http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/rss/rss.xml Kitchen Monkey News en Thu, 03 May 2007 23:00:00 +0000 Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:14:05 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Eazytiger RSS Generator v1.0 info@kitchenmonkey.co.uk action@eazytiger.net http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/55 Every sporting angle covered in a week ! I was fascinated to read that this week over 3 million senior students have volunteered to assist in primary schools up and down the UK this week from 30th June to the 4th July 2008 in order to bring sports day to millions of primary school children. The slogan worn by these students volunteering is most apt reading ‘1 in 3 million’ across their back and I believe that this is a splendid example of some of the fantastic good some of the youth of today are doing which we very rarely hear about let alone gets printed in our daily papers. This is all part of National School Sports week and without these 3 million youths, our younger primary aged children’s would not be enjoying the tradition of many ages before us all, known as the great ‘British school sports day’. However gone are the days of the sack race and egg and spoon race, some still manage to have the 3 legged race and the mums and dads races, well it wouldn’t be sports day without the parents races, now, would it? Although some of the ethics of the sports day have changed, as now the children no longer compete on a competitive level, with the emphasise being on taking part and team work. Parents are being told not to encourage competitiveness in the races and you can get expelled for shouting on the side lines at a primary school sports day now. I am not sure personally if this is a good or bad thing, as it’s great to encourage team work, but does this prepare our younger children for the competitive sports say of teenage school years in rugby, hockey and football? Competition never did me any harm at school and I truly believe that a good sportsperson takes the loses with the wins, on the chin, to show good sportsmanship! Something our footballers of today do not set a very good example of . Send me your views to info@kitchenmonkey.co.uk Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/55 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/54 Credit crunch Bar-b-q ! The aroma of freshly lit bar-b-q’s fills the air as we all head outside to eat alfresco. Trying to find something to feed some hungry guests but still have time to mingle the bar-b always manages to suit as long as the weather plays its part. For a quick and simple bar-b-q idea try our favourite (that is besides kitchenmonkey’s fantastic finger food selections ideal for any party) Sardines in a peppercorn crust: 8 large sardines, 1 teaspoon of peppercorns, a small bunch of fresh dill, 1 clove of garlic, 2 lemons, salt, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 8 small springs of rosemary and crisp little gem lettuces and watercress to serve. If your sardines are unprepared you will need to cut along the belly with kitchen scissors’ and take out the insides. Rinse the fish inside and out and gently rub off the scales with your fingers. Then dry the sardines on kitchen paper. Crush the peppercorns with a pestle & mortar (or a rolling pin), rinse, dry and chop the dill, peel and crush the garlic and place all of these in a dish, then finely grate one of the lemons into the dish aswell after washing any wax from the skin of the lemon. Add some salt and the olive oil to the bowl and mix. Now rinse the rosemary and place a spring inside each of the sardine’s then coat each sardine both sides in the mixture and leave them to marinade for about 10minutes. Then tread each sardine length ways on to a skewer and grill for 3 minutes on your bar-b-q. To serve with a wedge of lemon and lettuce and watercress spooning over any leftover mixture over the sardines and enjoy. Dessert has to be Honeyed Fruit Kebabs: 1 firm Williams pear, 1 slightly under-ripe banana, 2 fresh pineapple rings, 8 large but firm strawberries, 1 small star fruit, cream to serve, 1 lime, 2 tablespoons of runny honey and 2 tablespoons of hazelnut or walnut oil. Finely grate the lime rind into a large bowl, squeeze the lime juice and add to the dish along with the honey and nut oil, mix together. Prepare your fruit, rinse, dry, core and quarter the pear then slice again, peel the banana and cut into big slices halve the pineapple rings, rinse, and hull and dry the strawberries, rinse and dry the star fruit cutting off each end and cut into 4 thick slices adding them to the marinade you have just prepared. Put this on one side. Thread the fruit onto 4 skewers so the fruit lines flat, place on the bar-b-q and brush with marinade and grill for 3 minutes brush again with marinade and grill for a further 2 minutes turn and repeat until the fruit is golden brown and serve them with cream of course. So sit back with your favourite tipple and enjoy! Send me your recipes to info@kitchenmonkey.co.uk Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/54 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/53 Jamtastic for afternoon Tea! With the onset of summer and abit of sunshine and we all head out for a day trip and find one of those marvellous little tea rooms for a traditional cream tea. I have many a memory of some fabulous tea houses sitting in the sunshine with a full china service being brought to the table with clotted cream, scones and fresh strawberry jam and twinning’s earl grey tea in a china tea pot. Well to share this with you it made me think about jams and preserves so here is my recipe ( a old family one handed down I might add) for the perfect strawberry jam to accompany your homemade scones for afternoon tea. Jam is made by boiling fruit, sugar and lemon juice until it forms a gel which sets on cooling. In order for the gel to form all jam recipes require: Pectin- this is found in the cell walls of fruit and the amount present depends on the type of fruit being used and the age or freshness of that fruit Sugar Lemon Juice Make sure always as my grandma would say to use good quality fruit which is just ripe (or slightly under ripe) this is when the fruit has its highest pectin levels. Simply place 3 cups of fruit to 1 cup of preserving sugar and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice in a saucepan, heating gently while the sugar melts then increase the heat and boil for approximately 5 minutes. You can then simply spoon this into sterilised jars which you will need to seal we uses layers of greaseproof paper tied over the jar then cool and store in your fridge. It will keep for several weeks like this if it lasts that long mine never gets past 1 week in my house. Remember to label your jams and date them. Also if you bake a batch of home baked scones you can actually freeze these for up to 6 months in a container so you always have some ready for visitors calling. Send me you tea time memories or recipes to info@kitchenmonkey.co.uk Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/53 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/52 Berry Nice! Here come the berries June is here and over this month and next we overload on those luscious berries be them red or black. What am I talking about well strawberries, raspberries, black currants and red currants. Together these make some fantastic mouth watering desserts of which some are my favourite including summer crumbles & cobblers and of course the signature dish of the Summer Pudding. These desserts along with the numerous varieties of cheesecakes & pavlova's you can make with these fabulous fruits. It’s that combination of tart fruit which makes you draw breath with those full ripe sweet flavours which make these desserts special in our British summer times. So get yourself off to your local PYO (pick your own) or farm shop for the pick of the summer berries and don’t forget to make your own jams while the fruits are in abundance, even better if you have grown your own. Although the black birds in my garden have taken a great fancy this year to my strawberries along with the hedgehogs, that I now daily have to beat them both to the ripening fruit else they are all gone. Just one word of warning though, local PYO’s have got together to catch nibbling picker’s out who eat more than they pay for, like the recent lady in the newspaper who turned up at the paying station covered in juice with just 4 strawberries in her punnet to pay for claiming she had not eaten any and they found a bowl , spoon, sugar and cream carton in her bag. I think the saying caught red handed literally comes to mind! Check out my next blog for a fabulous jam recipe or send me yours to info@kitchenmonkey.co.uk Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/52 