Healthy Snacks: Coconut Bites

Today I am going to share with you a recipe that I tried and tested from a wonderful blog called 'My Whole Food Life'. I've been reading a lot of food blogs lately as I have been on the hunt for a healthier version of some of my favourite foods like pizza. I am definitely not one for starving myself on these fad diets, which in all fairness are never really good for you as your weight ends up yo-yoing when you do decide you want to indulge on a pizza.

This year is all about being happy and I am not 100% happy with my body. Its not completely terrible but its not all that good either and rather make myself unhappy by sweating all my spare time at the gym and starving myself of the foods I love, why not just make some small changes that can in turn can make a much bigger difference.

I came across this post and once I tried it I just had to share it with you, specifically from an amateurs perspective. We all known that you see these amazing pictures of these wonderful food, try them and they end up looking like something the cat dragged in! This a gluten free recipe is surprisingly easy, its gluten free and can also be vegan if you find alternatives.

Prep Time: 5 minutes 
Cook Times: 20 minutes

To start of with you are going to need:
1 1/2 (173g) cups raw pecans 
12 medjool dates (remove pits)
1 cup (230ml) sweetened condensed milk (vegan)
1/2tsp sea salt
1 cup (100g) unsweetened shredded coconut
3/4 cup (110g) dark chocolate chunks

You can either buy a set of weighing cups here or use the conversion.

Instructions: 
Preheat oven to 350 
Measure out your raw pecans and add them to your food processor with your pitted dates. Add in the salt and whiz up until the mixture starts to stick together.

Line a glass dish, around 8inches wide with parchment or greaseproof paper leaving some extra at the edges. Add the mixture to the dish, making sure all the base it covered and press down with a fork.

Next pour a cup of the condensed milk over the mixture, making sure it is evenly covered. You then need to weigh the coconut and chocolate chunks and sprinkle them on top of the condensed milk. Lightly press into the condensed milk with your fork.

Then just pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes. This is where you need to catch up on some YouTube or blogs, as time seems so stop as soon as the smell of warm chocolate fills the air.

Get out of the oven and place on a cooling rack until completely cool and slice into whatever shape you like. Now this is even harder but let me tell you, its the best wait you will have. To me it tastes like a bounty with the coconut in, (so of course you can substitute it with whatever you like) but knowing its pretty healthy for you there is no guilt of shame after you have devoured a few slices.

As you can see its a gooey and chocolatey piece of heaven! Get it in the fridge quickly to make it less messy and enjoy it all to yourself, knowing you could be getting 1 of your 5 a day! 

I hope you have enjoyed todays recipe, please let me know if you make it.

I'm going to be doing more in the near future and even going to try my hand at making my own.

Have a lovely rest of the week guys!

Love Khrissie xx

Travelling the UK: The Lakes

Happy New Year everyone!

I'm glad to be back. Christmas was wonderful with all the family, catching up with friends, over eating and playing board games. It came and went so quickly that it was New Year before I could say 2015. For the New Year I went up North with my partner to see his family who I had not seen in months. We travelled up on the Mega Bus on New Years eve and enjoyed a takeaway, played more games and set off our own fireworks into the new year, it was wonderful. The next few days were spent seeing the rest of the family until it got to the 3rd Jan.

On the 4th of Jan it was mine and Nicks 5 year anniversary of being together (if you want to here how we met etc let me know) and so we thought we would celebrate it in a different way. My New Years resolution is to be happy and part of that is doing more of what I love. Travelling and seeing new places is one of them so we thought we would head to The Lakes for the day with his parents. I've always wanted to travel back to The Lakes since I visited it as a kid and fell in love with it.

Kendal, UK

Kendel, UK

We left Wakefield at 8:30am and headed for Skipton, a quaint little town in the heart of the countryside. It was the perfect place to stop for a cup of tea and a tea cake before we carried on the rest of the journey. Next stop was Kendel, this was another small market town, full of cute shops and beautiful limestone houses. One of those places you could imagine spending your days when you were a little older. It was lovely to just walk around and take in the beauty of the place. After a quick stop at Costa and a cream cake (my favourite) we headed on our journey up to the lakes. 

If you follow me on social media you would have heard I got a new camera from the boyfriend at Christmas, he really spoilt me and I am so grateful for it. I've been wanting to learn how to use a camera properly for years so this was a perfect way for me to learn. He got me the Nikon D3300 which is a lovely size and looks quite simple to use with some practice. I thought this trip would be the perfect time to test the camera out to see how it compared to my little canon camera. All photos shown in this post are the results I got from it. On first impressions I'm quite impressed. So I spent a lot of my time just looking around and trying to spot opportunities where I could take a snap and practice my composition and instinct in finding beauty in the most simple of things.

After a short drive we arrived in Windermere, which took my breath away as the view of the lake came into site. It really is a beautiful place, tucked up in the heart of the Peak District just waiting for you to discover it. If you ever have a chance to explore the UK you should definitely pay a visit. I am sure you will not be disappointed.

