Best Before or Rubbish

It is with a lot of interest I have been following any news articles that are out on whether we should get rid of the 'best before' date on food?

Does it make any difference?
Would it save a lot of food waste?

These are the important questions that are being asked at present by the European Union in their bid to save millions of tons of food that is carelessly wasted each year.
They state that on average, 15% of what we buy from the supermarket will get thrown away!
Most of this is because we will look at the date on it and it states 'best before xyz' so we work out it is past that date and out it goes!

As they have mentioned 'best before' is a guideline. It does not mean the food has to be used by that date, it is a guideline to tell you that they recommend it is 'best before' that date, however most things can be used up to even 1-2 years past this date, it just takes common sense when going to use the food.
Does it look good? Does it smell ok?

Just because those choclate biscuits say best before Feb 2014, believe me I think they will be fine today in May of 2014! Well when I am in need of choclate its good enough for me.

So it definitely gives us something to stop and think about.
How do we feel about the term 'best before'?
How does this affect the food we eat and use in our cooking?
Does rice and pasta really need to be thrown out just because it didn't get used before the best before date printed on the packet?

Definitely going to make me think twice before I throw something away based on the date rather than whether it is something I could incorparate in our menu for the following few days to use up than throw out.

However you have to remember to not get this confused with the 'use by date' on food which is definitely there for a reason and must be followed as it gives the date by which a product must be consumed rather than a recommendation.

Just some food for thought on a Wednesday morning!

Cooking Shows

My husband watches anything on tv and I mean anything. Cooking shows, shows about travel, history of islands, beaches or animals.
It does have its useful moments, like when he will tell me the most useless information which actually turns out to be quite interesting. He seems to suck up all the information that is shown and saves it for a rainy day.

However he is good at recording most of the cooking shows and suddenly the boys have got into watching them.
Jamie Oliver's 15 minutes meals, Nigel Slater's dishes, Secret Meat business etc
And occassionally there will be a dish on the show that we all fall in love with and I just know I am going to have to recreate said dish.

This Chicken and Leek Pie was one such dish.
Nigel Slater completed it on one of his shows and it was simple and looked devine. Having since made said dish I can agree....it was devine.

Cook chicken thighs in milk with peppercorns, onion and bay leaf

Fry bacon and then add leeks to soften, then add chopped chicken from the bone

Seal all in a large sheet of pastry on a baking tray and bake for 45 minutes

When nice and golden brown.......eat it

It went down very well in ths house and was even better the next day as left overs.
There is a link up above to the recipe but I will give it too you here as well

Chicken and Leek Pie (Nigel Slater - BBC tv)

2 chicken thighs
2 chicken legs  (although I just used 4 thighs)
8 peppercorns
1/2 onion
1 bay leaf
milk (enough to cover chicken pieces)
6 rashers of bacon, cut into small pieces
30g butter
2 leeks, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
3 tbsp plain flour
3 tsp of Dijon Mustard (I just used multi grain that I had in the fridge)
2 sheets of puff pastry
1 egg for glazing
parmesan cheese, grated for topping

Pre heat oven to 200c/400F/ Gas 6
In a saucepan add chicken, peppercorns, onion and bay leaf.
Cover with milk. Bring to boil and simmer for 25 mins until chicken is cooked.
Fry bacon in the butter, add leeks and allow to soften
When chicken is cooked, removed from milk and flake off the bone. Add to leek and bacon.
Add flour and cook through for 2 mins before straining the milk into the pan to remove the onions etc.
Add the mustard and stir constantly to make a thick sauce.
Roll out pastry to a rectangle about 5mm thick, lay on a baking tray.
Place filling onto the pastry sheet and then cover with remaining sheet of pastry, crimping the edges to seal.
Brush with beaten egg to glaze and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
Bake for 35-45 minutes until golden

What I Am Loving

I am currently loving my new individual ramikin dishes.
They are large ones so are suitable to make individual dishes in.
I have served Chicken Pasta Bake in them and the other day I did individual Shepherds Pies.
Anything to try and make dinner more fun and appertising.

I have also found that it is a perfect size portion for people and I am loving serving them for dinner. The family are enjoying eating out of them too.

In fact I am loving them so much I think I may need to purchase 2 more to have a decent set of them in case we get company.
Watch out Grandma, individual dishes when you next have dinner here!

R is for Recipes and Replying

I am one of those cook who must follow a recipe.
I am not able to create something on my own, I just manage to get things mixed up (in a wrong way) with too much of 1 ingredient and not enough of another.
I have no inspiration with flavour so am always looking to recipes to see what flavouring they use and then maybe I will adapt slightly, but that is as far as it goes. Odd for someone who actually has an O'Level (High School Diploma) in Home Ecomomics (cooking)!

The latest thing to come into my line of vision that I want to try and make is Macorons.
Yes I have spelt it correct, we are talking Macorons here, the little biscuit cakes made with egg whites and almond not egg white and coconut which are Macaroons.