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/51 Seaside Car Boot is crammed! Well the weather was scorching the summer had arrived and we were on our way to sunny Brighton for Baby Expo 2008 show as kitchenmonkey hit the road. Fully laden the car was packed and I did think at one stage that I might have to place Edward on the roof rack. I am sure many of you have had that feeling when packing the car. I am sure you know some one who even if you are going for just one night or a weekend they have to bring their entire wardrobe with them. Yes, you know who you are, don’t you?. Like ‘sex in the city’ star Sarah Jessica Parker, there you are ready to be picked up for your adventure along with several designer cases. The funny part is the car is already full with just enough room for one more bag, and yes, you have to unpack and try again to squeeze everything in the boot of the car. I remember saying to my daughter, ‘why don’t you bring a friend with you’, a few weeks before we were going away for a short break in the lake district. Well Anna, we remember a long weekend 4 days and 4 nights one of which we were travelling and you managed to pack 4 whole cases. It must of been like watching a scene from Laurel and Hardy, as we unpacked the boot of the car to try to fit everything in and then had to squeeze some bags in the car between the kids on the bag seat ,as you refused to leave anything behind. We laugh about it now and how you tried to wear everything you had brought with you in 4 days, which was even funnier. I should of known then that you would grow up to be in the fashion industry really. Send me your snippets from your travels to info@kitchenmonkey.co.uk Remember to register for our newsletter to be in with a chance to win a great hamper of dishes for all of the family and of course to be aware of all the great special offers etc we have on. Don’t miss out. Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/51 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/50 Out and About!!! All the team have been out and about of late attending various events, shows and exhibitions. After having a fantastic response at the NEC baby show lately we went on to attend the finale of the Heart FM Lifestyle competition on Saturday 7th June 08. This was a fantastic competition to win a FREE lifestyle for a year where the winner actually got a house for a year, beauty treatments, gym memberships, various evenings out and food from kitchenmonkey etc a complete lifestyle package. What a prize to give away as most of us are experiencing the credit crunch. It was great to watch the 20 winners and their families all draw a door key and then walk up to the front door of the house and try the door. Until the winner Stacey from Ashby-de-la-zouch placed her key in the lock and it opened the door. Well done Stacey. We have had some fantastic and very shocked winners of our own competitions with our congratulations going out to: Sharon Newton, Emilly Hutchinson, Gemma Briggs, Jo Bryan Well done to you all from all of our team. Remember to register for our newsletter to be in with a chance to win a great hamper of dishes for all of the family and of course to be aware of all the great special offers etc we have on. Don’t miss out. Tue, 27 May 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/50 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/49 Chips away!!! Having a discussion with my old friend Claire (she would hate it if she heard me say that) we were talking about chips. How children have a love for the long skinny French frie and how the chip varies from this slither of a chip to a chunky thick chip served in restaurants and all of our differing preferences. Claire was saying how she can never get her chips just right, when I started telling Claire about varieties of potato and how some potatoes are better for certain menu jobs like chips or even mashing than others. Certain foods are suited to certain cooking methods than others, such as if I gently steamed or simmered some vegetables for a short period this would mean my vegetables retain their nutrition, colour and crispness. When we heat food it undergoes certain changes in flavour, structure and appearance. These changes occur due to chemical reactions which happen inside of the food as we heat it up at varying temperatures, and so different cooking methods which use different temperatures, create different reactions and results to our food. For example if you boil food then the food would never get above the boiling point of water at 100 degrees. However if I introduce oil and start deep frying at 160 degrees (oil boils at 154 degrees), or if I cook over a flame or in a oven above 154 degrees these cooking methods would cause a chemical reaction which in turn would actually start to brown the food, (this process is known as Maillard reaction). So you have to know the reaction to the food when using a certain cooking method and environment you are cooking in, to enable you to determine the results you require from your food. With proper chips which would be fried using a deep fat fryer (and I hear halve of you gasp with horror). You should use a Maris Piper or King Edward potato as these brands of potato are very starchy, which means they will hold their texture together bette; where as a waxy potato whose texture retains alot more water such as a Desire brand of potato would result in a soggy chip. Chefs are actually taught at college to cut a chip to 2 inch by ½ inch by ½ inch, which would actually soak up less oil than if you cut one of these chips this size in halve which increases the surface area and although this thinner chip would give you a crispier chip, the bigger original size chip would be less oilier. Potatoes should be cut to the appropriate size and then washed and dried before frying in a fryer at 160 degrees. The bubbling you actually see in the fryer is the water evaporating from the potato. This would soften the chip, but for a crispier chip you would need to fry at 180 degrees. You can actually produce your own precooked chips, (just cook at 160 degrees until soft or limp, cool them down and dry them before freezing them), you would then return them to a fryer at 180 degrees to cook when required. Have a play and let me know what your favourite chip is. Send in your tip and we can add them to our book which we are collecting for to raise funds for our charity ‘Tommy’s the baby charity’, email me on jacqui@kitchenmonkey.co.uk with your favourite and I’ll post my findings later. Wed, 21 May 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/49 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/48 Birmingham’s NEC opened its doors this weekend for ‘The Baby Show’; little did its organisers know that double birthday celebrations would unfold at the show itself. Midlands fine food company ‘kitchenmonkey.co.uk’, kick started the celebrations by blowing out a candle on their birthday cake to celebrate being one year old, followed by midlands company ‘mumsclub.co.uk’ who were also celebrating one year of trading. However the parties really started when, both companies who were sharing a stand at 'the baby show' realised that both company MD’s also shared the same birthday’s too. So champagne flowed as a total of not one but four birthdays were celebrated altogether and both mums Jacqui & Jane rocked the floors of the NEC’s baby show on Saturday 17th May 2008. Jacqueline Bailey, head of marketing for ‘kitchenmonkey.co.uk, who has been working with ‘mumsclub.co.uk’ since December 2007 to help promote mums in business, said, ‘I couldn’t believe the coincidence‘s we shared. I was delighted when Jane asked me to help on the mumsclub.co.uk stand to promote both mums in businesses and our own respective businesses. It seemed a coincidence when we both realised that we were both celebrating one year of trading, but then when we further realised that Jane Hopkins, mumtreprenuer founder of mumsclub.co.uk and Jake Karia, owner of kitchenmonkey.co.uk actually shared the same birthday too, well that was amazing! We decided then after all of our hard work it was time to really celebrate. It’s marvellous to find another business such as mumsclub.co.uk with such ethics and standards as our own. We are both working to provide a superb service and promote mums in business and make mum’s lives in the UK that little bit easier’. Jane Hopkins, founder of mumsclub.co.uk agreed ‘I was shocked by the coincidences too, neither of us had realised the shared birthday’s, when I asked Jacqui from kitchenmonkey.co.uk, who is an active member of mumsclub.co.uk, to attend the Baby Show on my stand to help promote mums in business this weekend. The show was a huge success. We both look forward to celebrating many more