Posts Tagged ‘Recipe’
This week is groundbreaking as I’ve already performed two culinary experiments with a Cottage Pie and Pizza with alternative type of base – Whoopah!
Cottage Pie Recipe – secret ingredient
Believe it or not, this was the first time I’ve had a go at making Shepherds …ahem, COTTAGE Pie! As a non-liker of mash potato, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sceptical about the dish, but we went along with it anyway! To start with, yes it was remarkably easy to make – leaving me embarrassed this was my first attempt aged 27! Luckily, to get over my fear of ruining the entire dish with soggy topped mash potato, I used one of my Mother’s secret ingredients from when I was a child to leave us with a Cottage pie with a lovely golden crisp topping.
Once you’ve put your meat sauce into an oven dish and topped with mashed potato, take a bag of plain/ready salted crisps and bash them into smithereens whilst still in the packet. Then evenly sprinkle them on top of the mashed potato before putting in the oven. You can use any standard Cottage Pie Recipe for this, so find one from a trusted source and add this little gem at the end to make your Cottage Pie stand out from the crowd!
Low calorie pizza base alternative
We’ve all been there when you have no food and you’re scrounging around in the kitchen cupboards looking for anything you can find to make a decent meal out of! The other day we decided we had a good variety of scraps to whip together a pizza – minus the vital ingredient – a pizza base!
We had some Warburtons Brown Square(ish) Wraps in the cupboard and thought we’d give it a go and use them as a pizza base. I thought GREAT, they’re low in calories, however, will they buckle under the weight of the pizza toppings? It’s also possible using these wraps as a pizza base would re-introduce my fear of soggy/floppy food that I got from the Cottage Pie recipe!
Ever willing to give it a go, we layered our pizza toppings onto the wraps as we would normally with a regular pizza base, and then placed them onto a pre-heated pizza stone at 180c. 10-15 minutes later, we took the pizzas out and luckily they tasted sublime! I was most surprised at how sturdy the base became after cooking – comfortably supporting the weight of my pizza toppings. I’m pretty certain the pizza stone would have had something to do with it, and I’d recommend one to anyone cooking pizzas on regular or improvised bases – as they do a really good job at evenly cooking your pizza.
I guess the only question now is what am I going to find for dinner tomorrow (as appealing as a trip to the supermarket sounds)!
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.
A great food to make if you’re hosting an event or have guests coming around is Nachos – and you can check out my Nachos Recipe here. However, I’m the sort of person who likes to go the extra mile when it comes to making food for friends and family, so I thought I’d have a go at making homemade Guacamole and Salsa too – best thing of all, they take hardly any time to make and don’t need cooking.
Check out the recipes here:
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Serves 5 | Prep time: 10m Cooking time: 0m | 28 calories & 0.4g fat p/serving |
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Serves 500g | Prep time: 10m Cooking time: 0m | 40 calories & 3g fat p/serving |
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Serves 4 | Prep time: 5m Cooking time: 15m | 380 calories & 25g fat p/serving |
Enjoy!
So the New Year is upon us. I’m not sure about you, but I really don’t subscribe to going in ‘all guns blazing’ with new years resolutions at the beginning of January. I read a really good article that said you should try to commit to New Year’s intentions rather than resolutions – and I couldn’t agree more!
I still think January is a good time to begin making changes towards New Year’s resolution INTENTIONS, so as a start, I’ve decided to stay off the booze in January. It’s Sunday 6th and I’m still going strong!
As per usual, I indulged slightly too much over the Christmas period and could hear my body screaming out with relief when I went back to my previous (healthier) ways before the festive period. To catapult myself back into healthy eating, I started detoxing by making smoothies by the bucket load – and drinking a glass of Pomegranate juice daily – all for under a fiver (and that was from Waitrose too)!
