Hawkers House

Christmas comes but once a year, but thankfully delicious pop-up food markets are a regular thing in London.  

On Saturday, my friend Leigh and I went to Hawker's House in Canada Water. 

We threw ourselves through the big black curtain, in to a room filled with lots of a different pop-up stalls, boasting mouth watering menus. 

Wasting no time at all, we headed straight to the bar. 

Ordering two cocktails. They were SOOO good and finished far too quickly. 

We browsed the stalls, all with different, quirky styles. My favourite being The Meringue Girls.

And the meringues looked pretty delicious too...

We headed next door, tempted by a sign emblazoned with burgers and ribs, to buy our much awaited dinner!

But not before we took an obligatory photo in Bob's Lobster shack. 

Leigh had looked up Hawker's House on their Instagram, which meant she already had her eyes set on a burger from Chuck Burger. 

It did not disappoint.

Love at first sight. 

A much needed close up.

Not being sure what I wanted, fate led me to Prawnography, where someone hadn't collected their order, so they gave their order to me (for free!). 

The best fries I've ever tasted. Ever.

Oh my God. Crab fries. 

Another close up? Oh go on then. 

Crunchy, oozing with thousand island dressing and just delicious. 

After all this food it was about time we had another drink. 

We headed to Kamm and Sons and chose a Kammberry, served hot. 

After our hot drinks, we picked up some free ribs (yes free) and headed to the Milk & Honey Mercury Lounge. 

All leather seats and romantic lighting.

And no plastic cups for these cocktails.

I had the kickerbocker, topped with champagne.

Once our cocktails were long gone, we rushed off to get the last train home. 

Only stopping to take a picture at this amazing wall.

For more information visit: www.streetfeastlondon.com

Mulled Wine

It's finally December! Which means I can finally talk about all things Christmassy and no one can say a thing! 

A couple of weeks ago I saw some lovely recipe ideas on Pinterest for mulled wine and decided to give it a try myself. 

You need the following: 

• 1 litre dry red wine (doesn't need to be expensive)
• 2 (5cm) cinnamon sticks 
• 1 dessertspoon whole cloves
• 1 dessertspoon whole allspice
• 1 large piece orange peel
• 1 large piece lemon peel 
• 4 tablespoons sugar (or how ever much you want, try before you add more)

Method: 

1. In a saucepan over medium heat, add the red wine, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, lemon rind and orange rind. Heat gently, but don't bring it to the boil. Stir in the 4 tablespoons of sugar, and then taste, to see if you'd like to add more!

2. Keep hot on medium to low heat for 20 minutes to let the flavours infuse the wine. 

3. Nothing else except serve and enjoy! 

Greenwich - Meantime, The Old Brewery

On a rainy Saturday afternoon, Jordan and I went on a trip to Greenwich for some grub.

We walked along the Thames and through lots of autumn leaves to get to the Meantime Old Brewery, situated inside the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College.

Jordan and I headed straight for the bar to order some drinks, 

with 50 different beers to choose from!

Jordan ordered the Brewery's own fresh lager.

And I went for the less beer-y tasting Belgium 

beer; Lindemans Framboise, a very sweet raspberry flavour. 

We then walked next door into the cafe.

The ceiling is decorated with hundreds of hanging beer bottles,

 large beer brewing tankers line one of the walls and on another there is a historical timeline of the brewery.

By daytime it serves as a cafe and in the evenings, a restaurant.

We sat ourselves in a booth and looked hungrily at the menu.

After much deliberating, we chose devilled whitebait to start..

A close up was definitely needed..

With a delicious lemon mayonnaise to dip.

Then our mains arrived..

Jordan chose the big, meaty Angus beef burger with crispy hand cut chips.

I chose the Meantime Lager battered cod and chips...

Both were delicious!

After all the food and the beer, we went for a walk around Greenwich.

The Old brewery is right next to the Cutty Sark. 

A passer-by informed us that the ship was also known as a tea clipper - transporting tea from China. (You learn something new everyday).

Our walk around Greenwich was cut short, as the weather became increasingly more wet,

(plus our parking ticket didn't have much time left either!)

 so we had to hurry back to the car and into the dry.

