Gousto food delivery

I quite often tell the story of when Bee went off to university for the first time, and had to share a flat with seven other students. In that entire flat of eight apparently grown up people, Bee was the only one who knew how to use a washing machine.

Isn’t that shocking??

On the one hand I was proud, but on the other, kind of embarrassed on their behalf. How had these young adults grown up without being taught how to do basic tasks around the house? It quickly became clear that what they lacked in washing machine skills, they most definitely did NOT make up for in the kitchen.

Teaching children how to do things for themselves like cooking, cleaning, catching trains and generally taking care of themselves, is surely what parenting is all about? Yes, you have to look after them a bit, and make sure they don’t walk into roads and stuff, but ultimately your goal is to equip them with the skills to function as an independent adult, not shelter them from all responsibility. If your child goes off to university never having used a washing machine, then something has gone wrong.

It’s one of the reasons I really like trying out recipe box schemes like Gousto.

Gousto is the compromise between simply handing your child a hardback Delia Smith and a Tesco Clubcard, and driving yourself mad trying to cook delicious yet wholesome meals for a whole family EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Instead you get to cook from scratch, but without the hassle of having to decide what to make or go shopping for ingredients. View Post

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Created in association with Heinz 

Heinz No Added Sugar Spaghetti Hoops review

I’ve always had this morbid fantasy about what’s going to happen when I die.

(Bear with me…)

In my mind I picture a scene a bit like this one in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. I imagine that once I’ve answered a series of questions to confirm it’s me, that I’ll be given a huge book full of statistics on everything I’ve ever done – number of hours spent asleep – 233,601; number of sandwiches from school packed lunches that I’ve thrown away at 3.30pm – 3,296 – that sort of thing. Some of it might be in graph form, because whoever is in charge will appreciate that I like a good graph.

Under the category ‘Family Teas > 1995 – 2010 > Tinned’ I expect there to be a fairly substantial entry for spaghetti hoops. Or, as it has always been known here, ‘ghetty’. (A bit like the images but without the hefty legal bills.)

With Alphabetti Spaghetti limited to special occasions only, number one in the chart would definitely be Heinz Spaghetti Hoops.

Heinz No Added Sugar Spaghetti Hoops review

There is just something wonderful isn’t there about the way you can gather them up on your fork? I remember quite vividly as a child the thrill of lining them up neatly on every other prong, so as not to crowd them, and seeing how many I could fit on before an adult said ‘stop messing about with your hoops and just eat your tea.’

Both of my children have always loved Heinz Spaghetti Hoops. A tin of Heinz Hoops is a staple in our cupboard – a sure-fire way to please everyone when they were small.

I ask Belle what she likes most about Heinz Hoops. View Post

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I’m a sucker for pretty packaging.

If it wasn’t for the fact that I am normally following the rule of second crappest when I’m in the supermarket, I could easily spend twice as much as necessary just because I like how things look. I spent about THREE times as much as I should have done on smoked paprika recently just because I liked this tin:

Fentimans Drinks

It’s easily done isn’t it?

And this mustard! (I don’t even LIKE mustard.) View Post

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In association with Crock-Pot

slow cooker crock pot rice pudding recipe

I’ve never owned any sort of slow cooker.

I’m surprised really, as you’d think it would be right up my street – chuck it all in on pot, minimum effort etc. I love all that. But no, it is only now at the ripe old age of 39 that I have popped my slow cooker cherry.

I now own a Crock-Pot. ( A Crock-Pot 4.7L Digital Countdown Slow Cooker to be precise.)

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was certainly something a little more complex than ‘plug it in, switch it on.’ I unpacked it, disposed sensibly of all the packaging, and got out the instruction booklet, ready to get to grips with the functionality.

‘Place the stoneware into the heating base,’ said the instructions, which caught me off guard straightaway as I wasn’t expected the dish to be so sturdy and wholesome. ‘Add your ingredients and cover with the lid. Plug in your Crock-Pot slow cooker.’

So far so good. View Post

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Belle likes to play a game with me called ‘Would You Rather?’

‘Would you rather,’ she asks, ‘have a hand chopped off or a foot?’ She is jolly like that.

‘Which hand?’ I counter, because I’m pedantic.

‘Left,’ she says.

‘I’ll probably lose the hand then,’ I say. ‘But if it was two hands versus two feet then I’d sacrifice the feet.’

We have fun.

ANYWAY.

