Posts Tagged ‘FitBrits’
This weekend was one of the first opportunities of 2013 that many Brits took to getting out in the garden and lighting the BBQ. Although it’s nice to have seasons in England, the wet and cold ones don’t half drag on, but this weekend was a scorcher and I certainly got my moneys worth!
Firstly, you can’t beat a cooked breakfast on the BBQ – that includes Sausage, Egg, Bacon, Tomato and Toast. Egg you say? Simply stick a frying pan on the grill of the BBQ and cook the egg from there. Then throw your Sausages, halved Beef Tomatoes, Toast and Bacon onto the grill and leave them to cook and soak up that lovely charcoal flavour. If you’ve yet to try toast on the BBQ, try it this weekend and I promise you it won’t be the last time!
Next, the standard! Mates round for Burgers, Sausages, Chicken etc with cool crisp cider. Stack the BBQ with enough fuel to see you through, whip up the potato salad and enjoy the outdoor entertainment. I’m sure most of us have had the experience of putting something on the BBQ followed by a flurry of flames from beneath – cremating your food in an instant – if so, it’s usually because the food is high in fat. I like to have a little bit more control when it comes to burgers and sausages because sometimes you really don’t know what goes into them! So if you’re firing up the BBQ any time soon, be sure to check out my BBQ Burgers Recipe. Then you can put in exactly what you want with no hidden nasty’s!
Finally, to finish off the Bank Holiday weekend, we decided to do a quick stir-fry with Salmon Fillets. In my opinion, the smoky flavour from a BBQ enhances the taste of most things, but nothing more so than with fish. Grilled for about 5 minutes either side, we enjoyed the incredible flavour of freshly grilled salmon fillets on a bed of quickly fried vegetables.
If you’re new to BBQing, check out my ‘How to BBQ’ article that I wrote a while back. It’s full of tips on setting up your BBQ, prepping and marinating your food and finally cooking it all. One thing I would say – you can’t beat the flavour of solid burned fuels such as charcoal or wood, so if you have a gas BBQ, give it a go with solid fuel. If you don’t want to splash out on a new BBQ, use an old kitchen sink – a little tip I learned from my Granddad who’s still BBQing into his old age (something this waistline can also confirm)!
I have a line-up of BBQ recipes coming for 2013, so be sure to stay tuned to my YouTube Channel to be the first to see the cooking videos.
I’ve been making cooking videos for a couple of years now, and I thought it was about time I made a video about who I am, where I’m from and what I do. After all, you gotta trust the person doing the cooking, so here’s me introducing myself…
Transcript
Hi, I’m Warren and I love cooking, so I thought it was about time I did a quick reflection about who I am and how far I’ve come since I started creating cooking videos on YouTube.
When I was at uni, I was so used to convenience food that when I left and first learned how to make a Bolognese from scratch, I was like “oh my God, you can make things like this not from the jar”! And from then on, I was converted. Ever since, the kitchen is where I spend most of my time because it’s in there I feed myself, which means my belly is full, and then I’m happy! So it was then my journey began all the way from my kitchen in Nottingham, England.
Luckily and to my knowledge, I managed to remove all evidence of my first ever cooking video. I wanted to do a cook-a-long video and I think I took the term a little too literally! Seriously, who wants to watch someone slicing onions for 10 minutes!?!? But since then, I just kept going – recording more videos from my kitchen and learning from each one I did.
Then, in November 2011, I was lucky enough to be the only UK winner of the YouTube Nextchef competition – which was great! I got to meet loads of other foodies to help improve my cooking videos and also got a few new snazzy bits of kit as well – and I finally got to ditch the Handycam and builders lights – well, eBay them!
Since then, I’ve seen my beloved followers increase at a rate I could only have imagined, and been truly grateful to you all for following my journey and allowing me to make cooking videos for you all. And what’s great about that? I get to hear all your comments – good and bad, and I take every single thing on board that my fans tell me – rule number one – always do a rehearsal first!
