Sluttery Sales Spy: Oasis, Joy & Topshop

Last night I dreamed that I started a Sales Spy zumba class, to which I forced you lot to come dressed in discounted sportswear and prance about sweating for an hour. I scanned you all at the door and told you that my special scanner could tell whether or not your clothes had been bought in the sale - and if it wasn't a bargain, you weren't getting in. Throughout the class, I randomly shouted out prices of clothes, and the catchphrase "Pain makes pennies™".

I don't even know what zumba is, but in my dream it involved waving a tea towel around our heads, much in the same vein as Morrissey and his gladioli. 

THE DRESSES

Lace trim skater dress, £32 (was £55), Oasis

Excuse me for a moment while I shout at Sara.

SARA! Look! The dress made it into the sale!

Last month, the lovely Miss V predicted - with a note of sadness, tempered with stoicism - that this lace-trimmed bird print dress would never make it into the Oasis sale. It's not often our Sara's wrong, but happily she was this time. Here it is, and with a whopping £23 off!

Louche Juno dress, £49 (was £59), Joy

Up close, this Juno dress from Joy looks like you've been scampering around in a vat of confetti. Don't get yer knicks in a twist when you see that it's listed as £59 - the tenner discount comes off at the checkout. It's all part of this lovely promotion, you see, where you'll find lots of other snazzy bargains, like the wonderfully-named Bambi-Dog shorts. No, I don't know either, but I do know that I now want to own a pet Bambi-Dog.

THE SHOES

Marnie shoes, £12 (was £28), Topshop

Not the most practical of shoes for this time of year, I know. But whee, they're pretty. Just demand to be carried everywhere by your minions. A piggy-back is probably the best position, because then your feet will be thrust forwards and will inevitably flail around, thus drawing attention to your shoes.

Smithie heels, £24.50 (was £35), ASOS

We've already lusted after these shiny, SHINY Smithie shoes when Sian rounded up this season's key purple pieces from head to toe. They're so nice, I have been persuaded to make up with ASOS after a momentary falling-out we had yesterday (ASOS was blissfully oblivious to this tension) when I inadvertently discovered that it says it's aimed at 18 to 34-year-olds. SENSITIVE SUBJECT FOR ME RIGHT NOW, ASOS. However - we're talking again, and I intend to make the most of the 355 ASOS shopping days I have left, beginning with the purchase of a pair of purple shoes.

THE JEWELLERY

Bug drop earrings, £6.25 (was £12.50), Topshop

I've been thinking recently that I need more glitzy, dangly earrings in my life. I think it's because I keep shaking my head like an impatient pony to get my overgrown fringe out of my eyes, and I feel there is a noise missing when I do that. I need a soundtrack; a jingle, a jangle, a tinkle, a swoosh. Something to make the ache in my neck and the blur in my vision worthwhile. So I might buy these bug earrings from Topshop, because they have the added bonus of BEJEWELLED CREATURES. Or, y'know, I could trim my fringe. I can do that. I learned how to do straight lines at art school.

Jewelled bib necklace, £28 (was £40), ASOS

This is a splendid necklace indeed. I think we need to see it on.

CAN YOU SEE IT? It's there, I promise. I feel like David Attenborough trying to point out a stick insect while we all sit at home and say to each other, "Ooh, can you see it? Isn't it clever? It looks just like a stick! It matches that tree completely!" while actually not being able to see it at all and just PRETENDING that we can because David says it's there. Yep. I'm like the David Attenborough of jewellery. And this necklace is a stick insect. And the blouse is the tree.   

THE BAGS

Leather colourblock bag, £22.50 (was £45), ASOS

I really love this ASOS model. I am firmly convinced she's French, and if it turns out she's from Ealing I'll be extremely disappointed. Adding to her Frenchness today is the stripy top (not our main focus here); her nonchalant - and ever-so-slightly withering - over-the-shoulder glance, as if to say, "What-do-you-mean-you-can't-find-the-metro-station-you-DAMN-STUPID-TOURIST-as-if-I-have-the-time-or-inclination-to-help-you-read-a-map-BOF-zut-alors; and her bag - compact, colourblocky, leather, minimal, chic. Petite, yet large enough for a dog-eared copy of Bonjour Tristesse and some oversized shades, possibly a half-eaten croissant and Gérard Depardieu as well. The whole thing reeks of Paris, and quite frankly it makes me want to move there immediately.*

* I did once move there immediately. Turns out the only flat I could afford to rent had the toilet IN the kitchen. Just sitting there, unshielded, IN THE KITCHEN. I went to the Loire Valley and picked strawberries for a living instead.

The Cambridge Satchel Company sky blue 11-inch satchel, £80 (was £120), Urban Outfitters

I just bought a brilliant - in every sense of the word - yellow satchel, so I have no business eyeing up another. What a filthy, cheating rascal I am. Still, look but don't touch, amirite? This sky blue satchel by The Cambridge Satchel Company is just so tempting. Och, the grass is always greener. Or sky bluer, with hints of tan.