birthdays, along with many more years of working together and many new mums to mumsclub.co.uk’ Kitchenmonkey.co.uk is a online fine food company which started in May 07 delivering chef prepared from fresh by hand frozen meals, desserts, soups, party foods, baby & children’s food ranges to any UK address be it home, work, student accommodation, relatives address, holiday home or site. Using only the finest locally sourced quality vegetables and British meats we do not add any preservatives, genetically modified ingredients or additives to our dishes. Also a member of Guild of Fine Food and 5p of every meal sold is contributed to Tommy’s The Baby Charity a worthy charity and cause. Mumsclub.co.uk is an online forum and one-stop business club for mums which started in May 07. MumsClub was inspired and created by a mum, with the purpose to unite business mums and business mums-to-be help and provide advice when starting up and building a successful business from home, and an essential online venue to meet other mums in business. MumsClub is packed with home business opportunities, business guides, working from home, marketing tools plus you can go shopping in our marketplace to get special offers. Join in the forums and networks for business success. Sun, 18 May 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/48 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/47 Advancement has its price in all of our Kitchens!!! Will the re-establishment of cookery classes in schools be too late?? Have we developed so far in technology yet have turned a full circle in time to take all of us back to 1940 in everyday life??? This may be some of the questions crossing you mind if you have been reading some of the headlines in the national newspapers over the past two days. I was only blogging about the issues they are discussing today, back in February of this year. Here we are in the marvellous 21st century with all of our technological advancements and yet we missed the basics, and now what do all of us face today, you, me and our children. Only in 1930 have we seen the food shortages which we are starting to see today. I cannot see how anyone had managed to miss the absurd price increases or ‘credit crunch’ as the tabloids refer to it affecting us all. In less than a year general food prices have risen by an average of 19% and this is just the beginning. Pasta has risen by 80%, Rice & Butter up by 60% and Eggs 50% increase. The average family of 4 who were spending £100 per week last year on food are now spending £200 per week. A shocking 40% of the average family income is needed now for food alone, that’s before the increase in gas and electric up by 25% and about to go up again, the increase in fuel at the pump; my petrol tank price has increased by £20 in 10 months, that’s every tank full. The UK pig herds have been halved and we are heading for a pork shortage to mention just one of the meat price increases we have seen, and over the past few years more and more food is being brought outside of the UK to feed all of us in the UK. Shortages and rising global prices have been driven by not only poor harvests from natural disasters like floods etc, but increased oil prices and the impact this has on everything else; but also the supply and demand we have created ourselves and the market we have diversified our UK farmers into. We have created a demand naturally be requiring 67% more food supply needed by 2030 to cope with increased population to feed all of us, but not only this, with our advancement and need to be more eco friendly and the development of bio fuel means our food supplies are now grown for this purpose and not for food. One staggering statistic is that 1 tank of bio fuel made from Maize could potentially feed a family of 4 for 3 months if this maize was used for food instead. I have considered bio fuel myself and have watched since my first enquiry about converting my car back in only September 2007 last year, when I quoted £1200.00, to being quoted now £2400.00 for the same job. Now being driven by the demand from us due to its popularity and the obvious cost of fuel today. As a farmer trying to survive in today’s climate you would be putting your efforts into the most lucrative of methods to bring in income from your land too. Back in 1940’s our parents or grandparents spend 10% of their income on food, they were taught home economics and cookery at school valuable skills needed, I was taught these subjects at school and by my grandmother. I know my children did not have these subjects at school but I have taught them these skills. These basic skills teach you how to grow your own produce, budget for a household, plan meals around you budget and seasonal vegetables and meats etc. Marguerite Pattern OBE was a famous cook who taught many people in the 1940’s how to cook during rationing and food shortages, while our government assisted the farmers to produce the extra food needed in crops and meats. Most homes were encouraged to grown their own vegetables and from this the allotment was born. I know today city councils charge about £50 per year for an allotment and some village parish’s charge as little as £15 per year. Households everyway were taught as my grandmother was to cook one roast meal using the largest joint you could afford or get and from this you made it last for no less that 2 other meals besides your roast dinner. For instance my grandmother would serve leg of lamb on Sunday, a piece of lamb was then be hand minced and made into shepherd’s pie on Monday and then the bones made a stock to use in a soup or casserole with any further meat for Tuesday’s meal. The outcome from this is no waste, we would never throw anything away and our plates would always be clean & empty. You would eat it even if you didn’t like it, the saying ‘your not leaving the table until it’s all gone’ never was uttered, you would sit together as a family and eat being thankful for what you had. Any peelings were put on the compost heap and rubbish was minimal. If you actually did this today you would be surprised at how empty your dustbin would be. Instead of going around the supermarket filling your trolley up if you actually planned your meals and brought only what you needed upon your list, there would be no waste. This would also save you money especially if you purchased seasonal groceries and shopped locally cutting down on your travel costs. I suppose another gripe here would be in 1940 each village had a butcher, baker, cobbler etc all of which have gone now to the supermarket in many areas. Like online shopping and its increased growth from our ever busy lives and our obsession with time saving, plus our passion to save money on fuel and be eco friendly and assist the planet. All of these areas make online shopping effective even more so when you choose someone like kitchenmonkey.co.uk, who use local producers and small holdings, and deliver to your door using seasonal produce, saving you money in transport and household fuel to cook as the dishes can be micro waved in minutes without any compromise in quality. Something if you add up all the costs involved they may surprise you and my grandmother would have loved our idea as she could have spent hours still baking and hours tending to the animals etc which she adored. We have watched foods that were cheap staples now turn in to luxury items like rice. We have seen restaurant’s take meals off their menus, as the ingredients have either become too expensive for customers to pay to eat or due to food shortages. What advancement have we made? What do you think to bring back cookery and food economics in schools or other issues I have raised, email me on jacqui@kitchenmonkey.co.uk Wed, 14 May 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/47 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/46 Unused Gadget kept in the dark for 15 years seeks compensation!!! Gadgets and gismos we all have them. Some we use, some we don’t and some just come out once in their lifetime before being manoeuvred to the back of some cupboard to be unearthed years later for a car boot. We were discussing the wonders of modern living and the gadgets we have in our kitchen’s today. We were not referring to the large appliances like the America fridge freezers which everyone seems to have and all for the ice and cold water dispenser on the outside, (I know, you brought one too just for that reason alone. Great for entertaining but hell when they go wrong, I had one which froze all our food including the fridge side, rock hard lettuce, umm lovely! Have you ever had that happen when you come back from 2 weeks holiday, to find your freezer has broken down. Everything’s swimming and even though you left some non perishables in the fridge, to save you shopping first thing