Nigella's Chilli Jam. My home made Christmas Gifts.

This year I decided that I wanted to make some personal Christmas gifts, we often spend so much money on  picking up things you find in Boots and Body Shop, but what is nicer than receiving a hand crafted gift from someone at the fraction of the price! Around this time of year my obsession with cookery programmes quadruples! I could sit for hours and hours watching the Good Food Channel I just love finding new ways to improve old recipes especially as Christmas is the time of year where us foodies are in heaven.

My favorite of all the celebrity cooks just has to be Nigella, the woman is a Domestic Goddess I love how easy and sensual she makes cooking look. Can I just be her please? This particular recipe for Chilli Jam I saw from watching one of her Christmas specials last week whilst all cosy on the sofa it really caught my attention. It looked so easy and the colour of the jam itself was a glistening bright red, it reminded me of all things festive and I just had to have a go at making it. Do not be put off if you have a preconceived idea that making Jam is difficult this really isn't! It is actually more of a Jelly and takes very little time to prepare and make. Here is how mine turned out:

This is the recipe for her delicious Chilli Jam. More information can be found here on Nigella's Website.

You will need the following:

150g fresh red chilli peppers, halved, quartered and deseeded

150g red bell pepper, halved, quartered and deseeded

1kg jam sugar

600ml cider vinegar

6 x 250ml sealable jars with vinegar-proof lids (I used small 130ml and they made 10 jars of Jam)

1. Wash up your jars in warm soapy water, rinse in hot water then air dry in a low oven.

2. Put the chillies into a food processor and whizz until finely chopped. Then add the bell pepper and pulse again until it’s all blitzed.

3. Put the sugar and vinegar into a medium-sized pan and dissolve over a low heat – swirling not stirring.

4. Add the blitzed peppers into the pan, turn up the heat and boil for 10 minutes. Take off the heat and cool for about 40 minutes when the liquid will have thickened to a syrupy consistency.

5. Ladle into your jars and seal tightly. Allow to cool completely and then label.

I really enjoyed making and decorating my Jams. I purchased the jars from Lakeland and there is currently an offer for 3 for 2 on the jars so grab them now while you can! For decoration I popped into Paper Chase and found some brown card, string and ribbon and just tied them around the jars. You can't really go wrong with decorating if I am honest, I personally am not that artistic so I went for a shabby chic look, easy peasy and I think they turned out quite nicely so I will give myself at least an 8 for effort! 

Hope you enjoy the recipe if you have any questions please either tweet me @calliethorpe or drop a comment in the box. I also want to wish a very Merry Christmas to all my readers. Thanks for being so supportive and always reading and commenting on my posts Love you guys!

Callie xx

Save the Children Christmas Jumper Day.

I bet you are all wondering why I am posting a picture of myself so early into December? I have to admit I am a total cringe when it comes to Christmas I love the Santa Hats, putting up the tree, watching all the cheesy Christmas films everything about it. I have such fond memories of spending Christmas at my Nana's, and fully engrossing myself in all things festive. I am lucky and blessed to have been able to enjoy all the joys of Christmas every year with good health, however some are much less fortunate. Many children around the world this year will be starving whilst we are tucking into our Christmas Dinners. Some children wont even be getting clean water. This is where Save the Children comes in. I am this year participating in the Christmas Jumper Day. On the 14th of December people all around the country will be wearing a Christmas Jumper to help raise money for very poorly children to help beat illnesses. The money raised will go to help with the following things

£29 can pay for a course of emergency food supplements to save the life of a severely malnourished child.

 £100 can buy 50 warm blankets for babies suffering from deadly pneumonia.

£500 can train five health workers to identify illnesses and treat sick children.

Here is my submission!

Please consider taking part in this day or if you don't want to wear one, just make a small donation on the Save the Children website. I will be wearing this jumper to work and asking donations from my colleagues and also sending an email around asking if people would like to participate. You can also take part by following THIS link, I know a number of bloggers are taking part and it would be great to see more of these posts. Please please please consider the donation at the very least. Just think a £3 donation is a a small hot drink from Starbucks. Thanks for reading!

Callie x

Deep Red lips- Kate Moss 107

This lipstick seems to be making the rounds around the blogging world at the moment so I thought it only fair I do a cheeky post too. Kate Moss has just brought out a range of lipstick and I am just in love. I wouldn't normally go for a dark red lip, no idea why as it appears it doesn't look all that bad on me, plus it is a great winter colour.

It is a matte effect but really moisturising which is always a win for me.

What lipsticks are you loving at the moment?

Callie xXx

My Dream Dress.

If you follow my blog or follow me on twitter I am sure that you have heard me go on and on about my excitement that I am spending this Christmas in Paris with my boyfriend Dan. I have only seen a snippet of Paris one time I went to Disney Land and only saw it from behind a small glass window on a coach so it's safe to say I cannot wait to be in one of the most romantic and beautiful cities in the world during my favourite time of year.

The plan is to go on a dinner cruise on Christmas day down the river Seine the dress code formal. In comes the need for a perfect dream dress. I was looking around for my perfect dress and as per usual I zoned in on finding something black. I have talked a lot about my love hate relationship with black on this blog before, I have always worn it because I always thought it was more slimming. As time has gone on and since the creation of my blog slowly my confidence has grown and I have steered more towards colours. I have learnt that just because you are bigger, curvy, plus size, fat what ever you want to call it you CAN where colours and look amazing. I was then so happy to be asked to participate in the Simply Be blogger's party dress challenge. So off I went to the Simply Be page and had a look for the perfect dress and there it was the 'Dream Dress' it was perfect,so beautiful and elegantly cut and it wasn't black!

I present to you my perfect party dress. The Annie Beaded.

I have taken pictures on both my iPhone and my professional camera, which explains the difference in quality The dress fitted me perfectly and I just loved the cut and vintage feel of it. As you can see I teamed it with black tights and black booties but you could go for a coloured shoe if you likes.

The dress can be found here

I am totally in love with the dress and cannot wait to wear it in Paris. I urge all you plus size ladies to have a look on the Simply Be website and treat yourself to a Christmas dress there are so many on there that I wanted and I really love the variety of each and every dress and maybe you will find your dream dress!

Callie xXx