Simply get yourself down the supermarket and buy the following:
For the detox
- Pomegranate juice
For the smoothies (5-6 days worth)
- Frozen summer fruits
- Frozen chopped mango
- x1 Pineapple
- Orange and Mango juice
To make the smoothie recipe, chop the Pineapple and stick into a big mixing bowl, then add the Mango and Summer fruits. Mix everything together, separate into 5-6 sandwich bags and store in the freezer.
Each morning, add the contents of one sandwich bag into a blender with some Orange and mango juice, blend, then pour into a glass and enjoy. And if you want to make it really cool and fresh, blend the fruit when it’s still partially frozen and add a few mint leaves.
Enjoy!
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!
So I’ve been looking at what recipes everyone is searching for on the internet at the moment, and I’d like to introduce to you my latest cooking video for a Guacamole Recipe.
There’s a couple of things I like about this – (1) no cooking required and (2) it contains all natural ingredients. Oh, and it (of course) tastes really, really good!
Guacamole is one of those dips where I’ve always thought they add loads of oil to it so I’ve always steered clear of it, however, there’s really no need, especially if you have a nice ripe avocado. Just add a little seasoning and you’ve got the perfect dip for the approach of the entertaining season.
Check out the cooking video below…
Up until now, I’ve been an advocate of buying frozen bags of white fish. At the end of the day, it’s healthy, it’s cheap, and works well in recipes like fish and chips. However, this weekend I decided to treat the other half to a slightly more luxurious Friday night dinner than usual!
I took a trip to the fish counter at my local supermarket where a bargain caught (I’m proud of that pun) my eye – 2 Sea Bream for £4, or if you’re American, $6.20! And how did I cook them, simply cut 3 slits into each side of the fish and stuff with sliced garlic and a slice of lemon.
Next step (and what better way to cook them), throw them on the BBQ (thanks Pops for the birthday present), for 6-7 minutes each side – that’s all, nothing fancy! And why nothing fancy? Well I couldn’t quite believe how much more flavour fresh/whole fish has in comparison to it’s frozen counterparts, coupled with the lovely charcoal flavour, these tasted absolutely sublime with hardly any effort.
I’d always been a little scared of cooking fresh fish (mainly because they’re looking at me saying “don’t cook me”), but it couldn’t be easier. So next time you’re in the supermarket, take a trip past the fish counter, pick up a Sea Bream and try grilling one of your own – you’ll love it.
I always struggled to make the perfect omelette. I think it’s because I always wanted to make them reasonably healthy, but as a student, a good quality non-stick pan was generally hard to come by. I’d then end up eating the omelette out of the frying pan because it got stuck!
In my opinion, with any omelette recipe, there are a few KEY things you must do:
- Use a good quality pan with the oil even spread out
- Thoroughly mix all the ingredients together in a bowl (before cooking) until the egg goes fluffy
- Heat the frying pan on a large hob and over a low heat (so the pan is evenly heated)
- Heat for a couple of minutes under the hob
Check out our Omelette Recipe video below to see how to make the perfect omelette (including my favourite ingredient – Chorizo).
The Diamond Jubilee is just around the corner. If you’re celebrating it and want to cook up some right royal English food, check out our series of Jubilee recipe videos for English Scones, Cupcakes and Chunky Sausage Rolls. Click on a video below to view.
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We were hoping to include more recipes in the series, however, due to an unfortunate slip of a very sharp knife, filming had to be cut short (excuse the pun)!
Enjoy!
Warren.
I’m not sure about you, but there are some food types that I’d simply not want to know what goes in them – sausages, burgers and chicken nuggets (to name a few). So I present to you my Chicken Nuggets Recipe which is really simple to prepare and cook.
The great thing about making them yourself, is that you can make the nuggets from chicken breasts and add all kinds of things to the breadcrumbs to add flavour (herbs and spices etc).
All you need is Chicken, Breadcrumbs, Egg and Flour (and you can see the full instructions for the Chicken Nuggets Recipe here).
And if you’re anything like me and like your food hot and spicy, add some Chilli Powder and Worcester Sauce to the breadcrumbs to give them a real kick.
Enjoy!
