My birthday was a pretty quiet affair this year. No-one could really afford to do much and I was still a bit ill with a cold I couldn’t shake. I met up with Claire and Tony at Zero Degrees (I know, not very original but they were meant to have a new menu!). When Nick and Rob arrived we headed for FOODS! It wasn’t until I got home I realised my weird pizza that was meant to have noodles on it was noodle-less. Hmmm that’s not fair! I think next time I’ll go back to the Goat’s Cheese one, I swear it’s the best pizza EVER!

C&T got me some more vinyl figures, I swear I need a display cabinet for all these cool little plastic beasts and N&R got me some chopsticks from their trip to Paris. They turned out to be the same kind I’d bought Claire a few years ago which wasn’t a problem for me as I’d very nearly not given Claire hers as I fell in love with their little faces Good timing too as I eat loads of stir fries and my chopsticks are getting old.

Paul & Chris joined us later at the Purtle and as if to prove how old I am, I went home early! I knew if I left before 22:00 I could get a train and then a lift home. After that and I’d have to pay out almost £30 for a taxi. Sod that! It was a good night spent discussing Venture Bros and films that make us cry. I do miss going out and having mad rants with people, it’s so unfair that no-one seems to be out any more. I can’t afford to go out on the off-chance I might bump into people now. Argh, I need a job! I need money! I want to have a social life again!

A while ago I kept seeing codes popping up on Twitter. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I clicked the link and found myself on the Graze website. Graze supply little (and they are quite small in all fairness) boxes of healthy snacks. You’re provided with information on how many of your 5-a-day the box counts towards and they choose what to send you with a rating system. You’re asked to go through everything they supply and rate it from ‘Never send me this’ through ‘Try’ to ‘Love it!’, so while it’s a bit of a lottery as long as you’ve rated everything you should only get munch that you like. The boxes themselves are eco friendly, being made from recycled materials and being fully recyclable too for good measure.

They cost £2.99 (inc. postage) so while that does seem a little pricey at first; if you had a box for lunch every day it wouldn’t be much different to buying a sandwich and a drink. It gets better though, on sign-up you get a code to share with your friends that will get you £1 off a box and that will get your friends 1 free box and another ½ price.

If you want to give Graze a go, try out a free box using my code when you sign up:

N1N4HB6A

You’ll get a free box of yummy, healthy foods and I’ll get £1 off my next one. Everyone’s happy!

As I am currently at home I’ve only asked for 1 box a week. Wednesdays are my “days of graze“. They’ve just e-mailed me to say tomorrow I’ll be getting a box with white grapes, Japanese rice crackers and dried raspberries. Yum!

If you’re going on holiday or don’t have the cash it’s easy to push back the next delivery too. So far the food has been excellent, I’m quite picky about grapes and pineapple but the ones from Graze have been very tasty and clearly very fresh. I highly recommend trying them out

As we have loads of leeks in the garden at the moment I keep making this when I can’t think what to have for dinner. Quick, easy and very tasty.

French Leek Pie

1 (22cm)	Pie Crust
1tbsp	Butter
3	Leeks (washed and chopped)
250ml	Cream
160g	Gruyère (grated)
1 pinch	Salt
1 pinch	Black Pepper

Serves: 6
Yield: 1 9″ Pie
Ready in: 50 mins (10 mins Prep – 40 mins Cook)

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C.

2. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in leeks; cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, or until soft.

3. Season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to low. Stir in cream and cheese, and warm through. Pour mixture into pie shell.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until custard is set and golden on top. Allow to sit 10 minutes before cutting pie into wedges.

Made these yesterday, modified the recipe for the Chocolate Melting Moments. Very gingery, very nice!

Ginger Biscuits

Ginger Biscuits

115g/4oz Butter (softened)

85g/3oz Caster Sugar

140g/5oz Self-Raising Flour

1tsp Vanilla Extract

2tbsp Ground Ginger

Makes 18-20

1. Heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together using an electric beater until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract.

3. Sift the flour and ginger together and work into the butter mixture. Bring it together to form a dough.

4. Take teaspoonfuls of the mixture and roll into balls.

5. Place on the baking sheets 5cm/2in apart and press down to flatten slightly. Bake for 12-15mins. Remove from the baking sheets and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Made these the other day from Leiths Baking Bible, pretty lush!

Chocolate Melting Moments

115g/4oz Butter (softened)

85g/3oz Caster Sugar

140g/5oz Self-Raising Flour

1tsp Vanilla Extract

2tbsp Cocoa Powder

7-10tbsp Porridge Oats

Makes 18-20

1. Heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together using an electric beater until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract.

3. Sift the flour and cocoa together and work into the butter mixture. Bring it together to form a dough.

4. Take teaspoonfuls of the mixture and roll into balls, then roll lightly with wet hands and roll in the oats.

5. Place on the baking sheets 5cm/2in apart and press down to flatten slightly. Bake for 12-15mins. Remove from the baking sheets and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

I probably should have written this as soon as I got home, as I’ve since had a little sleepy and some lush foods (M&S Sweet Pumpkin and Amaretti Biscuit Ravioli, far nicer than it sounds), I feel less like ranting.

