Be Food Smart - Change4Life

Change4Life is a government initiative that helps families and individuals to eat healthier and keep fit.  Their latest leaflet publication helps us to “Be Food Smart”.

We all like food to be cheap, easy and tasty and so often reach for the ready-made foods, snacks and take-aways, but it’s often cheaper (not to mention tastier!) to make your own!

The five principles of the Change4Life Be Food Smart campaign are:

1. 5 a day – aim for a variety of 5 portions of fruit and vegetables per day.  Remember, they don’t all have to be fresh.  Frozen, juiced, dried or canned – they all count.
2. Sugar swaps – swap sugary drinks for no added sugar drinks like water or skimmed/1% fat milk.  Switch sweet snacks for fruit or unsalted popcorn.  And why not replace your sugary puddings with plain low-fat yoghurts and fruit?
3. Watch the salt – most us don’t realise that there’s hidden salt in every day products that don’t even taste salty – bread, cereals, pizza and some sauces.  So, go easy with ketchup, mayo and soy sauce and skip adding salt next time you tuck into a meal. 
4. Cut back on fat – we all know that too much fat is bad for us but often we don’t realise that fat is hidden in many of the foods we eat.  It’s easy to be food smart about fat; choose lower fat spreads, lower fat dairy products and leaner cuts of meat to make a good start! 
5.  Be calorie smart – calories are a clue to what you should be eating each day and area really handy for planning how much to eat and when.  Try to aim for 400 calories for breakfast, 600 for lunch and 600 for your evening meal.  That leaves a few calories for any healthy snacks.  And remember, we don’t all need to eat the same amounts.  Women don’t need as many calories as men and kids need even less – so get into the habit of “me-sized” meals!

Here’s the link to the Meal Mixer app from the Change4Life website.  So when you are stuck for inspiration, because it happens to everyone(!) - have a browse through their recipes and your creatuve cokoing juices will be flowing once again!

And lastly, there are many ways to be food smart all day.

Being food smart at breakfast means you’ll be less tempted to reach for a mid-morning snack:

• Pick cereals with no added sugar – you  can always sweeten it up with a bit of chopped fruit. 
•  Swap white toast for wholegrain toast to release energy throughout the morning to keep you on the go.

Perk up a packed lunch with these tips:

• It’s fun to dunk – cucumber, pepper and carrot sticks are delicious with a low fat dip. 
•  Low fat yoghurts always go down well – they’re a good source of calcium too.

For a quick and simple snack after school:

• Swap crisps for plain rice cakes dunked in low fat cream cheese. 
•  For a sweet tooth, forget the cakes and biscuits – fresh fruit is great for munching on the go.

For more meal ideas and food smart tips, search online for Change4Life.

Orange Loaf Cake with Twinings Cranberry & Sanguinello Orange Tea

Here's recipe for a quick and easy (and lovely tasting!) Orange Loaf Cake.

It's easily adapted by changing the tea flavour or juice that the syrup drizzle is made with.  It also can be made with lemons rather than orange to make a lemon drizzle cake.... yum yum!

To be seasonal, I used orange as stated in the original recipe and then used Twinings Cranberry and Sanguinello Orange Tea for the syrup drizzle.

Orange Loaf Cake - Serves 4

Ingredients
125g (4oz) soft margarine
175g (6oz) caster sugar
2 large eggs
175g (6oz) self-raising flour
4tbsp milk
The zest of 1 medium orange
4tbsp of freshly squeezed orange juice or freshly brewed fruit-flavoured tea
100g (3½oz) icing sugar

You will need a 1lb loaf tin, greased and lined with greaseproof paper.

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C (360F, Gas Mark 4) and prepare your loaf tin.
2. Cream together the margarine and sugar, either using a mixer or by hand, until it is pale and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs and beat them in well, then fold in the flour gently.
4. Add the orange zest and the milk, gently folding it into the mixture, using as light a hand as possible.
5. Spoon into the prepared loaf tin and pop into the pre-heated oven. Bake for 45 minutes until the cake is well-risen and golden.
6. Just before the cake is ready, measure 4tbsp of orange juice/tea into a small saucepan along with the icing sugar and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture has become syrupy.
7. As soon as the cake is out of the oven, puncture the top all over with a skewer or cake tester and carefully pour over the syrup. Try to go gently . . . if you try to do it too quickly, the syrup won’t be absorbed and most of it will end up running down the tin.
8. Leave to cool completely before turning out of the tin.

Now, you can simply slice and eat!  Or for a better presentation, slice the top from the loaf, turn over and drizzle glace or royal icing over the top in random stripes.  You can flavour this icing if required, but I like it just plain with the cake holding the flavour of the fruit.

I made this cake over the weekend for a charity car boot sale and, unfortunately, didn't get a picture before it was sold and eaten - my own fault!  So, I'm making it again on Wednesday for another event, so I'll add some pictures then!

Twinings make a fabulous range of teas - from fruity and fresh to seasonal Christmas teas (not trees!!).  Have a look at their website here and choose 2 free teas to sample at home... you really will be spoilt for choice!

