Stomach Pleasing Cookies!

There is nothing that aggrieves me more than being out of biscuits (or cookies, if you will), particularly on a holiday. Instead of having my usual tea and biscuits for breakfast, I have to revert to (gasp!) toast or cereal!
I know it sounds unhealthy but I have an agreement with my stomach: he won’t hurt, [...]

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Cocoa Pasta – Experimental Recipe No.1

Paul and I went Christmas shopping at the weekend to our local shopping “mall”. We figured it would be sensible to go early and avoid large crowds but we forgot that there’s one thing that malls attract at any time of the year and that’s large crowds.  No matter. We had lunch at Yo! Sushi, [...]

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Chocolate Brownie Cake

So I’m cooking lunch for my mum and, at 10.30am the same morning she asks me what we’re having:
Mum: “Meat?”
Me: “No.”
Mum: {pleading voice} “Not vegetarian?!”
Me: “No.”
Mum: “So…it must be fish?”
Me: “Yes, yes it’s fish”
Mum: “Oh. So have you made a big dessert then?”
Me: “No. Did you want dessert?”
Mum: “Well, fish isn’t very filling and if [...]

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Sweet Dreams Traditional Sweet Shop

It seems that the days of the corner shop are fading into obscurity. Supermarkets can supply the time-pushed shopper with everything, all under one roof.
However, is this a smart way to shop? The days of my childhood were mostly spent reading but I did look forward to a visit to the local sweet shop where [...]

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Chocolate Week Day 3 – The Brownie

Chocolate Brownies. Possibly the most perfect of all the ways to indulge in Theobroma Cacao. The chocolate hit in a well made brownie is so strong it can feel like you’ve just downed three double espressos in less than 10 seconds flat.
And there’s the non-prep side of things. It takes no time at all to [...]

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Chocolate Week Day 1 – The Cookie

Today marks the official start of Chocolate Week, an auspicious observation of all things chocolately. You may ask “why devote a whole week to chocolate”? I would quickly answer:  a week is not long enough to explore every facet of the world’s favourite confectionary. There a literally hundreds of brands of chocolate bars, some candy, [...]

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Snap, Crackle and Choc!

Isn’t it funny? When you’re a kid, you’ll eat any old chocolate based foodstuff. Cheap cooking chocolate, frozen chocolate gateaux that disappear like a whisp once defrosted, last years chocolate tree decorations this Christmas round…
I remember school dinners. The main courses were really very bad: minced beef in some greyish gravy, greasy chips, instant mashed [...]

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A Taste of Childhood

Whilst some foods are pertinent to the quirks of our own families, sometimes to the point that other people look at us as if to say “What a bunch of weirdos! Who has mayonnaise with gravy??” other foods are so deeply ingrained within the global culinary awakening of childhood that it is almost as if [...]

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