
xoxo