Also at the moment, there's some great competitions running on their Facebook page, so pop over, have a look and say "hello"!  Off for some more tea.....!

Edit:  here's the cake from Wednesday's baking session!  Before it was even baked, it had been marked to be eaten by various people!  A quick trip to Luv It! to drop a couple of slices off to the lovely shop-keeper there, some to my father-in-law who missed out last time and the rest to a fundraiser tonight for our local Rainbow/Brownie/Guide group!

The Big Fair Bake 2012 - Fairtrade Awareness

Baking tastes better when you share, so the Big Fair Bake is the perfect excuse to get inspired put on your pinny and bake up a treat for others; not just the friends and family we share it with, but also the farming communities who grew the ingredients.

Fairtrade tea, coffee, bananas, sugar, chocolate, cotton.... to name a few products that we all use daily and by switching to Fairtrade we can all make a difference, one step at a time.

I have chosen a recipe (Chocolate Orange Muffins) from the Fairtrade website here, but also added my own twist... to devise and bake a recipe using only Fairtrade ingredients... sort of like a "Ready, Steady, Cook" for the Fairtrade industry.... the last part of the challenge is to share my culinary creations and delights and share the message of Fairtrade.

Even though I live in a small town with little choice for supermarkets, I'm lucky that the main supermarket is the Co-Operative... in 2000 they developed and launched their own label range of Fairtrade products.  The ethics behind their products is great and they stock over 250 Fairtrade products, each displaying the Fairtrade badge to make them easily recognisable.

So, the ingredients that I can choose from are.... tea, coffee, chocolate, bananas, honey, sugar, beansprouts(!), wine, blueberries, pineapple, mangoes, oranges, grapefruits and lemons..... I'm not sure where the beansprouts will come in however my son loves them in a quick stir-fry...not with fruit salad though!  But, the wine will definitely be for drinking, no questions there!!

I'm thinking along the lines of "Banana tea bread muffins", "Chocolate blueberry muffins" and "Tropical fruit salad".  These delights will be created over the next couple of days and shared with family and friends... I'll publish the recipes to share with you all too...no secrets here!

Why don't you have a go... a simple fruit salad can provide your 5 a day and help the farmers at the source of the industry.... and everyone loves cake - Fairtrade just makes it better!

Silent Sunday 8th July 2012

Discovery Mexican BBQ Fajita Recipe Kit Review

Thanks to the guys over at Discovery, we had the chance to sample the new Mexican BBQ Fajita kit.  The kit includes the spice mix, sour cream and plain flour tortilla wraps so the only ingredients you need to add are the chicken, peppers and onions.

When shopping, watch out for the new packaging on the shelf.... using 15% less cardboard than the older design is better for our planet!  My husband nearly popped to the shop to buy wraps as he didn't believe they were in the pack, but trust me they are!

The spice mix is a mild, family friendly one - I love food with a bit of a kick - this has a good flavour but not too hot for younger children to enjoy.  It was easy to make - no lengthy marinating time so a quick decision tea is possible!  Including preparation, it took about 25 minutes from start to finish - enough time for a quick read of the newspaper in peace whilst the children changed out of their school uniforms (and the potatoes steamed!).

We had the Mexican BBQ fajitas with a green side salad and home-grown baby new potatoes (the onions we used were home-grown too!).  Four clean plates shows that it was enjoyed by all 4 of us and was a great Friday evening meal! As the kit itself is vegetarian and vegan friendly, you can substitute the meat for more vegetables and/or lentils to make a great tasting vegetarian dish too.

This is great addition to the range and I look forward to the next new ideas coming up!

Pop over to the Discovery Facebook page and give them a wave... there you can keep up to date with new products and, of course, their Freebie Friday giveaways!

What time is dinner?

This question is probably asked in most homes every day - definitely in mine on a weekend as my son's tummy starts to rumble around midday!

However, that's not the question I'm actually asking... what I want to know is what time is it when you eat your meal known as dinner?  Still confused???

This question always divides comunities or groups, especially ones where there is an amalgamation of different family roots.

What do you call the meal you eat at midday?  And then what about the meal you eat in the evening?

In our house, we eat breakfast, dinner and tea.... and then supper before bed (if you have eaten all of your tea!).

Looking back in history to the 1700's and early 1800's, working families ate breakfast, dinner, tea and supper - so I'm right, or living in the dark ages!  It was only when lifestyles changed and in the Victorian era, afternoon tea at 3pm became popular with the explosion of tea rooms serving tea & scones.  High tea followed afternoon tea at about 6pm and then supper at about 9pm.  The morning meals were breakfast and then luncheon at midday.

Maybe the Victorian's had the right idea though... eating little and often is actually better for you than eating three large meals a day - with the working lives that we have in our culture now, this is more the norm.

Personally, I think the Spanish have the right idea - a siesta in the afternoon is much more tempting than an extra meal!

So, is there a North/South divide regarding the names of mealtimes?  Let me know below with the area you are from and see what we find out!  PS... there's always time for cake!