Now please don't fall over at my next statement....but I am new to this beautiful cake snack. I have never come across them before this year. Just goes to show how much I do not frequent coffee shops!

Anyway thought I would look for a recipe online to see exactly what was in them and how they were made. For some reason I ended up on You Tube watching several different people show you how to make them and include their recipe for them. Simple thing to make but what got me was the difference in recipes......!

• 1 recipe told you to beat the dry ingredients into the egg whites as you wanted to knock all the air out so the end product was not too high.
• Another told you to fold very very gently as you wanted to keep the air in.
• So am I wanting the air in or out?
• 1 recipe told you to leave them to form a skin prior to cooking for 10 minutes.
• Whilst another told you to leave them for an hour.
• And another told you to place them in the oven straight away
• So am I leaving them for 10mins, 60 mins or not at all?
• The other major difference was the amount of dry ingredients compared to the amount of egg whites. Most used 4 egg whites but the dry ingredients varied from about 225g to 300g, some used just sugar whilst others used a combination with cream of tartar as well.
• I know I want it to be stiff and thick but how thick?

I know most of this is my own fault for checking out too many recipes but I can not believe the variance out there for 1 simple recipe!

Happy cooking all.

Replying

If someone leaves you a comment on your blog do you reply to it?
I do, I think it is so important to answer any questions that get asked, to clarify anything that may be stated and to generally be polite and friendly to anyone who has taken the time to comment on my blog.
I love getting to know new people out in blog world and I like to let them know that I am greatful they stopped by and please come back and visit again soon.
It has been a busy month this month with the challenge on but I hope I have managed to reply to everyone who has left me a comment to say 'thanks for stopping by' but then it is slightly easier at the moment as I only have about 17 followers and only get 1 or 2 comments a day not sure how I would cope if I had 700 followers and got 50 comments a day!?

Happy commenting folks!

Cooking

Alex loves cooking.

He always wants to help in the kitchen, always trying to think about what he can cook.
As part of his getting ready for school stuff, they encourage you to take them along to the library and get them their own card.
Now Alex has been to the library loads of times but never had his own card, so we happily trotted off last week and did all the official stuff.
He happily signed his name on the back of his card, but got annoyed when the lady wouldn't let him keep it (it had to go off to be officially printed)
Despite telling him it would appear in the post in a few days he was not happy.

So I tried to grab his attention back by suggesting we look for cook books.
This worked.
We happily left the library with a childrens cook book and Alex spent the rest of the day going through it establishing which recipes he was going to make.

We have since made:

• Smoothies
• Chocolate Zucchine Cake
• Sesame Soy Chicken

Shame with his funny tummy at present he is not all that into eating the food, but we are encouraging him to cook when ever he wants.

Ever The Little Helper

As always Alex is always wanting to help cook things in the kitchen.

Even if it is making pancakes with Daddy on Sunday morning.

Destitute Gourmet

Now I am aware that I have mentioned Sophie before on this blog, that is Sophie Gray aka The Destitute Gourmet

When Ben was little, say about 1 or 2, I was at the library trying to find some cook books to give me some inspiration. I came across some by Sophie. Of course after having them at home and reading them cover to cover and wanting to try several of the dishes, I treated myself to one of the books.

She covered a whole basic idea of creating a menu and only shopping for what you need rather than random, she also explained about essential items in your pantry and luxury items.

I fell in love, here was a simple thing to put into practice that could save me time, thinking time and money!

Ok so it took me quite a while to get things organised, but to this day we still have a menu, when I remember to follow it, and we also have a printed shopping list broken down into weeks and only having things on there that I need to buy for this weeks menu.

I have also had the awesome pleasure of attending one of Sophie's Demonstrations, or more to the point I ended up as a helper in the kitchen for 5 hours with Sophie. It was awesome fun, but very tiring but I learnt so much.

She showed us how to make pizza as one of the dishes she made and  how to raise the dough in the microwave. I still make my pizza like that and it still works everytime.

I still have several dishes that I use from the cook book and they go down very well with my young family.

So I was very happy when a best friend brought me another Sophie book for my birthday a few weeks back. There are some great looking recipes in there too.

Ben's school is also looking at having Sophie down for a demonstration next year sometime, thanks to me. I was involved in organising the one I helped at, so know what is involved and how much fun it can be, so gave them the information and helped them investigate what they needed, sadly we were unable to get it organised for the end of this year but are still hoping for sometime next year.

Will I go to it? Hell yes, and I will tell all my friends and my mum too.

So imagine my surprise when I came across a blog for Destitute Gourmet, and she even posts some lovely recipes on there too, so will be keeping an eye on that too.

She has also put out a book about common sense living, tips on being sensible with how you live and what you do and don't need. It is very interesting reading and again very practicle, so practicle in fact that my best friend still has my copy of it and swears by it!

Cooking

Alex decided the other day that he wanted to cook a chocolate cake!

