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Archive for the ‘General’ Category

When you do a buffet for a birthday party or an occasion where you’re having guests round what are the first things you think of when missioning round the supermarket? Little sandwiches, crisps, sausage rolls, cheese and pineapple, quiche, garlic bread, chicken legs?! Anything else? Well why not try to be a bit more inventive and do a Mediterranean style, Greek mezze type banquet with stuffed vine leaves, hummus, olives, tomato and basil salad, chickpea and lentil salads, flatbreads, stuffed tomatoes and peppers, breaded prawns and anything else you can think of. You can still add your favourites but by adding a few foreign touches your buffet will really come to life. Stick some vegetable samosa’s and some chicken satay sticks on too and you’ve got a party!

My wife is always going through phases where she sees things in magazines that are supposed to have ‘health benefits’, going to Tesco and buying up their stocks of it. Last month it was coconut water which was supposed to be good for everything in the body and this month she bought Aloe Vera juice which is supposed to (again) be beneficial for everything including being beneficial for helping HIV. Now correct me if i’m wrong but if you’ve got HIV you’re pretty much in trouble and no amount of aloe vera will cure it – haven’t they been trying to cure HIV for decades? Hmm, well I tried this aloe vera juice and to be honest it really is quite tasty. It smells like bubble gum and tasted like grape juice and if they say it helps with serious illnesses i’m going to drink more of it to prevent them! Screw you vaccinations by needle – i’m on the aloe vera!

Have you ever realised that you keep throwing away eggs because they go past their use by date? We do it all the time on our house and it only just occurred to me that I could hard boil them and bring them to work with me to have with some tomatoes or as part of a sandwich or salad! Genius idea and has only just come to me after weeks of buying hard boiled eggs from Morrison’s to have as an extra. Eggs are really good for you (the yolks maybe not so much but to be honest they are the tasty part!) and it’s such a waste to just let the go off. I won’t be doing it again and if I catch any of you doing it after reading this i’ll be having words!

I go through phases of wanting to eat something very specific all the time and at the moment it is nachos. I did go through a phase for about 3 months where I had to have a Cadbury’s boost every day otherwise I would be completely unnecessary. For my tea tonight (yes, i’m from the North and it’s breakfast, dinner and tea!) I will be having nachos. They are surprisingly easy to make, wap some tortilla chips in a bowl, grate some cheese over them and put them under the grill until the cheese starts to bubble. Then add a dollop of soured cream and a dollop of salsa and you’re good to go. AMAZING!!

Right I’m going to share something with you but if I go into Tesco and find these two amazing products gone i’m going to be annoyed! I like olives and do enjoy the occasional portion; however I have discovered a combination that will knock the socks off any other olives in the world! Seriously! The products can be bought from Tesco’s – i’ve never seen them elsewhere and they are truly ace! You need to go to the isle where they keep the hummus and dips etc and you will ring black and green olives with feta cheese in a square pack. This is the first component of my perfect olives formula. Then go to the cheese isle and pick up the Apetina feta cheese with garlic and green olives which is in a flat oval pack in a garlic and basil oil. Mix them together and enjoy. You’ll never want any other olives!

Food may not be the first thing that springs to mind during wedding planning, but for food lovers it is. Everyone’s been to a wedding where the food was awful – probably because it was catered and there were hundreds of freeloading wedding guests to feed – and it does spoil the day a bit.

Here are a few tips on getting your wedding food spot on:

• Prepare in advance – Plan a menu that can be prepared the day before, so you (or your friends or caterers) only need to reheat on the day.

• The cake – Break wedding cake convention by getting one you really like, the more indulgent the better (think big, gooey chocolate sponge cake).

• Use friends and family – What could be better than food made with love, or family recipes passed down through generations?

With Nigella Lawson’s banana bread, we aren’t unfortunately talking about the voluptuous domestic goddess’ personal loaf – we’re on about the amazing recipe she has concocted.

Banana bread is the only sort of cake-baking I actually do (apart from making flapjacks, but they don’t really count) and I’ve found this particular recipe surprisingly simple. All you need is the basics: flour, sugar, eggs, butter, baking powder, vanilla essence and of course, bananas. It’s always best if the bananas are a little over-ripe (they can be nearly completely black), making it a good use for otherwise-inedible ones.

Extras

There are a few variables with this recipe; feel free to try the following at your leisure:

• Currants/sultanas
• Dark rum (my favourite)
• Chocolate chips
• Walnuts

Whichever one you try, the end result is nearly always moist, sweet and just a little bit healthier than other cakes (except that darn carrot cake, of course).

It is a brand new year so you may be thinking on creating a brand new you? If you are a great way to do it is to eat a food group called – Negative calorie food. Foods which consist of negative calories include celery. When you eat celery – you burn off more calories eating it and digesting it than you actually ingest. Another good food to eat is cucumber as this is made up mostly of water!

If you are dieting and are eating these negative calorie foods – remember to stay healthy your body requires vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates and approximately 2000 calories for women and 2500 for men – ensure you stay healthy and if you can be bothered get yourself down to the gym!

I have a bit of a phobia / extreme dislike of sweet foods going on to savoury food – prime examples of this are Pineapple on Gammon, Pineapple on burgers or pineapple on pizza – ie Hawaiian pizza – ewwww why would you mix these two together? One is a sweet fruit and one is a pizza – it is WRONG to mix these!

Nonetheless, after having this rant with one of my colleagues they have kindly informed me that Pineapple is a great help with digestion, it is a is diuretic and is a natural cleanser, removing toxins from the body. So eating a pineapple a day keeps the doctor away – however please don’t eat it with a pizza because it is wrong!

I am not a stingy or tight person – I don’t mind paying a little bit more just as long as I get better quality for it. When my boyfriend and I were doing our weekly shop in ASDA I came across the chunky meat section, now me being a sucker for a bargain had a nosey inside the fridge. There was a huge slab of meat for a very reasonable price – it was one of those ready cooked ones so all you had to do is cut bits off every time.

The surprising thing was – this huge chunk of meat was about the same price as cooked processed ham which you get pre-sliced. In my opinion the chunky slab of meat was 10 TIMES better than the processed ham – and you get more for your money. So the trick is to shop around and make sure you get the best deal!