when you get back, as the power went off all this too had gone off. Oh nightmare, been there done that.) Anyway, what we were discussing is how we go to various shows and come back with various gadgets. You know the ones: the ice cream maker, bags to do toasted sandwiches in a normal toaster, milk frother, the yogurt maker, bread maker, donut maker, sandwich toaster, super quick kettle, self ironing iron (if only I hear you say). Our discussion turned into research. It seems you lovely fella’s out there are quite obsessed with your gadgets and love purchasing them no matter which room of the house they are for. For the kitchen the guys loved the gadgets like the electric bottle openers, lumi-pad fridge magnets (apparently forget ‘post it notes’ these pads light up a message when you walk past), popcorn makers (of all crazy designs and novelties), latest coffee/expresso makers and donut makers. As for the ladies we rate the steamers, rice makers, hand blenders, mortar & pestle and digital scales. The one appliance we both rate is the George foreman grill! I have to say I use most of the so called kitchen gadgets/appliances that I have. My favourites would be both a food processor with a juicer, hand blender, bread maker (which I use daily, it’s a great way to get everyone out of bed in the morning with that great smell of bread filling the house), I too have a George foreman grill which is used, a steamer. Other than that I’m afraid I cook with an agar which is brilliant, being multi fuelled you can always use it during power cuts and living in the country believe me it helps. I do have a microwave and it’s used daily too. My kettle is a old fashioned stove type which whistles when it boils, toaster I have, but I have to say you cannot beat toast done on a fork on a open fire, which I have to say I have too and make full use of. As for the rest I cook as I was taught to cook, from fresh by hand from the best local produce available to me as my Gran did, bless her! Let’s start a campaign to find Britain’s best loved kitchen gadgets, email me on jacqui@kitchenmonkey.co.uk with your favourite and I’ll post my findings later on. Thu, 08 May 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/46 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/45 Add a flower with more value than you think to your cooking! Something which is growing in abundance at the moment everywhere you look but it is overlooked by the majority of us, with some astonishing powers within both its leaves, flowers and root. Gardeners hate them, the flower actually fertilizes itself which is where it foils the gardener by dispersing its seeds as early as the day after the flower opens up, and basically the faster you try to get rid of them the faster they grow as their root are very twisted, deep and brittle. Do you know what it is yet?? Well some further facts are, it is very adaptable and flourishes in today’s modern world upon disturbed habitats likes our gardens and sunny open places. It was actually introduced from Europe to provide food for honeybees during early spring and late autumn. This plant takes on an important role amongst honey-producing plants, as it furnishes considerable quantities of both pollen and nectar in early spring and late autumn, which for the bee keeper means they do not have to feed their bee colonies with artificial food. The plant grows virtually anywhere, worldwide with one of the furthest plant spreads. It is difficult to exterminate and grows under adverse circumstances. What is it, well, it is the DANDELION (taraxacum officibale), did you guess? The dandelion is a perennial, herbaceous plant. Apparently named after the shape of the leaves which looked like teeth. It was named after the old French name ‘dent-de-lion’ meaning lions tooth. This is one of those questions for a general knowledge quiz for you to remember for later on. Dandelions emerge to form a rosette from which a yellow flower head appears. This flower head changes to a white globular seed ball overnight, with each of these seeds having a tiny parachute for them to spread wide and far on the wind. The dandelion blooms are sensitive to the weather and light, opening and closing during the evenings and early mornings and closing when it rains. The smaller birds love the dandelions seeds and both pigs and goats like dandelions. However horses, cows and sheep do not like dandelions but the rabbit finds the dandelion an invaluable food source, especially at breeding time. Some people eat the greens throughout the year (including the summer months when they can be bitter); others boil out the bitterness in up to 2 or 3 changes of water depending on your personal preferences. Dandelions greens are great in salads and can be sautéed or steamed, tasting abit like chicory. (Some people shun the dandelion as bitter, as we have all become accustomed to the sweetness or saltiness of some of today’s modern processed foods.) The leaves can be sautéed for 20 minutes with onions and garlic in olive oil, you can add a little wine before they are finished cooking too. If you do find them bitter try adding carrots or parsnips to this being a sweeter vegetable. Collect dandelion leaves early spring when they are suppose to be at their tastiest before the flowers appear and then you can collect again late autumn. Dandelions growing in rich, moist soil, with biggest roots are the best. Also in the early spring you can sauté, pickle or cook the crown of the dandelion. Dandelion flowers are edible too and can also be used to make wine, using only the yellow flower parts. This adds colour, texture and an unusual bittersweet taste to a salad. The flower can also be sautéed, dipped in batter and fried, steamed with other vegetables or added to a stir-fry or casserole. The leaves are higher in beta-carotene than carrots, they are higher in iron and calcium that spinach you also get the vitamins B1, B2, B5, B6, B12, C, E and D along with potassium, magnesium, zinc and phosphorus. The root of the dandelion is said to be one of the safest and most popular herbal remedies. The dandelion is first mentioned as a medicine in Arabian physicians of the 10th and 11th centuries who refer to it as a wild endive. It is suppose to strengthen the body, especially the liver and gall bladder promoting the flow of bile due to the taraxacin. It is good for chronic hepatitis and helps indigestion but should not be used by someone with an irritable stomach or bowel or acute inflammation. The dandelion root tea acts on the kidneys as a diuretic improving the cleansing of the blood and recycling of nutrients which are reflected in our general good health and clearer skin. Dandelions are good for the bladder, spleen, pancreas, stomach and intestines and recommended for stressed out and internally sluggish people, who could simply benefit from a daily cup of dandelion root tea. Even the root inulin is a sugar which can be used in a holistic regime for low blood sugar.Generally it is said that it is a plant rich in vitamins and minerals which can help people who are run down. Also the leaves and stems white milky sap is said to remove warts, moles, pimples, calluses, sores and is suppose to soothe a bee sting and blisters. Well it sounds like to me that the dandelion deserves to grow in my garden and it certainly made me look differently at this so called weed. Do you have any unusual recipes or remedies email me on jacqui@kitchenmonkey.co.uk Mon, 05 May 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/45 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/44 Court number 1 left strawberry less! Can you just imagine the height of the Tennis calendar and Wimbledon not only famous for the tennis and celebrities, and of course the odd sing song from certain famous artists to entertain all of us during the great British summertime weather without the symbol of decades, of course it is Wimbledon’s famous strawberries & cream. It was recently announced that due to a shortage of EU workers Wimbledon may well be without its famous strawberries this year, due to the shortage of workers to pick the fruits, the strawberries could simply be last to rot at picking time. I couldn’t help but recall many hours of fruit and potato picking undertaken in my youth, shall I say. Each holiday friends and I would descend upon local farms to see if we could get a job to pick their crop. I have to say it was hard work but we had fun too. Being outdoors in some of the fabulous British sunny days was great, but no matter what the weather the crop had to be harvested. Potato picking was back breaking; you would kid yourself you could last a whole week. I can almost smell that broken soil smell, as you picked the emerging potato crop from the freshly dug up furrows made by the tractor you followed up