How we used to eat...

There was an article on the BBC News website yesterday about "forgotten foods" that people would like to revive, that got quite a few people talking on Twitter. 

There was quite a lot of food on there that even just the mere thought of could turn my stomach - cows udders, beef tea and brawn are all things I'm quite happy to leave in the past. Other mentions surprised me - things like gypsy tart and damson jam - I have to say I'm only 32 and hadn't realised these had gone away, they certainly haven't in my house!

It got me thinking about food of my childhood that I never eat now for whatever reason. Maybe because it's not available now or more likely that my tastes have become a little bit too sophisticated to be dining on butterscotch Angel Delight after my tea each night.

My parents are people with simple tastes, you're not likely to get a pizza, pasta dish, Chinese or Indian style meal at their house. They're strictly meat and vegetable people. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a limiting thing and my memory of dinners as a child are things like sausage and mash, pie and potatoes and the worst? Faggots, potatoes and cabbage.

I hated and still hate faggots. My mum hates faggots. Why oh why would you force these on your children?! I haven't eaten a faggot since about 1991 and yet I can still remember the taste vividly even though I used to smother them in liberally in tomato ketchup. (A trick my son has learned from me to disguise food he'd rather not eat).

When my mum got a microwave in the late 80's, I was finally treated to a pizza. Yes, a microwavable pizza. I'm pretty sure until I was about 15 I thought that pizza had to be tasteless and soggy to be authentic.  Microwave burgers in buns and squidgy jacket potatoes followed. It's safe to say there is no microwave in my kitchen but one resides out in the garage for emergency popcorn making...

Tinned spaghetti, Findus Crispy Pancakes and cheese sandwiches (those plastic orange slices) were often as exciting as it got. Is it weird I don't ever remember having a ham sandwich?!  We always had vegetables but frozen of course and pudding (only on a Sunday) was always tinned fruit, normally fruit cocktail with evaporated milk. Perhaps the food of my childhood has made me the way I am - more adventurous with food and cooking. I mean, I hadn't eaten a prawn until I was 22. TWENTY-TWO. 

I don't really blame my parents, it was the height of convenience food and cooking wasn't necessarily the pleasurable hobby and task it is for many of us these days. And then there's cost. I have no idea about how much things cost in the 1980's but both my parents were in low-paid shift work for the NHS. They didn't have a lot of spare cash and they didn't have a lot of spare time, nor the inclination I guess as they still are simple cooks and eaters.

When I read that back it's really quite shocking, especially as I am such a big food-lover and try so hard to be creative and adventurous with our dinners. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I remember, I'm sure my parents would say otherwise if I asked them! Lets hope my own children can look back on their childhood eating a little more favourable than I can!

Peach, Prosciutto and Feta Salad

Clearly this was always going to be something that was a little out of Mr M's comfort zone but it was definitely something that sounded delicious to me so I have had this bookmarked for a while and when Mr M said he was off out for a curry last week, I decided it was to give it a go.

The original recipe was pulled out of a magazine and used goats cheese but I decided that I liked the idea of feta more. This was a taste sensation, the dressing was delicious and everything just meshed together really well. The mix of textures an flavours make it a really interesting salad.  I was pleasantly surprised and think this will be an absolutely perfect meal to eat out in the garden in the summer. It's so quick because there's no cooking to do, just assembling and a bit of whisking of the dressing.

I enjoyed this with a slab of fresh crusty white bread and a nice cold glass of Chardonnay. The amounts here would probably serve 2 people as a light lunch or supper.

Peach, Prosciutto and Feta Salad

Ingredients

4 peaches (ripe)

2 large handfuls of rocket

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tsp Dijon mustard

pinch of salt

freshly ground black pepper

150g feta

4 slices prosciutto

Method

Halve, stone and cut the peaches into wedges. Combine the peaches and rocket in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard and a little salt and pepper.  Pour three-quarters of the dressing over the salad and toss together gently.

Divide the salad between your serving plates and top each plate with crumbled or cubed feta and two slices of prosciutto (torn up, if you wish).

Drizzle the salad with the remaining dressing and season to taste.

As you can see, I like feta and prosciutto. A lot. So I probably used more than I have described here. It's not an exact science though is it? So adjust the quantities to suit your own tastes.

If you try it, I'd love to hear what you thought!

Camping Capers - What's essential?

One of my more questionable ideas this year was to take the children camping.  Camping reminds me of my own childhood - a wet and windy week in Wales, yet  somehow I still look back on it with great nostalgia, so much so that I am determined my children should experience camping for themselves and it goes without saying, there needs to be at least one torrential rain shower so they get to know that pitter-patter sound of raindrops on canvas.

Mr M and I have been camping many times over the years, so we've got a fair bit of camping paraphernalia but we've not yet tried it with our children and I fear this is a whole different ballgame. I can't say Mr M was over-enthused at the prospect of forking out on a family-sized tent when I first broached the idea of camping, but when the very kind people at Vango sent me a tent to review for them, he couldn't refuse and is now positively excited about our forthcoming trip.

The new tent is a beauty and I'm giddy about having such a lovely spacious tent for our holiday (there will be a full review and post-holiday breakdown - in more ways than one no doubt - after we've been on our trip in a few months time). The children are as excited as excited can be about camping. Sure, take them to Disneyworld and they can muster a smile, but camping? The thought of camping has them jumping up and down on the spot. We've promised torches, new raincoats, backpacks, BBQ's and copious amounts of Top Trumps tournaments.

After literally weeks of scouting for a campsite that put a big tick in all our boxes I finally found what I was looking for and booked a lovely looking site in North Devon so we're all sorted with tent and location. I dragged Mr M to two large camping stores at the weekend (have to say, he didn't take much dragging) where we longingly stroked camp kitchens and fridges, lanterns and tables with adjustable legs, and I had a realisation. MR M! WE'RE GOING TO NEED A BIGGER BOAT ROOFBOX!