So, who's signing up for my zumba class? I provide the tea towels free of charge. 

Let Her Eat Cake: Spiced Treacle Carrot Cake

In honour of Hallowe'en next week, we here at DSHQ thought we'd give you something dark, autumnal, brooding and, err... orange. No, we don't mean Peter Andre in a bad mood wearing ear muffs. We mean a cake with CARROT and TREACLE and SPICES to see you through a long night of horror films, fake cobwebs and an over-indulgence on boozy eye-ball jellies.

This would go fabulously with pumpkin ice cream, and since it's baked in a Bundt tin, that leaves what? Yes! A place in the middle for Extra Things. Like ice cream. Or sweets. Or a bottle of rum.

Spiced Treacle Carrot Cake
You will need: 
For the cake:

• 200g butter
• 200g muscovado sugar
• 4 generous tbsp treacle
• 2 tbsp golden syrup
• 200ml milk
• 2 free-range eggs, beaten
• 200g carrots, grated
• 350g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• Large handful pecans, chopped (you can replace with another type of nut, if you like)
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 freshly grated nutmeg, or 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

For the filling: 

• 125g cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 tbsp butter, softened
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• 1 tbsp milk
• 1/4 freshly grated nutmeg (or pinch ground nutmeg)
• 1/2 fresh vanilla pod, seeds scraped out or 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• Pecans, to decorate

Make it!

The cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3. Thoroughly grease a Bundt tin. (You can use a deep, 20cm cake tin if you don't have one, but you might want to line that). 
2. Place the butter, muscovado sugar, treacle and golden syrup in a saucepan and place over a low heat, stirring until the butter and sugar have melted together into a glorious sticky goo. 
3. Leave to cool for a few minutes, before whisking in the milk, followed by the eggs, beating together well. 
4. Place the carrot, flour and bicarb into a large bowl. Pour the treacle-butter mixture over this, folding the flour in until fully combined.
5. Stir in the pecans, ginger and nutmeg. 
6. Pour into your prepared Bundt tin, and bake for 40-45 minutes. 
7. Leave to cool for at least 5-10 minutes in the tin. Slide a thin spatula around the edges, then place a plate on top of the cake tin and invert. Cool completely before icing. 

The icing:

1. Beat the cream cheese to loosen it, then add the butter and beat well by hand, or with an electric whisk, until light and fluffy. 
2. Add the icing sugar a little at a time, until completely combined. 
3. Spoon in the milk, nutmeg and vanilla and beat again: if the mix looks too thick, just add more milk.
4. Spoon over the cooled cake and please, try not to drool. Decorate with pecans, plastic bats... whatever takes your fancy. 

Top Ten Pickles, Chutneys and Jam Recipes

Autumn is a good time to start storing up food for the winter and pickles and chutneys are perfect. And they last (almost) forever so you can enjoy the fruits of your foraging for months to come. Here are our top ten chutney, pickle and jam recipes.

Until our Laura B shared her recipe for pickled greengages, I hadn't even considered pickling these elusive fruit but it's a great way to enjoy them all year round. Cucumber and red onion pickle really is the crack of the pickle world. I've been known to eat the whole jar in one sitting. If you just can't wait the few weeks that pickles need for the flavours to marry and the taste to become awesome, you need our seriously quick and easy sour pickled cucumbers, assuming half an hour isn't too long to wait!

Cucumbers make great chutney, too. There's nothing like a good chutney to perk up a ham sandwich or turn a cheeseboard into a stunning supper. This apple chutney from Canteen is a winner and it's not too tricky to make, either. Preserved lemons aren't exactly a chutney but they make cold meat into something very special.

Jam might sound like some thing we've missed the seasonal boat on for this year, but there's so much brilliant frozen fruit available that you can make it whenever the whim strikes. Rhubarb and strawberry jam is especially gorgeous, while raspberry jam is so easy to make, you'll wonder why you ever bothered to buy a jar of the stuff. And if you're thinking that jams and jellies can only be sweet, you're wrong. Eldersherry jelly is the perfect blend of elderberries and sherry that will turn your casseroles and gravies into wonderful creations.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I count syrups as a legitimate way to preserve fruit. While you might not have the substance of a whole piece of fruit in jam or vinegar, you're capturing the flavours of the produce to enjoy long after the item would have gone off. Rhubarb and vanilla syrup and rose hip syrup are both simply brilliant as a drink, in cocktails or on ice cream. Try flowers in syrups, too, elderflower and lavender work particularly well.

Is it too early to mention Christmas? Oh well, I've said it now. This is the time to get started on those pickles, chutneys and jams that you'll need to jazz up leftover turkey and give to friends and family as gifts. Go on, sterilise some jars and get jammin'!

