Pinoy Hubby

I'm terrible when it comes to marinating meat - I buy the ingredients, mix the marinade - and then usually realise that the recipes says refrigerate overnight, and I wanted to have it for dinner this evening. Also, you sometimes need quite bespoke ingredients for a marinade which means you then have half-used bottles lurking at the back of your cupboard for months if not years. For both those reasons I really like the idea of these Schwartz Grill Mates. They have 23 different options from marinades to oils to glazes, and some are as quick as brushing on to your meat 15 minutes before the end of cooking. What could be simpler? I was sent a selection of the sachets, which retail at £1.40; they are enough for the whole family (I marinated two whole packs of chicken thighs for a barbecue and there was plenty in the packet) but you just throw the empty packet away at the end and can try something different next time. Obviously that does work out more expensive in the long run but it is

When I was a child, Saturday lunch was always a version of a fry-up or beans on toast (macaroni cheese on toast for me as I don’t like baked beans) – accompanied by red sauce, or brown sauce. We never called it ketchup, and I can’t even remember the proper name of brown sauce (HP sauce?) – it was always red sauce, brown sauce. Well, now there’s a new one: purple sauce.   Created by Premier Inn with the help of a chef called Ed Baines, Purple Sauce is designed to go with the traditional English cooked breakfast, served at Premier Inns . It has a blackberry base, with other ingredients including crushed chillies, toasted cumin, smoked salt and cider vinegar. It has no artificial colours, flavourings or additives, which is always good to know.     They sent me a bottle to try out – luckily my parents were visiting and I was planning a full English breakfast (it’s not something my boyfriend and I often have, as I’m not keen on most elements – I’d rather just have a sausage sandwich!). I ma

Z is quite a fun letter for Alphabakes. It’s not as difficult as it first looks and you can be really creative with zebra and even zombies coming into the mix last time. If you take Z to stand for zest, you can make any recipe using lemon, orange, lime – you get the idea.   Our first entry this month was this novel take on Eton mess with chocolate and orange, from Dom at Belleau Kitchen. As well as orange zest it uses marmalade and Dom says the sharpness of those flavours cuts beautifully through the sweet chocolate meringue and chocolate cream. It definitely looks good enough to eat!       Ages and ages ago I made a zebra cake but hadn’t gotten around to blogging it. It was actually from a packet cake mix (for shame!) which I wanted to try as it was from America and the Duff Goldman brand (him off Ace of Cakes). The cake was tooth-achingly sweet but this is a useful blog post to explain the technique behind how to make a zebra cake. Plus, it looks cool!     My mum Jacqueline made he

The Belgian Grand Prix gave me a great excuse to make a Belgian chocolate cake! Actually I was going to make it anyway and realised afterwards I could enter it into Formula 1 Foods - it was a practice run for making a wedding cake! I'd never made a 12 inch cake before so had no idea how long it would take in the oven so wanted a run through, and that weekend was pretty much the only one I had free before the wedding of Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker, who is getting married in only a short number of weeks! I'm glad I made it when I did as I will now have even less free time.... as I have to start wedding planning myself. I got engaged last weekend! So here's the chocolate wedding cake I made - you're not going to see it in all it's glory as I don't want anyone to see how it is going to be decorated yet! Suelle from Mainly Baking made these Belgian-inspired chocolate, peanut and biscuit spread cookie bars which I'm getting hungry just thinking about

A few years ago a friend went to a summer event at the company he worked for at the time where a manager announced the barbecue was ready, allegedly saying: "There are burgers in bread rolls, sausages in bread rolls, and for the vegetarians: bread rolls." I'm sure he was joking but when I invited a vegan friend to a barbecue at my house recently I did have a moment of "aargh, what can I cook?". So I thought I'd share with you some top tips for hosting a vegan barbecue - vegetarian recipes often seem to include halloumi as it barbecues really well, but that's not much good for vegans. Firstly, burgers and sausages . Some vegans don't like the texture of meat but for those who do, it's not fair for them to miss out. There are loads of veggie burgers and bangers (sausages) available, but not all of them are vegan. First of all Quorn - my go-to veggie choice which is great for meat-eaters too as it's low in fat - is not actually vegan as it conta

It's not often I look at a cookery book and think 'that's genius'. I mean sure, I'm impressed by people who have been able to start a whole new cookery craze or style of eating like Deliciously Ella, but for me to actually flick through the book and smile at each and every recipe is quite unusual. This week I was sent a recipe book called Bake In Black - Music Inspired Baking. Eve and David O'Sullivan are a food writer and musician who decided to combine their two loves, taking a song or album by a band they love and creating a recipe inspired by it. It's not just a play on words on the title (though the name of the book itself references Amy Winehouse) but they soak up what the music is about and infuse that into the food. That results in recipes including: Sex Pistols: God save the cream (angel cake with minted whipped cream, strawberries and blueberries) Guns 'n' Roses: Sweet tooth o'mine (three-tier honey, molasses and maple cake with cream c

Inviting a vegan friend for sushi may not seem the most sensible idea but it just goes to show that no type of cuisine is totally closed off to someone who doesn’t eat animal products. I was offered a £30 voucher to try YouMeSushi , a delivery chain with five branches around London (soon to be six). They have been around since 2008 as a sushi takeaway and now deliver as well. We were at my friend’s flat not far from their Gray’s Inn Road branch so we ordered from there. It did involve explaining to three different people about my voucher but this isn’t something that would be an issue for regular orders. The menu online is divided into different sections by types of sushi eg nigiri (oval shaped rice with a topping), maki roll (roll of rice wrapped in seaweed with a filling) and so on. There was just so much that I didn’t know what to choose, but luckily YouMeSushi is prepared for that and can make life easier by offering selection boxes and platters, from the low-fat ‘detox box’ (£7.9

Having a baby shower is really an American thing but like many US exports, the idea is becoming more and more popular over here. I’ve only been to one before, which was actually combined with the mum-to-be’s birthday; she received a selection of birthday presents which were mainly things she needed for the baby.   Then my friend P said she would like to have a small baby shower and we decided to make it the theme of a barbecue I was hosting at my house. I’m going to share with you some ideas for decorations, recipes and games if you want to host a baby shower yourself.   For three reasons: because it was summer; since P didn’t know if she was having a boy or a girl; and because I bought some cute strawberry-print tableware from Tiger , I decided to give the baby shower a strawberry theme. There’s also a connection between fruit and the idea of ‘be fruitful and multiply’ I suppose! So you could choose any theme of course, but if you wanted something along the same lines, any fruit would