Food

Shaking up Mealtimes: HelloFresh Recipe Box Review

Our Hello Fresh recipe box had instructions for quick and easy dishes like this prawn and serrano ham linguine

I have bemoaned many times on the blog quite how dull I find cooking now that I have kids. Not because I don’t enjoy food, or the thrill of creating something tasty that everyone loves. But because that doesn’t always happen, and the process of putting meals on the table day after day becomes more of a chore than a joy. Anything that makes that task easier, and more successful will always get my vote. So I was excited to try the HelloFresh recipe box. We had eight recipes for four people over the course of two weeks. Ample for …

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Food: Zesty Strawberry Mojito Sorbet (recipe)

Combine mint, strawberries, lime and a magic ingredient to get the perfect dessert sorbet for summer

  A frozen strawberry dessert based on the classic cocktail After loving our Strawberry Mojito mocktails, I got a bit excited about what else I could do with the recipe. We may have been a bit over zealous at our local fruit farm this week, and had rather a glut of gorgeous strawberries beginning to soften in the fridge. So, never one to waste food, and bearing in mind that July is national ice cream month, I had the idea for a strawberry mojito sorbet. We have the Smart Scoop ice cream maker from Sage by Heston Blumenthal, and we’ve …

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Zesty Lemon Meringue Ice Cream (recipe)

A zingy, crunchy, refreshingly sweet lemon meringue ice cream recipe you can easily make at home

This lemon meringue ice cream is refreshing and zingy – perfect for a summer treat. Scroll down for the recipe, or watch the video. As if you needed an excuse now the hot weather is here, it’s ice cream month. It’s an actual thing – July is national Ice Cream Month. There, it has capitals, so it must be true. In 1984, Ronald Reagan signed ice cream month into US law, and it’s been celebrated in America ever since. Must have been the cold war…   Lemon Meringue Ice Cream Recipe Joking aside, there’s nothing nicer than a scoop of …

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Mindful Chef Review: Healthy Recipe Box Meals

Mindful Chef recipe box review: a box zingy with fresh vegetables and seasonings

Mindful Chef: the Healthy Recipe Box I don’t often post about food on this blog, but when I do, it’s because I’ve found something that really makes life a little bit better. I’ve talked before about how my love of cooking has diminished since having children. It’s something to do with the endless nature of feeding a family. No sooner is one meal consumed, than another has to be prepared, and the cycle of menu-planning, shopping, prepping, and cleaning up seems to go round too fast for me to ever feel like food is not on my mind. Add to …

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Easter Baking: Moroccan Spiced Hot Cross Buns Recipe

Easter baking: Moroccan spiced hot cross buns recipe

  Easter Baking Ideas We have a bit of time on our hands for once this Easter break. I’ve longed for a holiday where we’re at home, just to spend time with the kids, doing simple things. And one thing they never tire of is baking. Schwartz got in touch to ask if I would get the kids involved in some cooking using some of their spices. Never one to turn down a challenge, and always a lover of a twist, I decided that we’d start our Easter baking preparations with traditional hot cross buns. Recipes for hot cross buns …

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Perfect Low Carb Pizza Recipe

Low carb fathead pizza

A low carb pizza has been the holy grail of my Saturday night menu planning for a long time now. Takeaway pizza (and even the shop-bought variety) has a tendency to wreak havoc with blood glucose levels when you’re acting as your own pancreas and injecting insulin. (In fact, I have a strong suspicion that the insulin resistance of type 2 diabetes may have more to do with high fat, savoury junk food than with cans of Coke, but that’s a rant for another day). So our Saturday night fix in front of the TV has suffered since type 1 …

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Fennel and Bean Soup recipe with an added something!

This fennel and bean soup recipe will give you two of your five-a-day with an added extra special treat

I’m not always the healthiest eater. As a busy mum, who works, and whose nights are frequently interrupted, I’m prone to reaching for coffee and muffins in the mornings, followed up by a lunch of crumpets and cheese. And who doesn’t like that stuff? It’s a quick fix, it acts as comfort after an exhausting night, and an even longer day. And we all know what calls at five o’clock. But there comes a point when the body craves more than just comfort; it needs vitamins, fibre, good protein, and a little bit less of the quick fixes. I may …

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Travel: Why food might your first priority at Beaches Resorts

Stewfish, at Beaches Resorts Negril, is the most stunning location for a meal

What do you go on holiday for? Relaxation? A change of scenery, time off from the usual mundane chores of life? Time with family and friends, a suntan, a chance to do something different? Chances are it’s all of those things, but shall I tell you what figures high on my list of reasons to leave home for a week or so? Food. As a mum, just not having to plan it, shop for it, cook it, and clear it all away three times a day is a holiday. Food is an essential part of travel for me. Which is …

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Salted Caramel Ice Cream recipe with a Twist – or a Twix!

