Category: Cooking

Day 42: Homemade Pesto

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Rob and I love to cook and, mostly, we manage to cook meals from scratch. Our boys can be fussy eaters but one meal they both love is pesto pasta: whole wheat fusilli with a dollop of pesto – until recently, we bought it as it was easier and we believed it was pretty healthy.

I read an article by Which? that changed my mind about shop-bought pesto. Reviewing standard pesto from seven supermarkets, they found all had added ingredients to bulk it out – among these were bamboo fibre, water, sugar and potato flakes. They often replaced traditional ingredients with cheaper alternatives: sunflower oil for olive oil; cashew nuts for pine nuts.

Reading this motivated me to find out how I could make my own pesto. I found a few recipes which I tweaked until I had a version I was happy with.

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Day 14: Clandestine Cake Club

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I’ve been a member of the Clandestine Cake Club for a couple of years, but I’ve never been brave enough to go along to a meet. My image was of a group of super-talented bakers who would snort with laughter at my super-amateur attempt. But when I heard that Lauren – who I’d met at The High Tea Club – was running the Ely group, I decided to be brave. On Day 14 of #100DaysNoTV, I (nervously) took a cake that I had baked to share with others.

so, what is the clandestine cake club?

The brainchild of Lynn Hill, the Clandestine Cake Club (CCC) began in Leeds in December 2010 with its purpose to have a place for cake lovers to meet and chat over tea and cake. “Bake, Eat and Talk about Cake” is their mission statement. What’s not to like?

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Day 13: Date Night in Bali

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It’s not easy to find original gifts, so I was over the moon to discover The Spicery when looking for something special for Rob. Their spicebox subscription is absolutely perfect: it plays to his love of trying new cuisines and his ever-growing passion for cooking. It also gave us the perfect excuse to spend a few hours cooking together in the kitchen; this is something we love to do, but often need a reason to find the time! On Day 13 of #100DaysNoTV we had a ‘Date Night in Bali’.

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Day 6: Thai Cuisine – Pad Thai

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On Day 6 of #100DaysNoTV we decided to cook Thai food as this month Thailand celebrates the new year festival of Songkran. The celebrations for Songkran (also called the Water Festival) take place over three days: day one is traditionally a time to clean and wash your house, day two is all about food, and day three (new year’s day) is when many Thai people visit their temples and bathe the statue of Buddha.

My experience of Thai food is limited to Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey and a handful of restaurant meals. Whenever I’ve seen someone cooking Thai food on television I’ve been moved by the vibrant colours, the imagined aromas and the freshness of the ingredients, and it’s long been something I’ve wanted to try for myself. So, with the festival of Songkran being so close to my birthday we decided it was a great time to try some Thai cooking.

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Day 1: Turkish Flatbreads

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For Day 1 of #100DaysNoTV we chose an activity that we could do together with our boys. We’re a bread loving family and the boys adore putting on their aprons and getting involved in the kitchen.

Flatbreads in their simplest, unleavened, form have been a food staple for at least 10,000 years. Techniques gradually grew more sophisticated and it’s believed that the Egyptians were the first people to understand how to incorporate yeast, around 5,000 years ago. Bread was incredibly important to ancient civilisations. It was often used as currency and even accompanied the dead as grave goods for the afterlife.

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