Tips to make following recipes and cooking that little bit easier!

In our house I'm the one that cooks the meals so I've had to get savvy in order to save time. I  do love cooking, but sometimes it can get a little too tedious which has meant I've wanted to find some short cuts. Here are a few of my tips to spend less time in the kitchen and more time enjoying your food.
Four tips to spend less time in the kitchen!

1. Get everything prepared and ready before you begin. Basically pretend you are on a cooking show. Get lots of little bowls and plates out so that you can prepare all your ingredients ready to throw into your recipe. This means you won't get half way through your recipe and realise you've forgotten something!

2. Get your measuring spoons out ready next to your spices. Line up your spices behind the spoon relating to how much you need. It makes it much easier than having to peer at your recipe each time you pick up a spice then having to find the right spoon!

3. Clean up as you go. Get the sink full of soapy water ready to wash dishes as you go. As well as this make sure to chuck packets and extra bits of food in the bin so you have less to clean up at the end. It makes sense really as you will have time to chill whilst your food is cooking away because all the clean up will be done.

4. Take the easy way out. Okay who else cries when they cut onions, have fingers smelling of garlic for days after touching one and huge vegetables get the better of their strength? Well I know I can answer ME to all those! I've found supermarket products that make my life so much easier. For years I've been using frozen onion, but only now have I discovered other kitchen hacks. You can buy garlic and chillies already chopped from Very Lazy which is so much quicker and easier than cutting it yourself! Then just recently I found butternut squash cut and frozen! My life was made as I always struggle to cut them and then having to scrape out their seeds.

Hopefully, I've made your life a little bit easier with my tips? Some you probably already know and do, but oh well! It's nice to spell it out sometimes!

Do you have any good tips for me?

Ideas for a potential new house

Last week me and my boyfriend starting looking into buying a house a little more seriously. We've booked an appointment with a financial advisor and even went on our first house viewing. All very serious and very exciting. I'm not sure if this is just a girl thing (as Matt has no interest in this for now...) but as I've looked more into houses I have been thinking more and more about how I want different rooms of the house to be decorated. Now we don't have an endless budget so whatever I pick may just be a dream but I think there is always some way you can get what you want. I've been trailing pinterest looking for ideas for the house and below are a few of my favourite picks!

Kitchen

In the kitchen I am really a fan of large 'brick sized' tiles as a back splash although I am not sure what colour I'd go for. As well as this I want my kitchen to be slightly grunge and would love some exposed lighting like the second picture. Lastly I have to have some creative storage in my kitchen. At home I hate having to rummage through the cupboards to find what I want. I need some clever ways to store things that makes them easily accessible.

Living Room

For the living room I am really keen on a sort of retro vibe to it with clean lines and a sofa like the one in the third picture (although I don't know how comfy that would be). I am in love with having a photo frame wall, whether this be in the living room or going up the stairs. Finally I would like to think that we could have some quirky up-cycled items in our house just like this cool coffee table in the second picture.

Bathroom

I'd like to keep the bathroom quite clean and white, maybe with some sort of accent colour, I'm not too sure on that. What I am sure about is that I need lots of clever storage! The amount of beauty and shower products we have between us is quite substantial so we would need some interesting and sensible places to store it all.

Bedroom

The bedroom is the room in which I have the least ideas. I want the bedroom to be somewhere that we both like so I don't want it to be girly but I also don't want it to be cold and masculine. I want something very bright, maybe slightly retro with a few bold colours but most of it clean and white. I'll have to get approval off the boyfriend first though ;)

What do you think? Any ideas that you like? Do you have any house posts? Link me!

> To see how our bedroom, bathroom and living room actually turned out click the links!