Recipe: Salted Caramel ice-cream with Twix Mix is set to become a favourite

    The Best Salted Caramel ice-cream recipe I’m trying to think of a good reason not to make salted caramel ice cream. But I just can’t come up with one. I mean, who doesn’t love that sea-salty tang, followed by the deep burned sweetness of caramel? Mixed with creamy custard and scooped into a cone, it’s doubly compelling, so I try no longer. When we were sent the Smart Scoop ice-cream maker from Sage, we had all sorts of ice-cream recipes in mind to try. There’s my favourite Rhubarb Crumble ice-cream, low-carb Death by Chocolate ice-cream, and our new …

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Passion Fruit Ice Cream Recipe with White Chocolate Chunks

This passion fruit and white chocolate ice-cream was really easy to make in our Sage ice-cream maker

How good does that look? That, my friends, is passion fruit ice cream, made in our new Sage by Heston Blumenthal ice-cream maker. Stuff of dreams, right? Now, imagine if every bite had a small chunk of white chocolate to go with the tang of all that passion fruit. I can see you nodding, so here you go… If you love a good gadget read how our family pizza nights have become legendary since we got the brilliant Roccbox pizza oven Passion fruit and white chocolate ice cream We’re reviewing the Sage by Heston Blumenthal Smart Scoop ice-cream maker this summer. It …

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Dear Coleen Nolan, diabetes is not my fault

Stupid questions your mum will ask about diabetes

Having to take insulin injections is not the worst thing about having diabetes. Having to prick your fingers before you can eat or exercise is probably worse than needing to inject a synthetic hormone into your body, but it’s not the worst thing about having diabetes. Working full time (and it is full-time) to keep blood sugars under control, and the sense of deflation when all that hard work doesn’t pay off, is one of the worst things about having diabetes. But it’s not the worst. Public misperception around diabetes is the worst thing about having the condition. I struggle with …

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Travel: Food Inspired by our Travels

Crayfish starter #TasteofTravel

  Restaurant in Honfleur, France What’s the best part of a holiday for you? Lounging by the pool with a cocktail? Swimming in a perfect sea, on champagne sand? The spectacular view at the top of a canyon, or the rush of adrenalin as you ski down snow-capped peaks? I’ve been lucky enough to experience all of these, and more, and still have a bucket list I could never hope to complete. But you know what all of those pleasures have in common? Food. Whether it’s a thickly-buttered warm baguette, oozing strawberry jam, after a long hard day on the …

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Ox Pasture Hall hotel review

On a cold, blustery wet weekend in November, we travelled to Scarborough. The north-eastern coastline might not seem like the best place for a wet winter weekend, but we weren’t there to sun ourselves on the beach. We were there to review Ox Pasture Hall Hotel, and whilst it’s a place beautiful enough for a summer’s weekend, the winter weather totally does it justice! Still beautiful, despite the season, as we made our way through the garden to the small reception, we knew we were in for a cosy retreat, and we weren’t disappointed. The children very quickly laid claim …

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10 Minute Dinners: Fast Sausage and Lentil Casserole Recipe

10 Minute Family Dinners guaranteed to please     What do you pull out of the bag when your kids are hungry and you need to put dinner on the table, but time is short? Beans on toast? Microwaved curry? Tin of soup? Or would you rather have a hearty, healthy casserole that will feed the whole family and only takes 10 minutes to prepare? That’s the challenge OXO gave us when they sent us some of their Herbs and More flavour pots to create a recipe for their 10 minute dinners list. In fact, they asked to to make …

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Simple but delicious: food on the Costa Brava

Catalan food - Surf and Turf Paella

Mummy, I’m on fire! And he was – kind of. As part of our weekend break on the Costa Brava we took a drive out to the gorgeously secluded La Vinyeta for a spectacularly different kind of dinner. As we pulled into the privately-owned vineyard, the sun was setting over the vines, and the distinctive smell of a wine cellar wafted over to us. Olives and grapes mingled in the fields, and we paused to squeeze and inhale the aroma of the fruits as we wandered down to the kitchens.   Catalan food to please the whole family. The wonderful chef Jordi …

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