and down the field. Each day we would stand at various meeting points in the villages as the farmer’s would come around with a trailer collecting all of us, to take us to the orchards or fields and then of course at the end of the day they would return you absolutely shattered and covered in soil or whatever you were picking. We would break during the day for packed lunches which would take with us, all sitting together exchanging stories and then of course we looked forward to being paid our wages in cash then. Depending on the farmer and the crop sometimes you were paid by the weight collected, others paid you by the day. This sometimes would cause quite a brawl to get on to certain farmers trailers for the better pay. It’s strange how you look back and remember how rich we all felt each week as we collected out hard earned pay. Of course many a time we were also sent home with crop in hand such as box of fruit or bag of potato’s as a reward. You never seem to hear of students doing this today, obviously working directives and health and safety has changed a great deal, but this never did my friends and I any harm. If anything it taught us team work and competitiveness. We would bet amongst each other, which one of us could get to the other end of the field first or collect the first basket, with the dreaded forfeits for the last person to reach the targets set, which use to be awful! The thought of the strawberries being left to rot in the fields seems absolutely scandalous! Send me your stories; do students still pick fruits and potatoes in your area? to jacqui@kitchenmonkey.co.uk and I shall pick a winner and surprise them with a meal, go on you could have a winner in you, it always great to hear from you. Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/44 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/43 Feeling tied it may not be down to your bed but your food! Something which is close to my heart is food, eating well, but in the sense of a good varied well balanced diet suited for everyone’s well being. I do have family members with allergies and intolerance’s myself, but my friend Claire who thought she was suffering from intolerance, actually turned out to be an allergy. Food intolerances are increasingly common, around 45% of the UK population have some kind of food intolerance and 2% suffer from food allergy. My own opinion is that too many foods are now over processed. I was brought up on true food, brought as it should be and cooked from fresh nothing added very much as we do in our kitchens here at kitchenmonkey. I can only comprehend if we still only fed our cows on good old fashioned untreated grass would our meats, milk and dairy produce be free from modern interference and as good as it was for us. All the over processing is changing our bodies and that of our food chain aswell, a reason why I care where my meat, vegetables and ingredients come from. What’s the difference between intolerance and an allergy you might well ask? Food intolerance is all about how your body’s immune system (the body’s defence against foreign invaders, such as poisons and bacteria) reacts to specific foods. Food intolerances are believed to arise when certain, incompletely digested food particles enter your blood stream and are treated as foreign invaders. This results in your immune system producing tailor-made antibodies which attack the food in question and may give rise to certain symptoms. If you regularly eat foods to which you are intolerant you place continual stress on your immune system – which may result in your body not being able to fight invasions and making you more susceptible to health problems. Symptoms are not immediate and delayed food reactions are food intolerances. By excluding such foods from your diet this will relief symptoms and by introducing them again the symptoms recurrence would diagnose intolerance. Such symptoms as headaches, bloating, fluid retention, nasal congestion, feeling tired or short of energy, even muscle or joint pain etc and these can come and go. Allergy is a multi organ disease and can appear at any time with a wide range of symptoms all of which impact on the sufferer’s life to varying degrees. Some people will find the symptoms irritating but little more than inconvenient, for others allergy can impact severely on all aspects of life and for some it can even be life threatening giving rise to the possibility of anaphylaxis (allergic collapse). Avoidance, management and support are the key words for any allergy sufferer. An allergy sufferer needs to know exactly what the triggers are for an allergic reaction. So an immediate reaction is an allergy for example someone develops a rash, swelling of the lips etc within minutes of eating nuts is allergic to nuts, as this is an immediate food reaction a food allergy. Hay fever and asthma are all allergies with triggers. Blood tests can detect an allergy as these produce certain antibodies depending on the allergy which they look for and detect in blood samples taken. Some useful sites to look at are www.foodintoleranceawareness.org www.wllergyuk.org or talk to your GP. On a lighter note listening to the local news I heard that rugby police force have had their hands full recently as they have been handing out speeding caution notices to people using 4 wheeled mobility scooters in the centre of Rugby due to a large amount of accidents in the area. So lookout for the 5MPH speeding signs coming to a pavement near you!! Keep the Email’s coming to me at jacqui@kitchenmonkey.co.uk it is great to hear from you. Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/43 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/42 Lost in a Sat Nav, but my shopping trolley can phone home! Well I gave in to all the fuss and picked myself up a satellite navigation system or sat nav for short. Thinking I was missing out on something and also having a few mishaps with my faithful old map in the car I thought this new gadget would be great. But read on for latest views on this device and advance in technology to affect even our shopping trolleys which will amuse you. Did you know that ‘Sat Nav’ sales have increased fivefold in the last 2 years? 29% of owners that is 1/3 of ‘sat nav’ owners have actually been directed to the wrong place, with 1 in 10 users owning up to having in car quarrels with passengers over the ‘sat nav’ itself. (I thought this was a gadget to alleviate the good old fashioned map reading quarrels, do you remember “you should have turned right back there!”). Recent surveys suggest new arguments appearing in cars with sat nav’s which they suggest as we are not in control of our route or journey this in turn causes tensions and arguments evolve. Users disagree with their sat navs over suggested routes and even the voice selected on their sat nav’s. I am sure you have tried all the voices, as you cannot resist it can you even to try the journey home in Spanish for instance, it’s the novelty of it! It’s interesting to note that the women choose the male voice and the men choose the ladies voice. There are now over 13 million sat nav users in the UK. A huge 22% of us shout at our sat nav’s (I have to say this includes me), 20% of us turn off our sat nav’s after being directed down unsuitable roads, too narrow lanes, low bridges or even dead ends. Women apparently are more likely to get angry and turn off the sat nav with 24% of women admitting the ‘sat nav’ is annoying compared with only 17% of men. Obviously this is such a market that car’s are now being supplied with build in ‘sat nav’ devices. Today’s ‘sat nav’ devices come with varying degrees of extras, from speed trap locaters, being able to navigate by photos rather than maps, showing you nearby points of interest (POI), showing you food and petrol points and returning live traffic information to the driver for example. A good sat nav device can cost in the region of around £250. There are various points of view regarding these devices including for instance the one of Network rail. They say 2,000 bridges are being hit every year by lorries following their ‘sat nav’ routes. This was causing £10 million pounds a year of damage and 5,000 hours of delays. PJ Taylor of Network Rail said, “ The last few years has seen a sharp increase in the number of vehicles hitting bridges. Sat Nav’s are a great tool, but they are no alternative for drivers keeping their wits about them”. He further said, “He was asking drivers to pay extra attention to road signs warning of hazards ahead, even if they are using ‘sat nav’ systems”. Network rail have actually started the mapping of the low bridges in the UK with a view to feeding this information into the ‘sat nav’ software to help solve this problem. In the Vale of Glamorgan they have actually invested in a new