I spent some time in Reading town centre this weekend. On Saturday lunchtime and Sunday afternoon. I realised there are still an awful lot of people using plastic bags. For years and years my Mum has taken her own bags to the supermarket, I just sort of stopped noticing bag usage. Or maybe I never paid any attention in the first place. I do know it’s only now becoming easier to say “I don’t need a bag thanks”. There have been a number of occasions where I’ve had my canvas bag/rucksack/old plastic bag ready and waiting while the cashier paid no attention and thrust my goods into a new and completely pointless plastic bag. Sometimes I’d take my purchases out and make a big deal of putting them in my own bag. Most often though I’d just sigh and resign myself to getting another future bin liner.

I looked at the people scuttling around, arms laden with plastic. It’s madness! One woman had one of those over-sized handbags that were all the rage last year, it looked almost empty. Yet she had what was probably a eye-shadow and a bottle of perfume in a plastic bag. WHY?! I just don’t get it. Not only is that plastic bag pointless and a symbol of doom, but surely it would be easier to carry just one bag? The more I looked around, the more I felt like the odd one out; having not one, but THREE canvas bags in use. I ended up buying one in Waterstones as even though I’d taken an old plastic bag out with me I realised all my canvas bags are huge and their ones are more conveniently sized. The killer came as I left M&S, a family walked past me loudly declaring their disgust that they’d been charged 5p for a plastic bag! Apparently it’s disgusting as plastic bags should be free, they always were and this particular family would be shopping elsewhere in future. The fact that the goods they bought could have easily fitted inside the mother’s handbag didn’t even cross their tiny little minds. I despaired. Openly. They glared. Good, it proves they heard me.

I’m sure reading ‘Crap At The Environment‘ has had an influence on me noticing these things. I chuckled when reading about Mark’s tussles with Kevin at the checkout. The idea of counting how many “I don’t need a bag thank you”s in a day was something I’d already done myself! I don’t want to come across as preachy here as I’m as guilty of plastic ownership as the next person. I have a whole host of Vinyl figures for a start. However, I am a total hoarder and this makes it slightly easier to justify as I try to save my plastic treasures from ever going to landfills. I even take discarded disposable lighters just so they don’t end up floating around Midway. Instead they float around in a box on my floor. I haven’t noticed any dead waterfowl around them though… yet.

For a short while I tried to influence my friends; get them to buy refillable lighters, use their bags instead of plastic carriers. I’ve given up now. It seems that those who care are already doing something and those who don’t care can’t be made to care. Unfortunately much as the apple-haters are now more fanboyistically annoying than the original Apple-ites, being anti-environmentalist is the new cool I often hear the younger generations claiming it all to be nonsense, why should they care anyway, it’s all going to happen long after they’re gone. I simply cannot understand this viewpoint. I want to scream at them “BUT IT’S ALREADY HAPPENING!” I know they’d take no notice though, declaring me a tree-hugger and sneering. They should also learn that once things start to change they can do so at an unimaginable rate.

While I’m on the subject of such things, if anyone knows where I can buy (wholesale) biodegradable packaging for the jewellery I make please let me know! UK based is best. Thanks!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Been making these quite a bit recently. Ridiculously quick and easy to make, yet taste as good as any you could buy.

Ingredients

125g Butter (softened)
100g Plain Flour
50g Icing Sugar (sifted)
50g Cornflour
25g Cocoa Powder
Chocolate Spread

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C (I don’t have to do this cos Agas rock!).

Beat the butter until it’s really, really soft. Keep going until it’s a shade lighter than you started with. Add all the dry ingredients and mix until it’s a firm dough. If the bowl is clean, that’s generally when you’ve got it to the right consistency.

Grab pieces of the mixture and roll into small balls. Just slightly larger than a Malteser™ is about right. Place these on a baking tray covered in greaseproof paper or baking parchment. Once you’ve rolled all the mixture into balls and put it on the tray, dip a fork into cold water and flatten the balls. This makes them look a bit more biscuity and gives them a nice texture.

Cook them for about 10-12 minutes. Let them rest on the tray for about 5 minutes then leave on a wire rack to cool completely. Once they are cool, sandwich them together using chocolate spread.

I would post up a picture of them, but they seem to get eaten before I have the chance!

With my time off work this year I’ve really got back into my cooking and baking. I love cooking. Lots. My Mum has always baked cakes at least once a week ever since I can remember, so I must’ve got the baking gene from her. I probably also got the preserves/chutney/salsa gene from her too as she always makes her own jams and chutneys and my Cajun Salsa is pretty much legendary.

Anyway, I’ve decided to bung up the recipes for things I’m cooking on this blog. I won’t be copying these posts to all my other blogs though. I might cross-post them to LJ, but I’m not going to bother elsewhere.