Pinoy Hubby

Who remembers whoopie pies? They were all the rage five or six years ago; a friend gave me a whoopie pie baking tin and recipe book and I made  walnut whip and chocolate ones decorated to look like Christmas puddings. I loved the taste and texture, somewhere between cake and a soft cookie, so when I went down to see my family one weekend in August I decided to make some to take with me. I wanted to cater for a dad who doesn't eat chocolate and a husband who doesn't eat much cake unless it is chocolate - there are a few other things he likes so I quickly settled on toffee. There is a recipe in The Whoopie Pie Book by Claire Ptak for salty caramel whoopies; she suggests you serve it with her caramel Swiss buttercream, but that uses raw egg whites and my sister is pregnant. I actually had some salted caramel icing sugar from Sugar and Crumbs  so decided to use that. I got about 9 large whoopie pies out of the mixture - even when I try to make them smaller, they seem to tur...

While I was sorting out my craft cupboard I came across some sheets of A4 paper that I'd printed from a website with free printables, to be used as backing paper. I had several sheets left of different designs, and decided to use one with pink shoes and the words 'happy birthday' as the basis for a card. The shoes in the middle are small die cuts from a packet I bought containing shoes and handbags. I mounted these on a square of pink paper and used a silver 'happy birthday' outline sticker on another piece of pink paper. I think it looks quite nice, aside from the fact that the words aren't straight!

This recipe makes a nice side dish but is also something you could have as a main course. It's a Slimming World recipe that is syn free; it is quite starchy from the potatoes but not as bland as you might think, thanks to the addition of tomatoes, cheese, herbs and spices. You can find the recipe here. To serve 4, you need: for the base: 700g potatoes, peeled and grated pinch of salt 2 egg whites 1 onion, grated low-calorie cooking spray for the filling: 1 onion, chopped 3 garlic cloves chopped 800g cauliflower florets 150ml vegetable stock 1 tsp dried mixed herbs handful of parsley 120g Red Leicester, grated 200g cherry tomatoes, halved 2 eggs, beaten 1 tsp sweet smoked paprika   Preheat the oven to 200C. First, grate the potato using a cheese grater and squeeze out any excess moisture. Mix in the salt, egg white and grated onion. Use to line the bottom of a pie or casserole dish and spray with oil. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 mins, uncovered, then cover w...

I usually – by which I mean always, unless I’m meeting a friend or out really late the night before – bring my own lunch to work. I’ve taken to eating salads and like making my own as I can put in exactly what I want. But I’d heard colleagues at work raving about a new place they bought lunch that did the most amazing and filling salads, so one day I decided to go along with them.   Barraka describes itself as serving Mediterranean street food. ‘ Barraka ’ means ‘blessing’ in Moroccan and the owner wanted to carry on a family tradition of blessing people with ‘good energies and food’. It’s located down a little side street opposite Liverpool Street Station and doesn’t have much room inside – there are a few stand-up tables where you can stop and eat, but it gets quite busy at lunchtime and people are sometimes queuing out the door.       When I went, staff were offering tastes of different items on a platter so I tried a piece of chicken schnitzel and a piece of Med...

Sugar Free September was going pretty well - I'd lost almost 6 pounds - but then a friend who is a healthcare professional took a look at a food diary I'd done for her, and told me I wasn't eating enough. She said my body would only break down rather than store fat if it knew it was getting fuelled regularly - by skipping breakfast and going a long time between meals, my body would hang on to its fat reserves as it didn't know when the next meal was coming. I think she probably has a point so I trusted her when she told me to eat a healthy snack in the mornings and the afternoons, but she did warn that I would probably put on a little bit of weight first. So my 6 pound weight loss has diminished but hopefully will get back on track once my metabolism has been kick-started! Having said that I did fall off the sugar-free wagon a couple of times - but on the whole I have eaten much healthier than I would normally! Here's my meal plan for this week - the last week of Se...

  There’s something special about handmade gifts as you know that extra attention has gone into them – all the more so if it was handmade by the person giving the gift.   Several years ago I made a scrabble name picture for my now-husband’s brother and his family. I think it’s a lovely thing to have, and when it was my friend’s birthday this summer and I was struggling to think of a gift, I remembered this and thought she would like it. (Luckily, she did!)     I found it much easier to purchase a frame this time, that was both a better size and price; Hobbycraft had these white box frames for £8 – which are currently only £4 in the sale, in fact I think I might buy a few more.     I bought the scrabble letters from Amazon; they are not real scrabble pieces with the little legs on the back to fit into the holes on a scrabble board, but instead are flat, which makes them much easier to glue.       My friend and her husband are really into ...

The name of the South Place Chop House alone suggests that they know their meat - but also that it might be something of an old-fashioned, stuffy establishment. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Chop houses in Britain have been around for hundred of years and were places businessmen met to strike deals over hearty meals. The South Place Chop House is in a hotel in the heart of the City, and is probably frequented by bankers - at least, I work in a bank and I ate there! It was a smart crowd when I met a friend there one weeknight evening, and the wood and leather banquette seats did strike me as something aimed at an older, slightly stuffier clientele, The food is also what I'd call fairly traditional; starters include smoked salmon, steak tartare, prawn cocktail and onion and cider soup. We opted for a platter of cold cuts between us; it wasn't listed as a sharing starter and we asked the waiter how big it was. He said it would be a large starter for one person ...