blue traffic sign showing a satellite above a lorry with a red line through it. This is suppose to warn motorists and lorry drivers to ignore their sat navs on the narrow welsh lanes due to lorries and touring vehicles getting stuck between the M4 and Cardiff airport on a small narrow lane. However, drivers are unfamiliar with the sign and misunderstood this sign and still drive along this road. The society for the protection of ancient buildings (SPAB), also has concerns regarding damage caused by ‘sat nav’ users. Where damage is being caused for instance to 200 year old bridges and 300 year old cottages etc, all due to heavy traffic being directed wrongly. SPAB secretary, Phil Venning said, “blind reliance on sat navs was becoming a serious issue for old buildings, as motorists were being directed to use ancient lanes and narrow country roads, which would have posed problems for a horse drawn carriage let alone motorised traffic and this results in thousands of pounds of damage to historic structures”. Where does the technology stop I ask myself as I recently read a article about a supermarket shopping trolley which is to be fitted with a ‘sat nav’ device. The trolley would be fitted with an onboard computer to plan the best route to buy what you want from your shopping list and suggest recipes on your way around the supermarket. These trolleys which could be in the UK as early as next year are supposed to slash our shopping time and will also display advertising. This ingenious idea is a partnership of Microsoft and Mediacart. The customer would insert a loyalty in to the shopping trolley which would show your previous shopping list. This would then show the location of each item upon the shopping list and if you needed anything else not on the list, all you have to do is ask, as it is also to be fitted with voice recognition software. A spokesman for Mediacart said “the shopping trolley shows the best and most efficient route to buy everything upon your shopping list, you can scan your shopping in aswell on you shop to save time and the device also shows your location within the supermarket all the while you are on the premises including the car park. Along with this our device will also be a great advertising media tool”. This will make you smile though. When the shopping trolley gets stolen, it is fitted with the technology to phones home with its location so that it can be collected. Regarding the ‘sat nav’ well I still always plan my journey and I still always carry my fateful old map as a backup plan!! Send me your views and ‘sat nav’ stories; Email me at jacqui@kitchenmonkey.co.uk it would be great to hear from you. Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/42 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/41 Euro eats away our holiday funds: This week saw the pound fall to its lowest against the Euro falling to 120 to the pound, if you are lucky. What has this got to do with me you might well ask? It’s one of those hidden costs again that affect all of us in our daily lives. If you export from the UK, it is good news. As your goods become slightly cheaper abroad. If you are a holiday maker however, things are not so good, put bluntly your 10% worse off. If you holiday within the euro currency zone like France, Spain, Italy etc you are going to notice the weakness of the pound in the amount you spend during your holiday. Here are some examples of the difference to you from just last year 2007 to this year’s holiday 2008 abroad within the EU: -In Spain a round of drinks is now a whole £1 more -In France a round of drinks is now a whole £2 more -In Cyprus a cup of coffee has gone up by £1.50 per cup I know it doesn’t sound much but add the above costs up over a week or 2 week stay and then times this by the number of persons in your party and then it means alot more. Before you have even gone on holiday, exchanging your sterling to Euros means £500 sterling will be worth only £415 abroad, then add in the cost increases above and you can suddenly see how you’re hard earned holiday money which you have saved for, has diminished in value. Although this change will not affect the costs of package holidays for 2008 as these prices were set back in September of the previous year, however should it stay like this it could effect next year’s 2009 package holiday prices which would be set in September of 2008. What can we do about this to make our money go further while away on holiday? Well, we can look where the local people are eating and eat where they eat; tourist restaurants are always going to charge you more. Plus you can drink local drinks when out and about rather than the branded ones which are cheaper too. Time of travel is another one. Although the tour operators state they do not put prices up during school holidays, we know the prices go up around this time. We are told this is because these are the very busiest periods of the year in general like Christmas, Easter, Bank Holidays, plus for example Spain go on holiday for the whole of July, while France have the whole of the month of August on holiday. Therefore, we are competing with them during these very busy times which is why the price is more during these times of the year, according to Shaun Tipton, of the ABTA. However, like myself we all know how impossible it is if you have children at school, college or university to go away on holiday at any other times but these so called busy periods. The other thing of course you can do is choose an alternative destination outside of the EU or even stay in Britain. For example, alternatives might be Turkey with their Turkish Lira ( however, having recently visited Turkey the Lira I took with me on advise of our agent was not accepted anywhere they didn’t want to know and would only let you pay in Euros, so be careful). Try Gibraltar where you can simply take you sterling with you and use it there as this is their currency. Dubai with their currency the dirham and the cheapest place to holiday is apparently South Africa with the rand but the flight is 12 hours. Or why not escape from all the delayed flights, hours in the airport and then further hours travelling to accommodation at both ends of your flight and holiday in Britain instead. On my recent visits to Turkey and Italy I was charged 9 Euros for example for a small soft drink. I must admit in certain places it felt as if because we were British it was assumed we were very wealthy and our meals prices etc were reflected in this. So my own personal tip would be, no matter where you are, check the price of everything, meals, drink, taxi etc before you go in so to speak, and if you have too then barter on the price. We British hate to barter but it is something we will all have to get use to doing. Send me your recent holiday news and views; I would love to hear from you. Email me at jacqui@kitchenmonkey.co.uk. Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/41 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/40 Huge Growth Market in Hobby Farmers, (watch out for the hedgehog though!): There is a growing new trend which is excelling throughout the UK it is in the field of ‘Hobby Farming’. This is a growing group of professional people who are either looking at a second career in farming, or they exchange their city fast paced business lifestyles for a new life in the country, working for themselves. Half of the farms sold in the UK in the last year were brought by ‘Hobby Farmers’. These small holders come from high powered city jobs and are new to farming hence the term ‘Hobby Farmers’. This is a complete lifestyle change from London city centre to the remote countryside for example. These small holders have to endure an enormous learning curve, but are obtaining support to enable them to do this, from long term well established Farmers. The cost of farming land is also enduring a price increase due to this new growing trend. Land within the Cotswold area for instance is now fetching £3,000 per acre. Anyone can set up a small holding or hobby farm. They must obtain a holding number from DEFRA, training available in small holdings and a further flock number when livestock is brought and of course a vet services, as they must have a good relationship with their vet. This all needs to be in place to contain disease. For instance the recent outbreak in foot & mouth was initially blamed on small holdings (which is not the fault of); this single outbreak for instance actually cost 150 million pounds. Hobby farmers are enthusiastic and very keen to learn. People who have gone down this route genuinely care for the welfare of the animals, and are learning through the web, books and other well established farmers. Experienced farmers are providing good advice to these small holdings up and down the UK. Originally it