Gel Nails – Which Brand is Best?

(gif sourced from: Fat Junkie Nail Art)

Doing my nails is a serious hassle, I like to have them looking nice, but I do not have the time or patience to sit, manicure, paint and watch them dry. The results are usually less than pleasing. I may have a perfectly painted left hand, but, I am certainly not ambidextrous, (hats off to those who have nailed this skill), so the outcome of my right hand is always pretty substandard.

But none of this really matters, because after about two minutes, I totally forget I’ve painted them and start dancing around the kitchen or doing the laundry…. The result is a smudgy catastrophe, which needs to be removed immediately.

This is why for as long as I can remember I have paid to have my nails done. I’ve had pretty much every kind of nail extension or polish on the market. When I was younger I had Calgel extensions, but found I could peel these off quite easily. So I switched from this to acrylics, which are typically harder and more robust, but I found that no matter how long, short, round, square or oval I had them they always looked fake. I had a break for a while (a long while), and chose to grow my own nails. This took longer than expected because years of fake nails had left them weak, so they tended to snap and so I’d bite the rest off.

To help with the growing and strengthening process I used O.P.I Nail Envy. The original. I would really recommend this to anyone reading this who has weak nails, or has suffered damaged from prolonged nail enhancements.

Nowadays there are many gel nail varnishes on the market. Shellac, O.P.I and Gelish are the ones I have tried. These are, generally speaking, the top three gel polish brands on the market. However, I believe Gelish is not as widely available in the UK, as the other two. They all offer pretty much the same thing, give or take: Durable long-lasting nail colour, that doesn’t chip.

So which brand is best? I will be reviewing them over the next few weeks. Starting with Gelish. Stay tuned! 

Cottage Pie with Red Wine Beef, and Winter-Spice Sweet Potato Mash

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I wanted to make a cottage pie, but something more spectacular than the usual. I looked at various recipes online and ended up taking elements from a few, and put my own spin on it, to make a cottage pie with a twist!


The result was a perfect winter warmer, the rich flavour and spiced mash gave my tummy a warm Christmassy hug (^__^)

I didn’t measure the ingredients, because I generally just wing it and go by consistency and taste. The ingredients below are the ones I used but you can use this as a guide. If you want to substitute or add more/less of anything then feel free to do so! I would say it serves around 4, it would be nice served with some greens on the side, maybe some green beans, peas and spinach or asparagus.

Don’t forget to let me know what you think about my recipe, please comment below and let me know of any changes you made, so I can try them out too!

Enjoy ☺


Ingredients

500g 5% fat, extra lean minced beef
1 extra large sweet potato (may need 3 small sized ones)
1 onion (I used white, but red would be good)
1 packet of chestnut mushrooms
12 Chantenay carrots
500g carton of passata
Small red wine bottle
1 rich beef Knorr stockpot
1 cup of boiling water
A big squeeze of tomato puree
1 shake of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon of mixed herbs
Salt + pepper to taste
1 egg
A dash of milk
Olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
Grated cheese (optional)



Method 

1. To prepare chop the onion, and mushrooms into thick slices, and top and tail the carrots, and either finely chop or crush the garlic. Grate a handful of cheese and cover.

2. Place the carrots in a pan of boiling water and time this for 10 minutes. While this is boiling heat the oil and fry the mushrooms, garlic and the onion until soft, take this out of the pan and brown the beef, when the beef is browned off re-added the onion and mushroom mix.

3. Add the passata, rich beef pot, one cup of boiling water and half the red wine, one teaspoon of mixed herbs, and a bit of salt and pepper and leave this to simmer – drain and add the carrots once they have been boiling for ten minutes.

4. While this is simmering, peel and chop the sweet potato. Then place in a pan of boiling water. At this point switch the oven on to 180 degrees or around gas mark 7, so that it heats up in time. Add more red wine to the beef mixture if needed.

5. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the sweet potatoes can easily be pierced with a knife.or until soft. Then drain and mash, when roughly mashed add a dash of milk and 1 egg and continue to mash, add the cinnamon, nutmeg and a salt and pepper to taste, and mash through.

6. Place the beef mixture in an deep ovenproof dish, fill to around ¾ then top with the mash (I spooned the mixture on and roughly smoothed it). Then top with cheese (optional)

7. Place in the over for 20-25 minutes, or until the cheese is browned.

 8. Serve + Enjoy