For more recipe inspiration, check out the rest of our top ten recipe posts.

Awesome Zara Costume Jewellery

I'm on holiday this week celebrating my dad's birthday (happy birthday Papa Brown!). As birthday goes it's a fairly awesomely significant one, and at the party I celebrated it in the best possible way, which is with a piece of jewellery the size of my head.

I never usually go into Zara as it always seems to be for tiny twigs, but I was lured in by the amazing tartan trousers I'd seen in Style, and was then entirely distracted by the gorgeous necklace I kept seeing styled on jumpers around the store.

Reader, I bought it. I loved it. I may be buried in it. It's called the pearls and chains necklace and it's £19.99.

Or perhaps you'd like the slightly more hardcore version? It's also £19.99, but comes with pins and twinkly things (technical definition).

This rhinestone necklace is utterly enchanting. Straight out of the V&A. I love the twinkling stones and the colours and, well, basically everything about it. Top marks. It's £29.99.

 

Pearls are my favourite. Fake diamonds and crystals are not, and yet here I am being wildly convinced by Zara's crystal jewellery. This necklace is £19.99 and rather swoon-making.

Simple and utterly devastating: these glass earrings are £12.99 which is a bit ridiculous.

This pack of two rings is a beauty. Lovely clean design that looks far more expensive than the £9.99 price tag. I'll have the left one please, you can have the right one. That sounds fair, right?

Sluttishly Savoury: Chicken Gyoza

What is is about food that comes in bite sized portions that appeals to me so? Vol au vents, tapas, canapes, dim sum...so tasty, so dainty, so easy to fit five in my mouth at once. But my all time favourite has to be the humble Japanese dumpling - the gyoza.

Japanese food is so much more then just pricey sashimi, deadly puffer fish or that dodgy supermarket pack of sushi you pick up on days you're trying to be good. They have a whole world of food known as B-Class Gourmet which is made up of tasty, cheap dishes full of flavour and comfort, like giant hot bowls of savoury ramen, fried pancakes filled with anything you fancy called okonomiyaki and these amazingly easy to make tiny morsels of deliciousness. Bonus is you can fry up dozens of these and freeze any you don't plan on eating for a quick snack another day, and you can do all the steps up to the steaming in advance to save on time and kitchen space. 

Chicken Gyoza (Makes about 12 dumplings)

You will need:

For the Gyoza:

• One medium chicken breast or boneless thigh (for a veggie version replace with 2-3 tbsps each of finely diced carrot, green cabbage and mushrooms)
• 3 roughly chopped spring onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 chili roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp of grated ginger
• 2 tbsps of fresh coriander roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp of fish sauce
• 1/2 tbsp of sesame oil
• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar or mirin
• Gyoza wrappers (you can find these easily in the freezer section of any Asian supermarket, Wonton wrappers also work perfectly for this as well)
• Small bowl of water
• Good glugs of sesame oil and sunflower oil for frying.

For the dipping sauce:

• Mix three parts rice wine vinegar (or mirin) to one part sesame oil and stir in a little chili sauce if you like it spicy.

Make it!

1. Firstly pop all the Gyoza ingredients (except the wrappers and frying oils obviously) in a food processor and blitz until you have a rather gross looking raw chickeny paste, make sure there aren't any large lumps of garlic and spring onion left. 
2. Lay out your Gyoza or wonton wrappers individually and start spooning the mixture in the middle of each, be careful to not over do it, a small teaspoon in each should be enough.
3. Now to seal them, dip your fingers in the water and wet all around the edges of the wrapper. Fold the wrapper in half and press it down firmly all around the edge making sure its fully sealed, I find using the edge of my hand easiest.
4. Now to get fancy, crimp the stuck together edges twice, either side of the middle using a little more water to stick it firmly into shape. Like this.
   


5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 with all your wrappers until you have a lovely bunch of dumplings.
6. Set a small saucepan of water on a medium heat so it's ready for your steamer, you'll be popping the Gyoza in here after frying (if you don't have a steamer, a colander with a saucepan lid over the top also works, just make sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of the colander).
7. Pour the sesame and sunflower oils in a pan or wok, just enough so there's few millimetres of oil in the the pan, and set on high to get the oil nice and hot.
8. Prepare yourself for hot oil! These babies like to spit and spatter a bit so be careful. Place them in the hot oil with the pinched edges pointing up and let them fry for about 3 minutes or until the bottom gets browned and crisp. Then push them on to their side to fry for another minute or two.
9. Once they've gone crispy and brown place them in the steamer and set on top of the simmering water for another 8-10 minutes.
10. Mix up your dipping sauce while you wait and once they're done dish up and enjoy!

