Pinoy Hubby

London City airport is a funny place. I just read that it only carries 1.5% of all UK airport passengers – the Green party wants to close it down and build housing on the site.   But you can get from my office to the airport in about half an hour on a good day – making it ultra-convenient for the busy business exec. In fact, opponents to the Greens’ plan speak of the importance of good flight links into London to the UK economy.   The proximity to central London means the airport is restricted to running only certain types of planes; there also isn’t that much space. That’s both a good thing – if you are in a hurry, you don’t have to cross a massive terminal – but also means that there are a lot of people in a very small space, and at peak times it does feel quite overcrowded.   I flew from City to Edinburgh late last year and was going after work so I’d be there for an early start the next day; as I knew I wouldn’t be given anything to eat on the plane, and I arrived at ...

I've been trying to use my Spiralizer once a week as my wedding is now only just over four and a half months away (!) but as I started following Dietplan.co.uk this week I'd forgotten I also needed to factor in a spiralized meal - I also forgot to include my Meat Free Monday! If you have any Spiralizer recipes please add them to the linky below - I will do a roundup of the recipes that were sent in this month further down. So as it's Spiralizer Saturday I found a recipe from Inspiralized to have for my lunch today. They are quite similar to something I ate a lot in Germany when I lived there nearly 20 years ago - potato cakes or Kartoffelpuffer . I had a go at making these and blogging about it a couple of years ago. That was pre-Spiralizer so the potato was grated; it works very well with a Spiralizer. This recipe has the addition of apple and cheese, which is quite nice. To make two large potato cakes: Spiralize one large potato and fry the noodles in a pan for about ten...

  Inspired by the meal I had at the Coin Laundry and making a real effort to do Meat Free Mondays (and make them a bit more interesting than just pasta and pesto) I decided to make my own roasted cauliflower steak. It was very straightforward so I’m not going to bother writing a whole recipe, but if this is a dish that you’ve never come across before then you might find it a nice change.   Take a cauliflower and slice through the middle to cut in half. If you want you can try slicing it into three to make flatter ‘steaks’, but my cauliflower was quite small and I didn’t think this was going to work.   Line a roasting pan with foil, and either rub the cauliflower with olive oil or spray with Fry Light if you are being really healthy. You can add any herbs and spices you like – sumac (commonly used in Middle Eastern cooking, available in supermarkets) works really well with cauliflower, as does coriander and cumin. A light sprinkling of salt also helps bring out the flavou...

    This recipe is also known as Drunken Chicken; either way it looks fairly undignified for the poor chook!   It's also more of a concept than a recipe - a way to cook roast chicken that makes it really moist and tender and gives it a hint of flavour from the drink - though don't worry, you don't end up with a chicken that tastes of beer! I used a can of ginger ale rather than beer - which had Jim Beam honey in it - giving a lovely gingery, slightly sweet flavour. In fact while I haven't tried it with beer (as per the recipe I found) I think this way is a lot better!    Your chicken will take the same amount of time as normal to roast so check the packet - usually about 20 mins per 500g plus an extra 20 mins but don't take my word for that. Preheat the oven and make sure there aren't any giblets inside the chicken cavity.   Open your beer can or ginger ale can and drink or pour out a little so the can is about 3/4 full. Rather unceremoniously up-end the ch...

I got the Sizzix Big Shot Plus machine for Christmas – which I imagine a good proportion of you have never heard of. It’s a die cutting machine – still none the wiser? OK, I like to do papercrafts, in particular card making (when I can find the time which isn’t often). As well as using items like stickers, ribbons and so on, you can cut out your own shapes or buy ready made pieces of card – known as die cuts. For a while now I’ve been buying packs of die cuts on Ebay, generally sold by people who have die cutting machines. I thought it would be nice to be able to cut out my own dies – it will only become more cost efficient when I’ve done an awful lot but I couldn’t particularly think of anything else I wanted for Christmas so it seemed a good a gift as any! The way the machines work is quite straight forward – you put in the metal die (like a template) and some card and it cuts out the shape for you. You can get two types of machines – manual and electronic. The manual ones require y...

