Pinoy Hubby

Ever since I went to the Diner in Spitalfields I've been daydreaming about their fries with crispy onion, bacon bits, cheese and burger sauce. I've never had anything like it - incredibly calorific but they tasted amazing. Often when you get cheesy chips in this country, they have had cheddar melted over them, and left to harden, so you end up with most of the chips plain, and a few with congealed cheese on them - not something I particularly like. At the Diner however the cheese stayed melted- it was more like a sauce. I was aware you could buy something called Cheez Whiz in America which is a sauce in a jar that you could use on chips if you wanted, but I didn't think you could get anything like that in the UK. Until I saw this Squeeze Cheese online - I think it was on Tesco's website but I can't find it there any more, though I think you have also been able to get it in Sainsbury's. You can heat the bottle in the microwave so you can squeeze it out, but it s...

I've always associated madeleines with Proust's 'A la recherché du temps perdu' (I studied French literature at university) but have never actually eaten let alone made them before Madeleines are a French cake made with a genoise batter, making them lighter than other cakes, and are baked in special shell-shaped moulds. I was offered a selection of products to review by Cake Mart , and spotted they had this madeleine tin which is a very pretty piece of equipment. Madeleines often have quite delicate flavours but I thought it would be interesting to see how they fared with a more robust flavour and a bit of a kick. I came across a recipe using cardamom and was sure I had some ground cardamom in my cupboard but couldn't locate it - and when I came across the ginger I decided that might work instead! I based it on a recipe from Martha Stewart but changed the flavour and left off the glaze as I was in a hurry - I made these in the morning when I was driving down to Ham...

This week I'm trying to use up stuff from the freezer so I don't have to buy too much fresh stuff, as we are going on holiday soon! Monday Lunch: pasta Dinner: sandwich before cake decorating course Tuesday: Lunch: salad Dinner: spaghetti bolognese Wednesday: my birthday! Lunch: out with work colleagues Dinner: out with my boyfriend Thursday Lunch: salad Dinner: pork casserole with veg for me, sausage and mash for him Friday - working from home Lunch: salad Dinner: burger and chips for him, salmon burger and homemade chips for me Saturday Lunch: bacon sandwich/sausage sandwich Dinner: may go to my boyfriend's mum's to see her before we go on holiday; she often likes to cook stir-fry Sunday Lunch: fry up with leftover bacon and hash browns for him and something a bit less calorific for me Dinner: TBA, maybe some sort of chicken tray bake

Since starting to post restaurant reviews on my blog I’ve made a real effort not to visit the same place twice – unless it was somewhere I really loved. The same applies to airports – when I was in my 20s I would take a sandwich to eat before a flight but these days having a meal at the airport is part of the holiday. It’s just a shame that food there is so expensive and in some cases not that good .    When we went to Vienna a few months ago we wanted to get breakfast at the airport, and since for a change we were flying from Heathrow’s Terminal 2, there was only one place I wanted to go: Heston Blumenthal’s Perfectionists’ Café . I’ve never eaten in any of Heston’s establishments – while the idea of the Fat Duck is appealing, I’ve checked the menu and there is almost nothing on it I would eat and considering how much it costs, that means I won’t be going there! But his Perfectionists’ Café at Heathrow doesn’t have a fancy tasting menu and instead serves fish and chips, burge...

These are based on the salted caramel brownies that Alexa Chung made on the recent Comic Relief Great British Bake Off. I made them for my boyfriend's birthday as I wanted him to have something nice in his lunchbox at work; they also made for a quick dessert that evening at home (we had his family over for dinner). And they tasted amazing! I followed the recipe which is here , though as I was short of time I used a tin of Carnation Caramel as the filling, which worked perfectly. I also added a little condensed milk to the brownie mixture as I had a tin open from another recipe and thought it might be nice! Brownie mixture coming together After preheating the oven, I spread half the brownie mixture into a greased pan and spread the caramel on top.     Then cover with the rest of the brownie mixture so there are no gaps. Bake in the oven When it has cooled, drizzle with melted white chocolate You can see here the caramel in the middle - it tasted amazing! Plenty for my boyfriend...

Now that the weather is getting nicer our thoughts are turning to al fresco eating. Whether it's a picnic in the park with your friends, high tea at the garden table with the family or even just taking your packed lunch outside the office to eat on a bench, you are going to need recipes which are easy to throw together in a hurry, can be packed up and eaten cold - preferably without the need for cutlery! These asparagus and red pepper 'muffins' are low calorie and fat free; they aren't muffins in the usual sense as there is no cake - instead the filling is made from egg. The recipe comes from Slimming World so it is great for anyone following a heathy eating plan. The colours are really vibrant which is another reason I like this recipe. To make a dozen, you need: Spray oil such as Fry Light 200g asparagus tips 1 jar roasted red peppers in brine, drained and chopped 6 eggs 2 cloves garlic, crushed small handful fresh chopped herbs eg tarragon, parsley salt, pepper Prehe...

Opinions on the Giraffe restaurant chain seem to be divided – the fact that it is usually full of families with children seems to put a lot of people off – but I really like it. So one day when I was travelling to London’s King’s Cross station for a morning meeting, and arrived so early I decided I had time to get breakfast (having skipped it at home as I was in a rush to leave) I was pleased when I spied a Giraffe Kiosk. This is the chain’s “grab and go” service, and so far they only have one, at King’s Cross. It is takeaway but importantly there are a few tables outside and some stools along the window inside, which means if you do have a little more time – or want to eat something that’s difficult to eat with one hand while walking along – this is perfect. At the same time it’s quicker than going into a café. The kiosk offers continental breakfast favourites like croissants, plus porridge, muesli pots, breakfast burritos (as well as a lot of lunch choices like wraps, salads and sand...

This is a perfect cake for someone going on maternity leave or who has just had a baby – a deliciously light, zingy lemon cake decorated with a teddy bear and a bow.   I made this for the lovely lady I sit next to at work for her last day before maternity leave. I’ve made a couple of cakes for baby showers before and didn’t want to do exactly the same thing again, but it’s hard to think of something completely different (and I flatly refuse to make one of those baby bump cakes where the cake is the woman’s stomach!). Luckily I had been on a half-day cake decorating course not long before, where we had made a fondant teddy and a bow. I made them in lilac, a gender neutral colour, which was good because my colleague doesn’t know whether she will be having a boy or girl.   I had found out by a not-particularly-subtle line of questioning a few weeks before that her favourite flavour cake was lemon so that’s what I decided to make. I wasn’t overly impressed with some of the lemon ...

Last weekend's Grand Prix took place in Bahrain which was a hard one for many of us in food terms. The idea of the challenge is to make something from or inspired by the host country of each Formula 1 race and I'd never eaten let alone made anything from Bahrain before. So it was funny that of the three entries I had this month, two of us made the same dish! Suelle at Mainly Baking made this Middle Eastern date cake, which uses rose water, cardamom, saffron and sesame seeds to give a moist and fragrant cake. I made chicken machboos , which is a type of curry using a blend of Arabic spices - which naturally I didn't have so I mixed my own. I didn't follow the recipe exactly, as I never cook rice from scratch, but it turned out pretty well! Jane at Onions and Paper also made chicken machboos and commented on the length of the recipe and list of ingredients; she didn't take as many shortcuts as I did and I have to say I think her dish looks a lot better than mine! Th...