Oh dear. I think I've actually gone camping crazy. I need to list (of course I do) and  prioritise what we need to buy. It definitely involves the matching windbreak to go with our tent (I'm such a sucker!) and will involve some sort of kitchen/washstand type contraption but I need your help...

Seasoned campers! What essentials do you need for camping with children? 

Meal Planning Monday (12th March 2012)

Morning all!

What a gorgeous weekend, hope you all enjoyed the sunshine. Back to the grind today and I'm feeling lazy this week so have planned a low maintenance meal plan and even allowed for the failure that I know will occur. I'm just not feeling like I have the energy this week to be too ambitious but I think we're all allowed a week off every now and again, so I make no apologies!

Jacket potatoes, salad & garlic chicken

Thai prawn curry

Pizza (of the frozen variety)

Green chilli

Told you it was low maintenance. Not in the slightest bit inspirational either so lets hope that some of the other entrants are feeling a bit more adventurous this week.

As ever, the Linky is below. Just write a blog post and link to it below, I'll check them all out and if you use the #mealplanningmonday hashtag on Twitter, I'll try and RT as many as I can too.

Can't wait to see what you've all come up with this week.

Listography - Top 5 Cookbooks

After taking part in Kate Takes 5 Listography the other week for the first time (it was the mug extravaganza, I couldn't resist...) I have again been lured in by this weeks topic of Top 5 Cookbooks. I mean, a cookbook queen like me, how could I resist?! The challenge really was to limit my choices to only five books, something I knew I'd find hard for two reasons. The first being that my collection of cookbook now numbers around 270 (that looks so bad written down) and secondly I find it hard to stick to the rules, as my mug post shows.

Anyhow, I've had a think and this is what I have come up as my Top 5 Cookbooks. I've based it on the books I use the most. One of them is a Christmas one but I love it, so it makes the cut.

Ha! In your face. I stuck at FIVE.

Right now I'm off to check out the rest of the entries and hope that reading people's blog posts do not make me want to start shopping on Amazon. If they do, I shall hold Kate responsible.

Do join in if you love cookbooks as much as me, and if you've got any of the ones I've mentioned above, let me know what you think of them!

The Slendertone Challenge - A few weeks later...

Following on from last months blog post where I told you all about the Slendertone Challenge I was undertaking, I realise I've been a bit slack in updating you of my progress. And no, before you get excited, there's still no photographic evidence of my wobbly gut (made all the wobblier by tonight's Apple Crumble eating).

I have to say, it's going well. I haven't been as good as I should have and have probably only been managing 3 times a week but after I have used it I can feel that the muscles have been worked which is a good sign! I've had a few moments of complete frustration where I've been convinced that it's not working properly because I couldn't feel it pulsating on one side. This was clearly down to me positioning the pads incorrectly as when I touched the little silver bits with my bare fingers, I knew about it. (Ouch!) Lets just say it was most definitely working. 

I find using the Slendertone quite relaxing although in a way it does remind me of childbirth due to it being quite a similar sensation to the TENS machine I used during labour. I've managed to ramp it up quite far in the intensity stakes which I was quite proud of. I found the higher the intensity, the more productive I felt. I had hoped to progress to using whilst on the Crosstrainer but I haven't got that far yet.

Can I see the results? I don't know really. I can feel it working as my muscles feel more tense the day after but in all honesty, I'm not sure I'll see a visible difference in my abs until I can find my abs under the winter flab so this is what I am trying to work towards right now. I definitely think it will come into its own once I've lost a few lbs as I know that underneath all of this blubber is a six-pack waiting to burst out and show itself to the world a set of very sorry looking abs.

I'm going to keep going with the Slendertone Premium Abs as I do believe that it's going some good! Will report back soon...

Dotcomgiftshop & Mothers Day

Recently I was contacted by Dotcomgiftshop asking if I'd like to review a product from their Mothers Day range in the run up to the big day. I've been a fan of Dotcomgiftshop for years and many an item currently adorns my house - for starters these and this. In the interests of being awkward I didn't pick from the range and instead gave them some pointers and left them to pick for me. What can I say? I like surprises!

When the parcel arrived I was pleasantly surprised by these scales.

It was like they had been stalking me. How else would they know that a) I don't already own any counter-top scales and b) that red goes perfectly in my kitchen and matches nicely with my red stand mixer? Scary stuff. Needless to say, I love the scales and used them for the first time this week when making my chocolate lime drizzle loaf. It was extremely handy to have them sitting there on my worktop and I'm sure that they'll see a lot of use. They're a lovely addition to my kitchen and a very nice present for Mothers Day. They also sent me some lovely cookie cutters, again, how they know that I collect these, is anyone's guess. The cutters are presented so nicely, it was almost a shame to open the packet. Good choices!

The Mothers Day range includes lots of lovely things that I'd be more than happy to receive. Some of my favourites include,

This egg house. I totally should have asked them to send me this because I love it and my little ladies eggs would go so well in there. It holds 12 eggs and costs £29.99. Perfect for a mum who loves her chooks, or even just her eggs!

So pretty, and an absolute bargain of a gift, the labelling set for jams and preserves. It's only £3.95 and would make a lovely gift for anyone who likes making their own jams and chutneys. I'm thinking I'll be buying this for myself very soon!

If I didn't already have 10,000 cake tins, I'd definitely want these in my life, but as it is, I'm overrun. Doesn't stop me lusting over them though. I'm a cake-tin addict! This three tier green and cream cake tin is £34.95.

Anything there catch your eye? Do check out Dotcomgiftshop, not just for Mothers Day, but for all your present needs - there is such a wide range of gifts and all very reasonably priced!