was thought that a lack of knowledge would put the animals and others at risk; however recent research has found it to show the contrary. It showed that small holdings care and want to do a good job and do it right. Results are outstanding as they are coming in to the trade through a hobby which they enjoy and full of enthusiasm to learn, and they are succeeding to an extremely high standard. Thus they are turning their hobby in to a ‘way of life’. These hobby farmers are a growing economic force and they are extremely passionate about what they do and it’s showing in the welfare of their life stock and there results. We at kitchenmonkey.co.uk are proud to be supporting local farmers and producers, along with small outlets dedicated to a certain product, all produced to high quality standards as we require for our ingredients within our dishes. Just a quick quirk for you, while driving home. I was listening to the news, and I heard how a man had been tried for assault with a deadly weapon. To my astonishment the weapon in question was a ‘hedgehog’, which he had thrown at another person with intent and the hedgehog had pieced the victim’s skin. Although I found this unbelievable and I felt sorry for the poor hedgehog, they did make me smile when they concluded that the hedgehog was being held as evidence! What a mad world we live in!!! Send me some of your quirky stories or tell me about yourself if you’re a ‘hobby farmer’ I would love to hear from you. Email me at jacqui@kitchenmonkey.co.uk. Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/40 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/39 Are we guilty of taking away our children’s childhood? Catching up on the newspapers this week I was reading an article about children and their social skill development through play. Some of the figures really make you think. Basically what they are saying is that, our children today are not playing out alone thus they are not developing through independent play, as we would of done in our childhood’s. Having a large gap between my own children, I know there is a difference from my own experience. For instance what one of my children was allowed to do, to what the other’s were allowed to do. Although, I was not aware of this at the time, how quite different they were. Perhaps today we are now more aware of the dangers that are out there for our children. It is sad to think that we have fears to the extent that, even some of our teenage children are still being escorted to school today. A top child psychologist reporting on GMTV stated that “as adults we place our fears into our children’s childhood and create adult constraints”, perhaps she is right? For instance ¼ of 8 to 10 year olds do not play out and 1 in 4, 10 year olds have NEVER played outdoors unsupervised by an adult. On the other side of the coin there has been a 75% decrease in children getting hurt in road accidents. The government has actually stated that “they are developing play areas and repairing existing areas within communities to ensure safe areas for children to play in”. However, I was surprised to find out that a large quantity of school playing fields for example, have actually now been sold off. Limiting our children’s play and sport facilities for safe play within the actual school day. I am sure you remember as a child, that you would always be playing the furthest distance away from the main buildings, adventuring out. You could just about hear the school bell and dinner ladies shouting you back in, when we were all at the bottom of the schools playing fields playing, when I was at school. Obviously as a parent, I too understand that parents are scared to let their children out. Were these fears always there? I know as a child I was never in. I would be up at the crack of dawn, eat breakfast, make sandwiches and be off and my mother never saw me again until dusk. I always knew I had to be home by dusk and I never questioned it either. I was always back home by dusk and usually very hungry. My friends and I would play in fields, brooks and cycle for miles we would literally take our lunch and go off exploring. I am also aware that perhaps my youngest child has not had this luxury at all, and this has mainly been down to my own fears for his safety. The child psychologists say exactly this, that “parents, carers and adults are scared to let their children out”. They further stated that “supervised play, even though we are watching, we still manage to impose adult rules on their play, even while watching from a distance”. It is with this in mind that the psychologists are saying that “children need freedom to play alone to develop fully”. An astonishing 3.5 children sit at home isolated, usually at a computer screen or TV and this starts from a very early age with some toddlers now having TV etcs in their bedrooms. It is this isolation and the fact they are not allowed to adventure in unsupervised play which means our children are losing their communication skills according to top psychologists. They state that “children need to develop independence and life skills through independent play and that life for children is all about having a childhood again and not the constraints that modern parents are imposing on our children”. Interesting subject, let me know what your thoughts are, send me a comment I look forward to hearing from you all as usual. Good luck with your Grand National flutters if you are giving one tomorrow! Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/39 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/38 Make our roads safe!!! Road safety is something we teach our children from a very early age, along with the do not speak to or go with strangers safety rule. ‘Killer Lorries’, a message for Mr Brown, from me, perhaps we should be making a new law that these foreign Lorries drop their loads at our ports for British lorry drivers to transport throughout the UK safely and to keep our lorry drivers employed!!! What do you think let me know your comments? I actually found myself sitting down for 5 minutes last night only to get drawn into a documentary on foreign lorry drivers, ‘killer lorries’ on ITV at 8.00pm 31st March 2008 presented by Quentin Willson. I was astonished by what I was watching and hearing, did you see this at all?? The amount of foreign Lorries on our roads has doubled, at the port of Dover each day 6,000 foreign Lorrie’s drive into Britain. This amounts to 400,000 foreign lorry drivers on our roads each year. Upon which these Lorries are carrying an astonishing quarter of a million tonnes of goods, some of which are dangerously over laden. On top of this some of the drivers can not only not speak English but cannot read the road signs. Obviously while British lorry drivers adhere to the laws by keeping their Lorries in a good safe order with associated documentation, along with road tax, licenses and insurance, which are no small fees I might add. Along with all of this they complete taco graphs accordingly showing their driving hours to keep everyone safe, including the drivers themselves. Oh and of course not forgetting the ever increasing fuel bills we are all paying at the petrol pumps these days. All of which are putting a great strain on the British haulier and self employed British lorry drivers. However in the other dimension the increase in firms in Britain using foreign hauliers due to these offering cheaper prices has increased seven fold. The Lorries are filled up on cheap fuel from abroad; the drivers are paid lower wages and drive unbelievable long hours not stopping for breaks. One driver on the programme had been driving for 20 hours solid another had been driving for 45 days continuous without a day off. We know ourselves how we feel if we drive tied so these were just unbelievable to think this is happening on our roads. Their Lorries are in poor repair with worn tyres etc. The one thing which I found enormously scary was the fact that these huge trucks (which when you consider the weight of these trucks which would be like being hit by a freight train and you are parked on the railway crossing on impact), is the fact these left hand drive vehicles have a blind spot on the right hand side. This blind spot is so large is can hide an entire family saloon as you overtake on the right hand side or simply pass on the motorway. This is according to the vehicle operator’s service agency (VOSA). This causes the driver to pull out not knowing you are there and hence the driver side swipes you. Because of this and the other factors accidents involving foreign Lorries are up by 50% in the past 5 years as reported by the mirror newspaper today (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2008/03/31/tv-programme-claims-foreign-lorry-drivers-are-breaking-uk-safety-laws-89520-20368614/) Also