To start off if you are in the UK – don’t panic! Mother’s Day has already been and gone for 2013. If you are based in the US and you haven’t got a gift yet – feel free to panic!

But I am here to help, if you are still looking for some last minute ideas for gifts. Here’s my top list:

A Camellia Plant, every couple of years my Mum would ask for a Camellia as a gift for Mother’s day. At the time I never got it, why would you want a plant? Games, make up, pair of shoes – that I could understand. However as I have started to grow a little older I have started to see the appeal.

I have one in my garden and it’s the first non-spring bulb plant to flower every year. That blast of high impact colour is so cheery, it makes me hugely happy!

I love that even when it’s really windy, which essentially rips the heads of the flowers, you end up with beautiful large pink petals covering the lawn.
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My Mum makes Chocolate Tiffin every Christmas, and every year I promise that I will steal her recipe and make it for myself. I always forget.

However when I was thinking about recipes that I could make in the evenings after work, chocolate tiffin came to mind as it’s simple and it doesn’t involve the oven and timings and stress.

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I have made a lot of hot cross buns in my time, for example these wholewheat hot cross buns and my even healthier hot cross buns a couple of years later.

However I really really like Hot Cross Buns, so I felt it necessary to bake them again this year. To me it feels a little like Christmas baking. You know with the oven on, baking, cinnamon, mixed spice, sultanas etc. Admittedly in previous years at Easter it wasn’t so cold that it actually felt like Christmas!

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I was lucky enough to receive a “The Connoisseur” Easter Egg from Hotel Chocolat, earlier this month to try.

The box was impressive, highlighting the quality of the chocolate within, no thin cardboard boxes here. This chocolate egg is well protected.

This isn’t your average run of the mill chocolate easter egg, it is an extra thick dark chocolate easter egg.
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My mum is in New Zealand on holiday this mother’s day, sunning herself on a beach, whilst I sit in Edinburgh in surrounded by at least an inch of snow.

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I recently bought a painting from Art Of Texture on etsy, for my living room which I am loving so much I wanted to share with you!

I love the texture of the leaves in the painting (it’s oil on canvas), which goes perfectly with the green and brown, natural, theme I have in my living room.

Je has lots of wonderful picture in different colour combinations – you should definitely check out her etsy store.

Hope you are having a lovely week so far.

Lauren x

Matt and I were very lucky to receive vouchers for the Nick Nairn Cook School as a wedding gift. From the large selection of classes I chose Thai because it was spicy (always important to me) but also fresh and suits the sort of spring time cooking I am really looking forward to!

Of course on the day we chose to go to the class it was actually snowing in Edinburgh. However it was a lovely day over Stirling way, and just as well if it had been snowing on some of the one lane roads (with passing places) I would have been pretty scared we would get stuck in the middle of nowhere!

When we got to the cook school we were greeted warmly by staff, then given coffee and shortbread while we waited till the class began. Which really set the tone for a day of a lot of cooking, eating and fun memories.
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I don’t really have a New Years Resolution this year, but eating less and being more efficient with the food I do buy is something I have been thinking about over the Christmas period.

Part of the reason for this was that I was lucky enough to get a copy of An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace for Christmas. It’s not a recipe book per se, it’s more a book to change the way you think abut food. I started reading it one afternoon, where like only some of the best fiction, I sat transfixed reading cover-to-cover until I was finished.

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