For more information or if you want to visit The Old Brewery, have a look at their website:

www.oldbrewerygreenwich.com

P.S. On Mondays it's Rib Night. A rack of delicious ribs, sides and a beer for £15!

Pumpkin Risotto

After picking way too many pumpkins, we decided to use them to make

some way yummy food! I asked my friend Bridie (who is a chef!) to come round and teach me a few things in the kitchen, as I am a total kitchen novice, and help me to make 

a perfect pumpkin risotto.

For 4 people you'll need:

1 small pumpkin

1 tbsp olive oil (plus a bit for the pumpkin + seeds)

2 garlic cloves

4 spring onions

25g butter

200g risotto rice

2 tsp cumin

1l hot vegetable stock

Splash of white wine (and a glass for you!)

50g freshly grated parmesan 

Coriander, chopped

Pumpkin Seeds

Salt + Pepper

Cumin

Start by "gutting" the pumpkin (keeping the seeds to one side for roasting later). 

Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/ gas 4. Chop up the pumpkin into cubes (try not to cut yourself like i did). Put them on a baking tray, drizzle them with oil and roast for 30 minutes.

Scatter the seeds on to another baking tray with a drizzle of oil, cumin, salt and pepper and roast for 20 minutes.

Whilst the pumpkin is roasting, smash up the garlic using a rolling pin (or any other food smashing item in your kitchen) and chop the spring onion. Make up the vegetable stock and grate the cheese.

Heat 1 tbsp of oil with the butter in a pan over a medium heat and add the garlic and spring onion. Once the spring onions are soft (but not brown!), add the risotto rice and cumin. Stir well so that the rice is covered in the buttery mixture for 1 minute.

Add half of a cup to the stock and stir often until the stock has been absorbed into the rice. Continue adding half a cup of stock at a time and stirring until you have used up all of the stock (this should take around 20 minutes).

Cook the rice until soft and stir in the grated parmesan cheese (leaving some for topping), coriander and roasted pumpkin. 

If you have any pumpkins left over, like we did, serve in an empty pumpkin for a spooky risotto effect (who knew risottos could look so scary?) with the roasted pumpkin seeds and enjoy!

Recipe idea from: www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2556635/pumpkin-risotto

PYO PUMPKINS

If there's one thing October is known for, it's Halloween - which means scary costumes, 

lots of sweets and pumpkins! 

Yesterday I went out to pick the perfect pumpkin for Halloween with my boyfriend and my best friend at PYO (Pick your own!) Pumpkins in Rochester, Kent.

As soon as we were close we spotted a sea of orange pumpkins dotted in the 

nearby fields, which is oddly exciting (especially for people in their early 20's haha).

Once we arrived we rushed over to the fields to start picking - One of the biggest

pumpkin worries was that there wasn't going to be enough... 

Thousands of pumpkins scattered the fields, all different sizes.

Small, Medium, Large and then the big boy XX-Large!

After all the pumpkins have been bought, PYO Pumpkins will make a donation

to two charities: Crohn's and Colitis UK (CCUK) and Crohn's in Childhood Research Association (CIRCA).

One thing I learnt is that pumpkins are not exactly the lightest fruit and if you wanted more than one and like myself, you're not a body builder, you'll probably need something to carry them with.

 Thankfully, hundreds of wheel barrows are available free to cart your precious pumpkins around the fields. However, you may need to follow/stalk people to their cars to obtain one as finding one in the designated wheelbarrow area is not easy. 

Something else I learnt is that there are many, many types of pumpkins..

And they are all available to buy!

If you're feeling a pumpkin overload, there is also corn to be picked at the end of the fields. 

I know this is rather corny but I think this looks pretty sweet.. (ha-di-ha)

Obviously we take picking pumpkins very seriously. 

And there was lots of debating on which was the right pumpkin for us. 

This could not be deicded and we came away with three! 

Please note; if you want to go and pick your own, wellies or boots are advised as

it can get very messy. 

For more information visit their website:

www.pyopumpkins.com