We spent a good while here just looking out onto the distant hills and feeding the swans and ducks which seem to populate most of the area. It was lovely to be somewhere away from our usual surroundings of London and discovering how beautiful our country can really be.

Our last stop was a 15 minute drive to the other end of the lake in Ambleside. Not much different to the other towns we have visited but beautiful all the same. There were a lot of B&Bs in this town so the perfect place to stay if you want to visit the Peak District for a few days. I was thinking how nice it would be a to have your own little B&B in that area. It would be a lovely business to have if you did not like the hustle and bustle of the overcrowded cities.

The sun set around 4:15pm that day so as it got dark we decided to head back home. We were lucky enough to see the sun set behind the hills of the lakes which was stunning. My first sunset of 2015! It was a wonderful day and I'm really pleased we decided to go. It made for a wonderful start to the New Year as it kept me super busy, just enjoying the simplicities of life with some of my favourite people. Definitely make the most of each day you have, even if it is something simple and never put too much pressure on yourself to do anything as it will just make you feel terrible.

Plan a trip around where you live, its a lot cheaper than going on holiday abroad and you can still have as much fun. There might not be the hot sun to lay around in but who wants to spend all their days getting sunburnt when there are all the places in the world which you have never seen before.

Are there any places you want to visit this year?
I've decided I want to go to Scotland for my birthday this year as I have never been before and I cant wait to spend more time doing more of what I love! I'm going to leave you with this beautiful picture I managed to get of the sunset as we are heading home. Life is beautiful so live the adventure!

Love Khrissie xx

A resolution for us all!

Resolutions are great because it makes us all think in a positive way! We tell ourselves what we want to change so we are happier people, but why is it so hard to keep those promises? It's because we put too much pressure on ourselves to make those changes and normally ask ourselves to change a lot all at once.

This year I'm going to have one resolution and it's very simple: 'To be happy and make other people happy' 

So no matter what that might entail I don't have to put pressure on myself to be a whole new person as soon as January 1st begins because who cares if we have flaws, are slightly messy and put on a bit of weight over the holidays, we were happy doing it so why punish ourselves? 

Things for me are going to change in 2015 with being happy in the forefront of my mind but for now I'm gong to focus on the things that make me happy right now!

My friends, family and my wonderful boyfriend are something I never want to change as they make me the happiest of all! I'm spending my new year with the boyfriends wonderful family and enjoying a takeaway with some fireworks to finish and to be honest I can't think of anything better. 

Thank you to all who have read and commented on my blog and helped to make it grow to what it is right now, I can't wait to see where the new year takes me! 

Have an amazing evening and I'll see you in 2015 for the beginning of a happy life! 

Love Khrissie 

Always being thankful

Hello guys,

It's been a while since I've blogged but life has really been so busy, especially when Christmas was just around the corner. Thanksgiving in America has also  happened which always makes me wonder why this is something that happens only once a year and only in America. Its way more important than Valentines, Easter, Halloween and even Christmas in some circumstances. A lot can happen in a year, most of which you could never expect in a million years.

So many sad stories of friends, family members getting ill or even passing away, own family issues and news stories about other people around the world having to deal with sadness. Knowing that you cant do much about many of these things is not a nice feeling, which is why I think so many people become blind to a lot of these situations.

Going into 2015 is where Im going to change the direction of this blog, mainly because of the over saturation of beauty and fashion where every few blogs have the same reviews about the same things, and quite frankly I hate following the crowds. I want to do something more meaningful and something where I can actually help people to stop some of this sadness, even only for a minute. I will be donig more DIYs and will include fashion and beauty but I want to help solve problems, help you be more confident or realise how pretty you are and show you how important life is to live, instead of being so obsessed in an online life.

I hope you will come along on this journey with me because I'm pretty excited about it. Since I was a little girl I have always wanted to help people, whether that was helping an old lady cross the street or understanding those people with deep issues and telling them it will be okay.

So watch this space ladies and gents,
2015 is going to be a good one!

Love Khrissie x

KhrissieLoves: Nics Picks

Real Techniques: 'Nic's Collection' £29.99

Ive been loving make up brushes for quite a while now. I find it crazy that I never used to use them back in the day, mainly because they weren't very good. The bristles came out onto my face as soon as they touched my skin and a flawless finish seemed a thing of mystery.

Real Techiques were the first brand I tried that really amazed me, firstly because of how soft they were. This was back when bloggers such as Llymlrs and Zoella were bragging about them in most of their videos, making me head straight to Boots as soon as I had the chance to pick them up myself. My first brush I brought was actually the stippling brush as I wanted to test one of them first before I invested in more, which ended in a loving friendship and from then on my collection grew.

I've seen Nic's Picks collection around for a while now but never thought about actually buying them for some reason. I was on Feel Unique one day, in a spendy mood and decided to go for it! I received them in their lovely packaging a few days later to be wowed with how soft they were. As soon as I had the chance, I put them to the test as I couldn't wait to see what the results would be. Not to my surprise, they were amazing!

