Pinoy Hubby

Lemon meringue pie is delicious but normally quite high in sugar. Anyone wanting a low-sugar version of a lemon meringue pie should take a look at this Slimming World recipe . It uses ready-made shortcrust pastry, so it isn’t entirely diet-friendly, but uses sweetener in place of sugar and doesn’t use any butter in the filling – it uses gelatine instead, which is much lower in calorie.   I already had some pastry in the freezer I needed to use up and my husband likes lemon meringue pie (he usually doesn’t like any of the desserts I want to make!) so when I came across this recipe in an old copy of Slimming World magazine it seemed like a great idea. Unfortunately I never get on with using my grill – it’s above eye-level and really hard to keep an eye on it – and I burned the top a bit!   Other than that it was fairly easy to make, especially if you are using ready-made pastry, though you do have to allow the filling to set overnight in the fridge. I couldn’t find my baking bea...

If you're ever in Devon I highly recommend a trip to Dartmoor Zoo. It's world famous as the subject of the book and movie We Bought a Zoo - you're unlikely to see Matt Damon or Scarlett Johansson wandering around, but the movie was actually filmed here (even though they changed the story to set it in America). The book, which I haven't read, is the true story of how Benjamin Mee bought the zoo - and what I like about the film is that Mee and his children appear as zoo visitors at the end. I went to Dartmoor Zoo over the August bank holiday as I was visiting a friend who lived nearby. I went with my friend, her husband and their fantastic two-year-old daughter and another friend, and had a great time watching falconry displays, singing happy birthday to a lion and watching her unwrap a present, petting goats and enjoying seeing all the other animals. Living in Greater London I'm used to zoos being expensive - London Zoo costs £24.25 for an adult entry, whereas Dartm...

Looking through my craft stash I found some large foam flowers and stems which I don't use very often; they are quite difficult to get a professional finish with as they do seem more suited to children's crafts. But I remembered I had a bag of buttons and decided to make a flower shape using buttons. The topper says 'to a special dad' and was from a pack I bought on Ebay, while the background to the card is a piece of backing paper from a male themed set that has various words ranging from 'football' to 'couch potato' - luckily quite small so you can't really see them!

This recipe, from Xante Milton (aka Cookie Girl)'s Eat Me, is called Chocolate Chunk Tray Bake - but to me it was more like a cookie dough so I have added that in to the title of the blog post. I made this during the summer when we were going out for the day and wanted to take a picnic lunch; I wanted to quickly make something sweet that would travel well and thought of a tray bake or cookies, and when I came across this recipe, realised it covered both. What I didn't realise, as the recipe in the book is fairly sparsely written with no pictures or photos, is just how good this is! It was like eating thick squares of cookie that were still slightly gooey in the middle - absolutely delicious! I also discovered they make a really good cookie ice cream sandwich, if you sandwich ice cream into the middle! To make 16, you need: 320g plain flour 1 tsp bicarb of soda 1 tsp salt 110g unsalted butter, at room temperature 170g granulated sugar 125g soft brown sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract ...

I have to say, I'm glad that Sugar Free September is over. I did really well to start with and cut out sugar entirely - even hidden sugars in things like bread, and I stopped eating potatoes as the gluten turns to sugar in your body. But it took a lot of forward planning, a lot of organisation, a lot of meals where I ate spiralized vegetables and watched my husband tucking into a plate of chips or even a pizza and also a lot of guilt when I did fall off the wagon. Towards the end of the month I ate a lot of things I shouldn't; I wasn't that bad (I didn't go and buy a Mars bar from the vending machine at work, if that's what you're thinking) but I did start eating white bread, and potatoes, and a couple of homemade chocolate brownies I made for a friend when we went to visit. Well, we can't all be perfect! My weight loss has been up and down - I had lost almost 6 pounds, two thirds of the way through the month, but a health professional friend told me I wasn...

Have you ever been to  a Harvester ?   I remember that slogan from the TV adverts years ago – I think their USP even then was the fact that you got a free unlimited salad with your meal, which they explained to you if you didn’t already know – hence asking if you had been there before.   I recently went to visit my family near my sister’s house in Eastleigh and we went for a meal at the Ham Farm Harvester . My sister actually used to work in that exact restaurant, behind the bar, when she was at university; she said it had changed a lot since then - it did look very modern.     We were seated just in front of the main entrance so it was a bit cold every time someone opened the door to come in – not the best place for a table, to be honest – but it did mean we were near the salad bar and drinks machine. You get free refills on soft drinks and fill up your own cup with whatever you like; similarly, you take a plate and help yourself to whatever you want from the s...

 I made a version of this recipe when I had a lesson at the London Barbecue School courtesy of Branston ; we used thin steaks rather than beef brisket as they were quicker to cook, and they had been pre-marinaded.   I liked it so much I decided to make the full version of this recipe at home, which you can find on the Branston website here.   To serve 4, you need:   500g beef brisket Bottle of dark beer – I actually used Liefmans Fruit Beer for a lovely fruity taste 1 tbsp honey 1 head of garlic, cut in half 100g Danish blue cheese, crumbled 150ml buttermilk 1 tbsp cider vinegar (I used white wine vinegar) 1 tsp garlic powder (available in the spice section of supermarkets) Pinch of pepper ½ head of Savoy cabbage, core removed, and thinly sliced – I don’t like cabbage generally so used mooli instead ½ red onion, thinly sliced 1 carrot, peeled and grated 4 large flour tortillas (I actually served mine on the little gem leaves as I was avoiding carbs) Branston Smoky...