Every year, my friend Jules organises a big Christmas pub lunch – this year was the 7 th in a row and while we once started as predominantly single people drinking all day (and evening), now people come with their husbands and wives and children in tow. It can’t be easy to find a venue that can fit a table for 20 – with people dropping in throughout the day as well – and every year I’m impressed at how well Jules has done, even down to the fact that she puts Christmas crackers on the tables. Last year we went to the Easton , in London’s Clerkenwell. The pub is about a ten minute walk from Farringdon and just around the corner from Exmouth Market but it’s very tucked away down a side street – at the end of a row of houses and even as I was walking down the street I wasn’t sure I was in the right place until I spotted the sign at the end! The Easton describes itself as ‘an independently owned gastropub’ where ‘our menu evolves with the seasons’, using locally sourced products where avai...

I've gotten fed up with struggling to lose weight and am increasingly busy with working, commuting, trying to run the house and now wedding planning as well, so I've signed up to a new diet website called Diet Plan . It gives you a daily menu of breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, but unlike some other weekly diet plans, there is the option to switch out meals if you don't like them for alternatives. I decided that since I barely have time to do anything - last weekend planning meals for 2 weeks plus doing the online grocery shop took me 3 hours - then following a ready made plan might be easier! I will sometimes switch out meals if I have leftovers or ingredients to use up, as this plan sometimes asks me to buy fresh ingredients then only use half of them which isn't good, but other than that I will do my best to stick to it. Breakfasts every day will depend on time - either porridge or yogurt or poached eggs. Monday Lunch – cheese salad sandwich on brown bread with f...

In honour of Burns Night on January 25 I decided to make a Scottish recipe and came across this one for Arbroath toasties. Arbroath is a place in Scotland that is known for its smoked haddock and this recipe is basically haddock and cheese on toast. It's easy to make, a good source of omega 3 and tastes really good. I used a recipe from a website called Rampant Scotland . I simply heated the fish in a pan of milk, added flour to thicken it and then added cheese and egg yolk. I'm not entirely sure why the recipe calls for the egg white to be whisked separately but I did that as well, and spread the mixture on toast and put it under the grill. Eat and enjoy! I'm sending this to the Food Year Linkup, hosted by Charlottes Lively Kitchen.

This week my spiralized meal was based on a recipe from the Inspiralized cookery book by Ali Maffucci, which is a brilliant book (and website) if you are just getting started with a spiralizer. It was called Prawn Daikon Pho, a daikon being a type of radish, sometimes known as a winter radish or an Oriental radish. I'd never heard of it, let alone seen one in the supermarket, but I did remember seeing something called a mooli that was also from the radish family. From internet research I've decided that daikon and mooli are either the same thing or at least closely related! If you have any spiralizer recipes you want to share, please add them to the linky at the bottom of this post! I don't really like radishes as I find them too peppery so was a bit dubious about whether I would like mooli (and let's just say I'm not exactly known for liking new vegetables) - but I loved it! That may have had something to do with the sauce in this stir-fry but I am keen to try the ...

January is a time when a lot of people make resolutions to lose weight, or eat better, or just be more healthy in general. It's not just about dieting though - it's about living a more healthy lifestyle. Dr. Caroline Puschendorf of Flourish Wellness ( www.flourishwellness.co.uk ) also practises mindfulness - appreciating being in the 'now' - and has found this to have a positive effect on wellbeing. I came across Flourish Wellness as Dr Puschendorf lives in the same village as a good friend of mine, and she shared a box of mince pies with me that Dr P had made. They were gluten free, egg free, dairy free and soy free using a recipe she has developed herself; she sold them to friends and at farmers' markets and now intends to make other gluten free and dairy free bakes and chocolates; you can get in touch via her site if you are interested. I asked my fiancé for his opinion on the mince pies as he is more of a connoisseur than me! He said they were quite nice - and w...

  When I was on holiday in Nashville in September – which is a brilliant place to visit, especially if you’re a fan of the Nashville TV series like I am – I came across something called a Goo Goo Cluster. These are candy bars – though they are actually round – made of chocolate, caramel, peanuts and marshmallow nougat. But what’s more, they are of great historical significance – the Goo Goo was invented in 1912 and was the first time more than one element had been combined in a candy bar.   They were created in Nashville and the city is proud of the association – there’s a dedicated Goo Goo shop in the town centre, and when I bought the celebration package at the Grand Ole Opry for my future mother-in-law, the bag contained a Goo Goo Cluster.   So when I saw the letter this month for Alphabakes (the blog challenge I co-host with Ros) was G, I thought Goo Goo Clusters would be fun to make. And then I saw a recipe for a Goo Goo Cluster Cake…   No comments please abou...