I love how in this collection you get three brushes for your eyes and two for your face which works out really cost effective as those mac blending brushes can be quite costly on their own and these do just as good a job.

Sam and Nic are so amazing at makeup and I love their beauty channel! If you haven't seen them in action, go check them out, your going to be addicted. You can buy Nics Picks here and all their other brushes which are available here

Hope you have had a lovely weekend
Love Khrissie x

Blogmas Gift Idea: The Book of Everyone

Hello there lovely ladies and gents!

Today I have another wonderful festive christmas idea to help you impress your loved ones. Now this is one of my favourites so far as I think its so perfect for your parents or grandparents. as it acts like a little memoir of your life, as it displays information on what films were out, the price of bread and milk and what song was number one in the year you were born. It is a great celebration of you and where you came from and just to add to this amazing gift, you can customise some of the pages with your own quotes and pictures to make it that extra bit special.

The Book of Everyone* 

I got my Grandad (I call him Gramps) one as a christmas present as I know he will love something like this. I also found it really interesting, seeing a little peak into the 1940s and what was happening then and the kind of songs and films that were popular at that time and how it has changed since. All the pages have been illustrated by artists so each of the pages are different from each other which adds all the little details that make up this wonderful book.

This book comes in at a range of prices to suit all budgets from Digital (£7.50) to Paperback (£19.50), Hardback (£29.50) and Deluxe (£49.50). I chose the paperback version as I thought the price point was perfect for a Christmas gift. The pages are printed on wonderful matt paper with gorgeous zingy colours and stylish design to boot. It doesn't take long to personalise and can be printed and sent within a week. Once more some of the costs of the book actually goes to the charity AgeUK which makes it even more worthwhile.

I really enjoyed personalising all the pages to make it special for my Gramps, adding in pictures of me and the family to add those magic touches. I can't wait for him to open it on Christmas day and see his face when he reads through it. Make sure you get yours now and makes someones christmas extra special. They are personally printed just for you so it will be something to treasure forever!

Here are just a few of some of the pages you can expect in the book and they get even better, I just didn't want to spoil the surprises of how wonderful it is. I can assure you it will definitely not disappoint when you receive it in the post and wrap it up in cute wrapping paper and ribbon.

I hope you enjoyed another festive post, if you can't already tell, I'm all about Christmas this year and more festive treats are going to come! If you want any festive wrapping ideas I can show you how I have done mine this year as I personally think they are looking super cute!

Have a wonderful Friday tomorrow and an amazing weekend!
Love Khrissie x

Blogmas Gift Idea: Personalised Cake

Hello there guys!

Today I am sharing with you something else Christmas related as I can not get enough! The other week I received this adorable little cake from 'Baker Days'. This is a company that specialises in making cakes which are customised depending on the occasion. They are changing the way the world sends greetings to their loved ones by giving you the opportunity to send and personalised cake in the design and flavour that you chose.

There are lots of different categories of cake designs you can choose from but I decided to go for the Christmas cakes as theres nothing better than celebrating Christmas, than with food! First off you choose your design so I went with this adorable mint green one with 'Merry Christmas' written on it. The great thing about this is the fact you can personalise it with any name of your choice. I was a little cheeky and added my name as I never managed to find things with my name on and it really excited me.

You then decide on the type of cake you want from vanilla, fruit cake or even chocolate. There are also gluten and dairy free options with the added bonus of getting half and half if you can't decide on the flavour. I of course went for chocolate as I'm really craving that sweet goodness right now.
The last thing to do is choose your size from single cupcakes to large cakes that have a hefty 55 servings. I received the letterbox cake that comes in a cute little tin with a price tag of £14.99. Now this may seem like a lot of money but personalised and custom made gifts are always more as they are all made on a one off basis. The fact you get to choose your design and flavour, receive it in the sweetest tin that you can actually keep as well as a little party pack based on the theme of your cake, you can't go wrong and the best part of it all is, its delicious!

I was worried it was going to be quite dry and flavourless as all the efforts had been put into the design of the cake but once I cut into it I was surprised to see a deliciously moist cake inside. This didn't hang around long with my four housemates sniffing around but I didn't mind as Christmas is for sharing. Seeing as the cake is quite small I was worried about the amount of portions I would get out of it. It states it can serve between 3-4 portions but I cut them smaller as the cake is quite sweet with the icing and I managed to happily get double the amount of portions.

I think this is a wonderful idea for a gift. Especially if its for a family or you know someone who might be on their own this Christmas. Giving feels good and makes the person your giving it too feel loved too so for Christmas or an up and coming birthday, give something different this year and surprise them with a cake of their own. Baker Days actually have banners and balloons on their website too so you know you are catered for.

Because we love to give Baker Days are actually holding a competition where you can win your own letterbox cake. All you have to do is hashtag #bakerdays telling them your best Christmas gift idea and they will announce a winner of the cake shortly.

Right, I need to go order more cake as I'm craving it now after seeing these pictures again.
Have a lovely evening!

Love Khrissie x