Unfortunately I didn't have all the ingredients necessary for him, but I did however have a Betty Crocker Double Chocolate Muffin box in the cupboard.

So he sorted himself out and with a little help from mummy, made muffins.

He mixed and stirred the mixture.

He put the muffin cases in the tin.

Then he started to spoon the mixture into the cases, using his finger to scrap the mixture off the spoon.

Sadly he also learnt how to lick his finger after each time that he filled a case, so a little bit of Alex was in every muffin.

He had a ball and made some beautiful muffins, although not that you can go too wrong with a box mixture.

Competition

Steve's office area has started having cooking competitions.
It started with a cake making competition a couple of months ago. This took them a fair few weeks to accomplish.
Steve had to bake a cake one week, at the same time as several other people. Who ever won that week went onto the next round.
Guess what, Steve won his round! Way to go with my Lemon Coconut Cake.

I can't actually remember what he baked for the next round, it was a close call but sadly he didn't make it through.

A couple of weeks ago he informed me that the next competition was all about 'Soups'
So he has been wondering what he could do.
Now bear in mind that he isn't too interested in winning this round at all. Not too fussed on soups, so all he wipped up was the recipe for 'Mild Curried Kumara Soup' oh with a twist, because Steve can not do anything when cooking without a little twist added!
Although when you ask him what he put in it and can he tell you so you can recreate it....the answer is always NO, because sometimes he is not actually sure what it was that he put there!

So today, he took in his soup. Hoping that it was suitable enough for the competition but compared to others, hopefully not good enough to go forward.
Well blow me down, he is cirrently leading for this week.
Due to the nature of it being soups, they are doing 2 soups per day, rather than trying 3-4 soups in one day. So a scoring system has been created. He has to wait until the soups for Thursday have been scored, but currently he is leading this week!

I laughed when I called him to find out how his soup went! Because now, if he wins the week, he only has to come up with another soup to make in a few weeks time!

Anyone got an good soup recipes out there for him to use????

Productive

Today has been very productive for me.
I did the weekly shop first thing this morning, whilst all the boys in the house got their hair cut.
Unfortunately the weekly shop came to way more than I expected, so I won't be doing that again in a hurry, although I am still not sure what I exactly brought that was so expensive sent it up so high!
Once home, I have managed to do 2 loads of laundry and get it blowing on the line in the winter sunshine.
Make up dinner for tonight in the slow cooker. Man I love the slow cooker, the feeling I get at about 3pm when I realise that dinner is sorted and I don't have to start worrying about "what shall we have for dinner tonight?"
Make up a huge batch of chilli, that eventually portioned down into 5 servings, that can go in the freezer for future use when I need something to get out for dinner and I don't know what to have!
Used up the old bananas, by making a wonderful banana cake, which the recipe actually ends up making 2 loaf tin size cakes, so will share one with the neighbours.

And even managed to solve my Mum's computer problem.

So all in all a great day. Maybe tomorrow I will sit around all day in my pyjamas reading the newspaper and my book!

Water!

Yep that's right, water, that is the solution to the Ginger Crunch.

Steve looked at my breadcrumb dough last night and said 'let's add some water?'

So we slowly tsp by tsp added some water, all 3 tsp in total.

And hey presto it all worked out well.

Made the dough just bind together well enough to actually not be too crumbly.

And the ginger crunch is beautiful.

Being Helpful

Both of the boys have decided that they want to help in the kitchen.

Now there are certain meals that this works nicely with. Fish Fingers and Mac Cheese for instance, Alex gets the fish fingers out and puts them on the oven tray and Ben can whip up a great Mac Cheese from the packet.



Back in August, I went to a fundraiser that my committee of Parents Centre organised, we got The Destitute Gourmet to come and do a cooking demonstration. It was a wonderful night had by all, 3 hours of Sophie showing you how to make some basic meals, and get to taste them at the end. Being on the committee that organised all of this I was lucky enough (I think) to spend the evening in the kitchen helping Sophie. I learnt a lot.


Anyway, she showed us how to make pizza dough and then to cook the pizza. She talked a lot about getting the kids involved, especially with the dough making part. So that is what I did.
Now you don't do this when you are rushed, so it needs to be planned. You also don't worry about the mess, flour goes everywhere, but hey the kids are getting in there. (I will try and remember to post the recipe for you all to use, so easy)
This is only the 2nd time we have done this now, but Alex was so into this, he loved kneeding the dough and giving it a really good roughing up!

So if you have kids, even as young as 2, then plan to make your own pizza one night. The kids will love making the dough and then decorating their pizza, putting it in the oven and then eating it. Alex is half dressed due to the mess of flour going everywhere.

Now the other area they like to be helpful is in the cleaning department, well they try.
Alex has an obsession with the vacuum cleaner. He is always asking for it and if he can get his hands on it will play for ages with it, even though it is not turned on!
Maybe I can get him into walls and windows next!