Have you ever tasted the intriguing mixture of spicy chilli and smooth sweet chocolate?

For anyone who doesn't know, my husband is the Chilli Ninja :) His blog is all about no nonsense chilli growing, it has brilliant photos, information on different varieties and our personal recipes (I am a huge chilli wimp so don't worry if you are too, you'll still love them!).

So at the weekend we decided to collaborate and make chocolate chilli cake, this is how we got on.

Cake icing is very serious business you know!

See the cute carnation in my scarf? That was from Al, I love his romantic side :) 

If you want the recipe (highly recommended) head over to his blog www.chillininja.wordpress.com. The cake recipe is the same one we used for our wedding cakes, just with fresh chilli :)

A quick update on my Pre School bake sale for Children in need - BRILLIANT! We have sold out of everything, every day! The kids have loved it and we all have had tonnes of fun :) The big finale is tomorrow with chocolate cakes, more lemon cakes because they were amazing, and gingerbread Pudsey's. I'll be interested to see how much money we raised, but I don't think it'll be a huge amount as all our prices were very reasonable - 25p, 30p etc still, every penny counts!

Meet Pumpy!

 Happy Halloween weekend! 

Al and I love Halloween, we spent our 1st one as friends in Plymouth, I was a bat, he was a zombie version of his best friend. It was a great night filled with laughter, shots and music. Next Halloween we were madly in love, living in Ireland in our 1st home together...

2007

2007

2007

Every year since we've got into the spirit and this year is no different, I've planned a Halloween party at work and got my outfit sorted (you'll just have to wait for that!), we've got all sorts of fun and spooky games planned, I can't wait.

At home we were waiting to get a pumpkin for a reasonable price, yesterday at tesco's we found one for 75p! It had so many seeds in it too, I can't believe people throw away the seeds, seems crazy to me. I roasted all the seeds from my works' pumpkins too, with vanilla and brown sugar - the kids loved them :)

Al getting stuck in sorting Pumpy's innards!

In the background is the start of our kitchen jar collection :) 

Thats salt not sugar by the way :)

Mixed in salt then in 180 fan oven. 

Pumpy gets eyebrows...

I'm not sure he likes them lol 

Meet Batty :)

Mix after 20 mins

Mmmm crispy salty pumpkin seeds (about 35mins)

Does anyone eat the pumpkin after? I'm not sure that it'll still be OK after 3 days but I hate to waste food... What do you think?

I hope you all have a brilliant weekend and get into the spooky spirit! xx

Bargain Buy!

Hi everyone, I just wanted to say thank you for stopping by, I'm really enjoying writing this blog and I so appreciate the support I've had so far. I cant believe there are people reading this from Australia, Canada, America, Russia, Germany and lots of other countries - it's just so cool! Thank you!

I love love LOVE a bargain and I got an amazing one yesterday :) The hubby and I were in town to buy a bow tie, his work has been nominated for a best new business award NI and the black tie event, which I'm also invited to is this Thursday - exciting stuff! Anyway we saw a new charity shop and naturally went in for a nosey. I love cook books and will have an impressive collection on display in my dream kitchen one day but I won't buy them new on principle so I just keep an eye out in the second hand shops. Problem is I really like the river cottage and jamie oliver books which are really popular and hard to find but patience paid off and there was a practically brand new 'Jamie's America' for £2! RRP £26!!!

Please excuse the mirror photo...

I'm over the moon and have already read half of it and made a sausage Jambalaya, I was missing more than half of the ingredients but I never stick to recipes anyway -  I just use them as a guide and for inspiration. It tasted brilliant even though it doesn't really look like much! We used one of Al's home grown Caribbean scotch bonnets, even though it was a massive pot (will do us for at least 3 meals) one was enough!

While I was in the kitchen I made bread for the week, mostly I make 1 plain and 1 chilli (recipe pictures and how-to at chillininja) but today I just made 2 plain and some experimental rocky road type things for lunch time treats.

Rising nicely in the kitchen

Marshmallow, raisin, coconut, chocolate, rice crispy squares

 The bread is in the oven now and I can just start to smell it mmmmmm. I hope you had a lovely weekend, mine has been very relaxing :)

xx