Children and teenagers often like brand-name characters on birthday cards - not just Disney (though I think Frozen and Avengers birthday cards are very popular!) but other things like Forever Friends and the Me to You teddies. When I was younger, Purple Ronnie cards were all the rage, along with a family of hedgehogs that I can't remember the name of. I bought a pack of die-cut stickers showing Bang on the Door characters ages ago and wasn't particularly inspired with what to do with them, as they are pretty vibrant on their own. So I used them simply on a white card, with some silver heart and star die cuts from the same pack around them. The 'special birthday' is from a pack of outline stickers I've also had for a long time. Not my favourite card but it might go down well with a pre-teen girl!

My Tuscan Chianti Chicken Cacciatora There's something about the idea of spending a week in a villa in Tuscany that really appeals to me. The landscape looks beautiful, from rolling Italian countryside to the sandy beaches, the small medieval towns to the cities of Pisa and Florence, where I'd love to go sightseeing some day. Having a villa would mean getting away from it all - I imagine a rustic farmhouse overlooking vineyards, sitting at a big wooden table with my husband as we tear into fresh bread and let a bottle of Chianti breathe. I love the flavours from this region, from zingy lemons (and limoncello) to the earthy taste of truffles when they are grated over dishes. The red wines from this region are smooth yet spicy and Italian olive oil is renowned world wide. I also like the simplicity of food from Tuscany. Pasta might just be served with a little oil and butter - when freshly made pasta is that good, why disguise it with a sauce? The best Tuscan food is locally prod...

If you're doing Sugar-Free September or even just cutting out/back on sugar generally you might be missing sweet treats. To follow Sugar-Free September really strictly, you wouldn't even be eating fruit because of the natural sugars. I haven't had a lot of fruit this month but I have had some as I think it's important to get your five-a-day - mainly through veg but the occasional piece of fruit is good as well. But sometimes instead of fruit what you really want is chocolate. I've done really well so far but when we had a day out earlier this month and were taking a packed lunch, I knew my husband would want something sweet - I would normally bake something to take with us - and that I would want something as well. I ended up buying him something as a treat and made myself these sugar-free brownie bites from Nutritious Deliciousness.com. I already had all the ingredients at home - walnuts from Lidl I had bought to add to salads, dates that I bought for another recip...

  I recently took out subscriptions to three card making magazines – Papercraft Inspirations, Cardmaking and Papercrafts and Quick Cards Made Easy – there was a great offer to get three issues for £3, which I was going to take out with one magazine but got persuaded to take all three! Each magazine comes with some great free gifts – usually rubber stamps and backing papers or similar, which are probably worth £5-£8 alone – pretty good given the magazines are £5.99. So I’m getting 9 magazines for £9, over the course of three months – I just need to remember to cancel the subscriptions after that or it will get expensive! I liked one design in Papercraft Inspirations that I knew would be super-quick to make, largely because almost everything you needed came with the magazine. I covered a card blank with the patterned backing paper – which was very thin as it was actually a page in the magazine – and cut out the layered flower and star shape. The “You’re sew lovely” sentimen...

  Sugar-Free September is going pretty well; by the 15th (time of writing) I had lost 4 pounds. A friend who is a health professional has convinced me that I do need to eat breakfast and have a couple of small, healthy snacks each day to keep my metabolism working well - for the last few months I have been skipping breakfast and not snacking, so eating nothing most days apart from lunch and dinner, which she doesn't think is a good idea. She did say my meals were really good though!   Monday The Tex Mex chicken tacos I didn't do last week   Tuesday  Out for drinks after work   Wednesday  coconut fish curry from this recipe for me, chicken curry for him   Thursday chicken chargrills and mashed potato for him, with veg for me   Friday out at an awards ceremony where the magazine I produce is shortlisted   Saturday lunch : bacon rolls for him, sausage and poached egg for me dinner : at a friend's   Sunda...

    Having a photo booth at your wedding has become quite popular, and I can vouch for the fact that they are great fun! I got the idea from a friend's wedding as I thought a photo booth would be a fun thing for guest to do in the evening other than drink and dance. I'm not talking about when you get your passport photos done - these photo booths are creative, fun and personalised. You can choose your background and a style for the photos to be printed in, and they usually provide a whole host of props, hats and wigs and so on. Our guests had great fun piling into the booth in pairs and small groups throughout the evening! Some photo booth hire companies give you two copies of each photo - one for the guest and one to go in your wedding guest book. But I knew that sometimes groups of friends would go in who all wanted a photo so I searched until I found a company that would give you unlimited copies of photos so everyone could have one. I was also advised to make sure the...

I am a mad cat lady- I only have one cat, but she's the love of my life (along with my husband of course). I feel bad sometimes that I don't have more time to spoil her but she does seem to be quite happy. Not long ago I decided I would treat her to a home-cooked meal - and I don't mean giving her some leftover chicken off our plates (which does happen). I've actually got a little cookery book called Cat Treats - and it's all about cooking for your cat! Of course, anything a cat can eat, a human ought to be able to eat too - it just might not be the most palatable to our tastes. I posted a picture of this liver stew on Facebook and a friend commented that it just needed some bacon and onions and would be really good! (By the way if you didn't already know, onions and garlic can be toxic for cats.) I bought some liver in the supermarket when it was reduced to mere pence - I hate liver so put it in the freezer knowing it was always destined for the cat! To make 2-...