Weight Watchers set me a similar challenge recently. Would I rather spend a Friday night in cooking a chicken jambalaya from scratch, or popping a Weight Watchers chilled prepared chicken jambalaya in the oven while I chillaxed with a face mask and spot of Netflix?

(Can you guess which I might choose??)

Here I am talking a little bit about how I got on. This is the cheat’s version, for if you don’t have time to read the rest of the post because you haven’t discovered Weight Watchers meals in the chilled aisle, and you’re slaving away in the kitchen.

(Plus I’m in a face mask for some of it, which surely makes it worth watching if only for comedy value?)
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Peanut butter cookies – post in association with Salter Cook. Looking for a Salter discount code? Then read on!

I really enjoy a spot of baking. I find it relaxing – weighing out the ingredients, following the instructions and, of course, eating the mixture from the bowl with my hands.

(The best bit.)

Normally when I cook though it goes something like this:

  • Get all my ingredients out.
  • Okay, 100g of flour? Excellent.
  • Get to scales. How much flour was it again? Check in recipe.
  • Repeat for every ingredient.
  • Forget something crucial and don’t discover it until the end.
  • Every time I reach a new step, read through the whole recipe again to remember where I was.

It’s a bit of a kerfuffle.

What I really need is a helper. Someone to organise all my recipes for me, get the oven temperature sorted and tell the scales how much of everything I need so that I don’t have to remember. They could cross things off as I go through the recipe and then set a timer for me so I don’t get distracted looking at Instagram and burn my cookies.

WELL HANG ON A MINUTE!!

The Salter Cook app, pro bluetooth kitchen scale and bluetooth cooking thermometer do ALL OF THOSE THINGS! It’s like they were listening, and designed a range of products just for me.

Salter Cook scales View Post

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Iceland the supermarket, not the country.

I’d say ‘unfortunately’, as I really do want to visit Iceland the country, but to be honest, I am such a massive fan of Christmas food that I was totally happy making my way to London in 30 degree heat last week in the name of brussel sprouts and custard filled Christmas puddings.

Iceland Christmas range

Yesssss

If you’ve ever worked in the MEDIA, (fancy), then you will know that Christmas in July is most definitely a THING. It’s when all the brands launch their Christmassy ranges, giving plenty of time for magazines and influential bloggers, like what I am, to talk about their stuff.

I arrived early, as I tend to, (I can’t bear lateness), and thought I’d be able to find a casual Starbucks near by to gather my thoughts and freshen up a bit after my very sweaty tube journey. As it turned out, the area wasn’t thronging with cafes by any stretch of the imagination, so by the time I arrived in the hallway full of Christmas trees, having wandered the streets for half an hour in a heat wave, I looked like I had been pulling a sleigh myself. 

Still, I styled it out – ‘just a summer glow darling!’ – and went up the stairs into a veritable Christmas food heaven. View Post

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Post in association with Fanta.

Well hello there, long time no see!

That’s my fault, as I have been BUYING A HOUSE! My very own house, where I can put up wallpaper and have to be responsible for the boiler. Scary times.

In my mind I imagined that moving into my own house would mainly consist of me skipping happily from room to room, choosing exactly where I wanted to put my plants, but it turns out it’s a bit more complicated and dull than that so far, hence me being a bit quiet.

What better thing to do though when you are super busy than to casually cook three meals from scratch and create a video of it?? I know right? It’s the OBVIOUS thing to do, and I don’t know why more people don’t do it quite frankly, as it’s totally THE way to relax mid-move.

So before you do anything else, you MUST watch the video. I’ll tell you what it’s all about in a minute, but seriously, if you have ever moved house, take a minute to think of me and watch the whole thing as a sign of solidarity. It’s less than eight minutes, which in the grand scheme of things is nothing is it??

Okay, thank you. I will calm down now.

*deep breaths*

As you will have seen when you watched the video, which I KNOW you did, this post is part of a project with Fanta, celebrating the relaunch of Fanta Orange. Fanta has a sexy new spiral bottle shape – an industry first apparently – a new logo, and a new recipe, which means it now has a third less sugar, hence me being challenged to create family recipes with fewer calories.

I have to say too that it actually tastes really good. I like it.  View Post

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Did you see my OUTRAGEOUS CONFESSION on Twitter the other day?

I’d been sent some Flip & Dip from Philadelphia – these cool, new, topped dippy cheese things – and they wanted to know whether or not I was a double dipper.

