Eight Of my Favourite Things

OMG as the teens would say - today my little food blog turns eight! Eight! How on earth did that happen? What originally started as a way to find an easier way to share recipes with family and friends, I started realising that people were actually looking at my blog and now here I am, eight years later still writing up recipes but now with pictures and actual text and joining in all sorts of blogging challenges for all sorts of foods with people all over the world! I love finding new recipes and making them, I think that remains my main reason to keep on blogging! I've also had such amazing opportunities along the way and met some great people, and mainly ate some amazing food!

So much has changed for me personally during my eight years of blogging, I've moved house erm four times, changed jobs five times, went through a nasty bout of depression, went back to college, cancelled an engagement, fell in love with someone new, got pretty unwell, developed chronic pain, lost loved ones and also lost but gained new friends - some through my love of food and blogging! The food blogging community has grown so fast during this time I have struggled to keep up sometimes but we are all individuals and I think the more the merrier! Stumbling across a like minded person always makes me feel that little bit less alone too!

Blogging has become a real hobby to the point pretty much everyone knows I am a food blogger now, and I love learning new recipes from the fellow food blogging community and whilst I am not overly happy with my blog design, and a million times a year I think of changing it I just can't quite do it. I have bought several domains over the years and then pulled the plug I just can't seem to commit to it, I suppose I am quite sentimental and I am not too good with change but this might just be the year it happens...!

I spent all week trying to decide how to celebrate as such, spurred on by the lovely Camilla who blogs at Fab Food 4 All - who turned 3 this week too! In the end I went the '8' theme and took it from there really! In eight years I've managed a slightly scary 591 blog posts, scaling down to my favourites was very hard, especially as some of the older, and loved recipes have some ghastly photo's long before my DSLR (that I still don't really quite know how to master!) and put it out to vote to my boyfriend in the end combined with new skills I have also learned along the way!

So that was four of my favourite new skills I learned in the eight years- working with different dough's including wholemeal flours, baking with soured cream (its amazing, weirdly!) and surprisingly time consuming but delicate macarons, which added a whole new meaning to the term having patience!

My final four took a bit more thought - what four things have inspired me or kept me going during my blogging journey? It was actually the hardest part of this post!

First, well technically fifth is definitely one of the main blogging challenges I participate in - The Monday Meal plan hosted by At Home with Mrs M - which happily feeds my planning geek side when faced with doubtful looks from colleagues who discovered I did this recently... meal planning keeps me sane, cuts food waste and even occasionally prompts me to write an accurate shopping list!

Next up is most definitely a recipe we have fondly in our hearts - a gorgeous Banana Bundt from the fabulous blog Asian in America - it plays host to those sad, neglected bananas and gives you a lush, bananary cake that works well from breakfast through to pudding! The blog host is such a lovely lady too and finding her blog was a good day and recipes like these keep me inspired!

So onto number 7 - decisions decisions! I decided to keep it simple - afterall what is the most important meal of the day? Breakfast of course! I am not a cereal kinda gal... and this is the boss of breakfast! This was a combined meal of my favourite foods from my favourite people! Garlic and soya sauce fried rice - taught by one of my best friends who is from the Phillipines, runny fried eggs as they are my boyfriends favourite and one of my favourite veggies - the superfood Avocado, the toasted sesame seeds simply completed the breakfast feast!

Last but by no means least - if I hadn't of stumbled into blogging, discovered new communities, not just food related but also of life - and after all food to me is my life - its brought me joy when its been in abundance, challenging when less so, and I love constantly discovering and learning new things and I want to thank every one who has inspired me, taught me to love again, stuck by me through the less than great times - I know I've not been the easiest of persons to be with - but I am sure I made it through because of every single one of you! Its a big old world out there - thanks for being part of it. I can't choose just one image to finalise this post and these are all my favourite things:

Cheers to another eight years!

Anne 

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