And in case you didn’t know, I’ve recently teamed up with and become a proud Tastemade partner. Allowing me to collaborate with Foodies across the globe so even more people can see my cooking videos.
It goes without saying I couldn’t have got this far without the support of my beloved followers and subscribers. It’s you who’ve kept me going and provided messages of support, or given me a kick up the arse when I needed one! So thank you for following my channel and here’s to many more years of culinary videos from me.
So that’s me! I’m Warren and I make cooking videos from my Nottinghamshire kitchen in England. Subscribe to me on YouTube, follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook! Whichever you choose, I look forward to making cooking videos for you all in the years to come.
Well, what a year it’s been! I’ve been making cooking videos on YouTube since 2009 and the past year has been (by far) my busiest. Whilst I’ve uploaded over 25 cooking videos, there’s plenty more to do – so I’ll shortly be uploading a new cooking video every week direct from my kitchen in Nottingham.
Thanks to you all!
All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the support of a number of people throughout the year. I was lucky enough to be the only UK winner of the YouTube Next Chef competition who provided great support with some top class mentors this year. Hopefully you can see how my cooking videos have come along from when I first started out on YouTube (cringe)!
What’s more, we got an extra 850 subscribers on YouTube through 2012 which means we’ve now broken the 1000 mark – huzaahh! More and more of you are signing up to my monthly email newsletter as well – so thank you to everyone who’s following me and stay tuned for more great cooking videos in 2013.
Joining Tastemade
In October I joined the Tastemade food network who will help me further to reach out to like-minded foodies looking for simple recipes to cook, along with 100’s of other creators around the globe that I can collaborate with.
And with special thanks too…
This update couldn’t go without a mention of my mentor from The Hive. Phil’s been great to throw ideas at and been there when I need him to help keep me on track with, well, everything! We met up for breakfast last month and had a few cracking ideas that I’ll be making a reality this year, so look out and you may see some exciting new things on FitBrits.com
My good friend Ross has also been a great help with his never-ending knowledge of all things ‘photography’. He’s certainly taught me a thing or two over the past year and taken some great food shots when we’ve been recording.
And one last person to thank, my lovely other half, Trish! Through 2012 she kindly adopted the role of camera woman and even let me use her snazzy new kitchen which you can see in some of my cooking videos. Who knows, maybe one day soon she wouldn’t mind featuring in an up-coming cooking video (as long as we’re cooking with wine)!
Going forward…
So for 2013, keep watching and expect to see plenty more simple cooking videos from an avid foodie from the UK.
Thanks again to everyone for supporting me – You’re amazing!
Gee’s, it feels like ages since I last posted (to be honest, it has actually!) but things have been busy in the camp since getting all my assignments from the YouTube Next Chef people.
My latest assignment was to produce a video asking people to leave a comment on what Christmas party themed recipe they’d like to see next. So I made the video and thought nothing of it and somehow it went viral and I was getting 30,000 hits a night!
…Great I thought, however, it’s just a shame that hardly any of the comments were related to the food! See the comments for yourself here!
Hey, publicity is better than no publicity at all right!?
Cheers for now. Warren.
Mighty sorry about the disappearing act! But hopefully you’ve had chance to see we’ve been quiet busy in the mean time.
FitBrits.com has a fresh new look to compliment its wonderful visitors (that’s you by the way)! And we’ve FINALLY got a great search tool on the site to make it even easier to find great recipes to cook from scratch.
The site wouldn’t be what it is without the brilliant photography of Mr Ross Swift of Nottingham, you can see some of his great photos here
So take a look around and let us know what you think at hello@fitbrits.org
Check out our latest cook-a-long podcast here – Chicken wrapped in Parma Ham
The FitBrits website is undergoing a revamp and you can preview it here
Feel free to comment on any suggestions you may have. Hopefully you will agree that its a big improvement.