Plus Size Picks: Three Ways With A Polka Dot Dress

Your fortnightly plus size picks have had a bit of a makeover this week. Rather than bringing you various takes on a particular trend or item of clothing, I've picked one key piece, and shown three different ways to wear it.

In true Domestic Sluttery style, I'm kicking things off with a girly number, the polka dot shirt dress (sizes 14 - 32) £30 from Curvissa. Even if you don't fancy this particular dress, chances are you might have a similar print or shape already in your wardrobe. The three looks show you how this style can work in various different ways, all making the short-sleeved style suitable for Winter's cold weather. Just add black opaque tights to finish these looks!

Look One: Think Pink

The pink coat is this season's big statement trend, and it's good to see that plus size retailers have been quick on the uptake, rather than taking a year to bring out a suitable version. Pink with polka dots can really only go one of two ways - ladylike or retro. I chose a bit of both, with 40s style shoes, gloves, a boxy doctor's bag and a cute dog brooch...because who doesn't want a bulldog on their lapel?

Pink coat £54 at Simply Be | Polka dot gloves £17.99 at Mango | Wide fit Mary Jane shoes £22.99 at New Look | Bulldog brooch (set of 2) £26.50 at Macy's | Pink Doctor's bag £24.99 at Daniel Footwear

Look Two: Moody Blues

To take the polka dots out of twee territory, the next look teams the dress with black leather. The quilted jacket is a bit less obvious than a biker jacket, and the collarless, single-breasted shape is less bulky. Ankle boots with a slight heel add a lift, but the built-in cushioning keeps things comfy. I've added a bit of colour with a blue bag and scarf - the prints of the dress and scarf are close enough that they'll work with each other, rather than against each other.

Quilted faux leather jacket £79 at Castaluna | Animal print scarf £8 at Matalan | Louche Pasadena saddle bag £45 at Joy | Biker ankle boots with insolia £45 at Marks and Spencer 

Look Three: Warm Berries

Finally, I've put together a look for really cold days when you just want to wrap up warm. Duo's boots may be expensive but they come in a huge selection of calf widths for the perfect fit. If the purple's not for you, they come in black and green as well. Evans' fur trimmed purple coat will keep you warm in any weather, and a big boxy bag holds all your vital bits and pieces, plus a few non-vital ones too. Finally add a bit of bling, and a floppy hat, because if they're good enough for the entire cast of Made in Chelsea, they're good enough for you.

Fur trimmed purple coat £79.50 at Evans | Purple boots (available in wide calf widths) £230 at Duo | Black floppy hat £28 at Topshop | Lola & Grace ring £28.50 at House of Fraser | Bar top bag £39.50 at Marks & Spencer

Coco Fennell x Karen Mabon

Not since beer was added to a spread has a pairing caused such excitement round Domestic Sluttery way as the new Coco Fennell x Karen Mabon collaboration. Coco Fennell is, of course, our new favourite dress designer while we've been lusting after Karen Mabon's marvellous scarves for ages now (Sian was kind enough to buy me her greyhound scarf for my birthday). The results from the combined talent of these two ladies are as wonderful as you might expect. There are six pieces in total. Don't worry, you'll see them all.

Let's start with the Cut Rose dress, which has just inched ahead of Coco's Tulip dress in the "want in my wardrobe - now!" stakes. The black moss crepe has been embroidered with red roses and scissors on its collar. Perfect for toughening up a feminine shape, and available for £79. But we already know that there's more to both Coco's and Karen's designs than initially meets the eye.

Their shared black humour comes out in this ciggie break scarf, £65. The theme behind the collaboration is 'Breakdown Beauty Queen', and you get to know a little about these beauty queens through the designs - their shiny lipsticks and excellent grooming, but also an unfortunate nicotine and narcotics dependency. Not your average grandma's scarf then.

Of course there are some tears and tantrums to go alongside the tiaras too. Take a look at the poor little madam on the end of the parade silk scarf, again available for £65.

The whole tragedy is writ large on this Breakdown large scarf, where cotton buds and powder brushes vie for space with pills and spilt nail varnish ... or is it blood? You can make up your own story.

Do you remember how Coco described her dresses as "clothes that you'd be happy to bump into your ex-boyfriend in"? This. This memorabilia dress is what I want to bump into my ex-boyfriend in, please. Even if I was only popping out for a pint of milk. The dress is decorated with a simpler version of the breakdown pattern, and has a ridiculously sexy shape. Perhaps not surprisingly it's the most expensive piece in the collection at £120 (but, dressed in this, you might at least get your pint of milk given for free?). 

And, for a final good girl gone bad touch, take a look at this pill popper dress (£79), named because the collar is embroidered with tiny jewel-like pills. Wear it to confuse your boss, and your parents, and get admiring glances from everyone else.

Bravo Coco and Karen! Take your place on the winners podium... And encore please! I can't wait to see what you two come up with next.