Philadelphia Flip & Dip

At first I wasn’t sure what they meant. How else are you meant to eat dip?! You dip in your carrot baton, or whatever it is, take a bite, dip it back in, take another bite… that’s how it works right??

Apparently not.

Apparently this WHOLE TIME – (39 years, although probably I didn’t eat a lot of dip as a baby) – I have been committing a hideous social faux pas which, unbeknownst to me, has probably been making my dip companions recoil in horror and disgust. According to research from Philadelphia, 60% of Brits consider double dipping a complete no-no. Luckily for me though, we’re all so horribly repressed that no one is likely to say anything, to my face at least – 62% of us would rather suppress feelings of discontent and suffer in silence or gossip with other guests about the double dipper in question.

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I had a bit of a cooking revelation recently.

FROZEN CHOPPED ONIONS!

Iceland Eat The Week ham hock risotto

Note to self: next time don’t use a white background for onions.

Have you ever used them?? I can’t believe I have gone for nearly FORTY YEARS and never cooked with a frozen onion! No more chopping, no more children asking ‘what’s wrong Mummy?’ in a worried voice while I sob quietly to myself over the chopping board. No wanting to make a pasta sauce only to find we have no onions, and NO WASTE.

I feel like this is a landmark in my culinary life. I’m not even exaggerating. If I could suggest one food hack that you take away from this post it’s to always have chopped onions in your freezer.

There’s quite a bit of snobbery around frozen food for some reason, but there are actually a lot of benefits to harnessing the power of frozen. Not only is it super handy, and often cheaper, but nutritionally it’s often better for you, as stuff is preserved naturally by freezing and doesn’t have to have lots of artificial preservatives added to it. (I also discovered that you can shop online with Iceland and the minimum order is only £25, which is handy to know.)

So all hail the frozen onion. View Post

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Advertorial in association with Quaker Oats

Following on from my Quaker Oats recipe for PB & J overnight oats, I’ve got a great giveaway for you today, so that you can create an aspirational breakfast to make your family proud! Read on to find out more…

There are plenty of moments that, as a parent, have not been my proudest.

For example, Belle seems completely unable to forget the one time I made her a tea that consisted simply of four burnt fish fingers. I can’t remember the context – I’m sure there was some – but of course, that will be the one thing she remembers forever and ever. Will she care that I have built myself an entire career around school hours, just so I can be there for her in the morning and after school?

No.

She will remember the fish fingers.

Very occasionally though, I have one of those amazing parenting moments, where I actually do something that the mums on Pinterest do. Like when I made those pink doughnut helium balloons, or the time I made these Pingu cupcakes for Bee’s birthday. (And by ‘made’ I mean ‘paid someone else to make’.)

#vegan Pingu #birthday #cupcakes 🐧🍰☺️❤️

A post shared by Bee ✨ (@teachezbee) on

That was a very proud day for me.

I had another of those aspirational parenting moments this week when I tried my hand at making some overnight oats using one of the new Quaker Oats MissPrint mason jars. I actually made PB & J overnight oats with a home made raspberry and chia seed jam, so bonus points to me. Skip back a few days and you’ll find the recipe post. View Post

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Advertorial in association with Quaker Oats

PB & J overnight oats recipe

I went through a stage last year of being totally overwhelmed by the amount of oats I had in the cupboard. I don’t know what went wrong with my shopping, but every time I’d go to look for something for dinner, all I could see was the Quaker Oat man smiling up at me. I swear I had about six different boxes at one point. It was bonkers.

Oats are brilliant of course. They are tasty, nutritious* and really versatile. You can’t get as far as I have down the parenting road without having made about 27,000 batches of flapjacks.

And then I really got into making granola and my oat problem was solved. I found a recipe in a book that made it look so easy I couldn’t believe I’d never done it before. Normally about half of the mixture makes it to the oven and the rest goes into my mouth in warm little squished up balls, but that’s okay, because breakfast IS the most important meal of the day.

Overnight oats are the next step up from making your own granola, (which is basically like making a giant flapjack and passing it off as breakfast). Overnight oats are what that mum at school that you want to be like makes for her family. They are the stuff that Instagram dreams are made of – those beautiful layers of colour and texture, all laid out on a wholesome looking wooden board, sprinkled with oats and toasted seeds.

If you make overnight oats you know that you have WON at life. View Post

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