running in most of today’s tabloids, the Times, the Sun etc have a look at their sites. The foreign drivers are more likely to drive tied and the police are powerless to prosecute. The Program stated how the police could not prosecute the owners of the lorry companies, even when they had evidence that the safety laws have been broken. Chief Insp Phil Hibbert, of Kent Police, said “the police have considerable powers to sanction British lorry drivers on safety breaches. With foreign drivers powers are more limited, but police can delay their journey until they rest up or make vehicle repairs for between 36 to 48 hours. However, we would like to see an extra provision for us to be able to fine Lorries at the roadside.” Further to this it also said that any driving license points awarded against the driver while in Britain cannot be placed on a foreign license. I had to question this, as when we hire a car when we are abroad and if we break the law or cause an accident points are still placed on our licences! Also the program showed how you could purchase a foreign driving license on the internet for about £50. I know driving tests in other countries for example are not as long in duration or comprehensive as our test. So why, if we have to drive to a degree of safety and regulations should not ALL drivers on our roads have to do the same or get punished for breaking our laws? The transport minister Jim Fitzpatrick said “We want to make sure that our roads are as safe as possible and they will comply. That is why we passed the Road Safety Act of 2006.” I have to agree with Quentin and say, ‘that was 2006 we are now in 2008 and the figures are worse. I know friends and colleagues who have had accidents within these circumstances. I am made to keep my car safe; I pay my taxes for the road and on the petrol, along with necessary insurance. Why are these vehicles not made to do the same if they cannot as I mentioned at the beginning they should be made to unload at the port where a British lorry can then distribute safely within the UK and keep our roads safe!’ Send me your views, I love to hear them! Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/38 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/37 I hope you all had a good Easter. I have just returned from a little break with my 2 little monkies and i can safely say i need another break. We travelled up by car on the saturday morning and my oldest at 7 is at the age where she asks if we are there yet. The stereo only goes so loud!!!!. Anyway it seems that Spring is almost upon us and my wife already has a great list of things she wants me to do around the house and outside. I suppose thats not a bad thing considering how many of my daughters Easter eggs I consumed. This week my oldest is on site with me doing her absolute hardest to help wherever she can. I do firmly beleive that if i give her some responsibility she will develop and assume leadership an confidence. I suppose it remains to be seen. I am hopeful though and she does make me proud so thats half the battle. Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/37 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/36 Monkey Teasers are eggtastic!!! Can we all at kitchenmonkey.co.uk start by wishing you all a great EASTER Bank Holiday whatever you are doing, we hope you have fun! How about some brain teasers to keep you going throughout the weather which we are expecting this Easter. It’s a fact that women and men are wired differently shall I say, and that each of us can do certain things better, because of this. For instance men are supposed to be the better map readers; women can multi task and its all down to our wiring. Apparently a woman’s left and right side of her brain is wired together abit like broadband which is why we can multi task. Do you remember not long ago when we were all sending and buying special 3D pictures, which would be a picture of something, but if you looked into it there was a further image within it. I had friends who could do this instantly and I would stare at them forever almost giving myself a headache before I could see them. This is all because we are all individual and favour one side of the brain to the other. For instance some of us are good at creative work and others are good with numbers. Well I’ve put together a little teaser to tantalise you and keep you mind muscle working. Give it a go, there are alot of great brainteasers out there and illusion pictures which are great fun for everyone to have a go at. Have fun, but don’t cheat have a go first! 1. Some months have 30 days; some have 31; how many months have 28 days? 2. If you had only one match and entered a room in which there was a kerosene lamp, an oil heater, a candle and a wood burning stove, which would you, light first? 3. There is a house with four walls. Each wall faces south. There is a window in each wall. A bear walks by one of the windows. What color is the bear? 4. Is half of two plus two equal to two or three? 5. How many animals of each species did Moses take aboard the Ark with him? 6. How far can a dog run into the woods? 7. Is it legal for a man to marry his widow's sister? 8. If a farmer has 5 haystacks in one field and 4 haystacks in the other field, how many haystacks would he have if he combined them all in the center field? 9. What is it that goes up and goes down but does not move? 10. A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 died. How many did he have left? 11. Divide 30 by 1/2 and add ten. What is the answer? Have you written them all down carry on down for the answers ANSWERS: 1. All 12 have 28 days 2. Light the match first. 3. White. If all the walls face south, the house is at the North pole, and the bear, therefore, is a polar bear. 4. Three. Well, it seems that it could almost be either, but if you follow the mathematical orders of operation, division is performed before addition. So... half of two is one. Then add two, and the answer is three. 5. I thought Noah brought 2 of each animal, not Moses 6. Halfway, then he would be running out of the woods. 7. No. You can't marry someone if you're dead! 8. One. If he combines all of his haystacks, they all become one big stack. 9. The temperature. 10. 9 sheep 11. 70 I hope you enjoyed that? One thing someone said to me recently is that if you have children how would they spell love (the answer is and if you are a parent it is simple ‘TIME’) So spend some quality time this Easter, Paint those boiled eggs ready for breakfast and enjoy this special TIME!. Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/36 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/35 COOKING UP A STORM Tommy’s, the baby charity is delighted to announce a new fundraising partnership with www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk, the luxury online ready meal service. Offering a wide range of individually prepared starters, main courses and desserts, Kitchen Monkey will donate 5p (+VAT) from every product sold, to Tommy’s, the baby charity. Tommy’s funds vital research into finding the causes of miscarriage, premature birth and stillbirth. Right now in the UK, 1 in 4 women will lose a baby during pregnancy or birth. By 2030 it is Tommy’s aim to halve this number. Jane Brewin, Chief Executive of Tommy’s, the baby charity commented, “Pregnancy complications can be devastating for those families affected. It is Tommy’s aim to halve the number of babies who are lost during pregnancy or birth by 2030, and we are incredibly thankful to Kitchen Monkey and all their customers who are helping us to reach our goal.” Jacqueline Bailey CIPD MREC, Head of Marketing for kitchenmonkey.co.uk added, “We wanted to support a charity close to both ours and our customers hearts. We are all really looking forward to supporting and raising funds for such a marvellous charity”. Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/35 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/34 Life in the Fast Lane!!! Eating well and cooking for yourself may feel like the last thing you want to do after a long day at work or college. But eating healthily doesn’t have to take loads of time or cost loads of money which is our philosophy at www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk Eating a healthy diet will give your body what it needs to help you keep up with your hectic lifestyle while helping to keep you fit & healthy both inside and out. It is recommended that we eat at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables a day, together these will give you both vitamins and minerals. Many are high in folate, vitamin C and potassium. Both fruit and vegetables are a great source of fibre and antioxidants which are all important for your health. Did you know? - Red & Yellow peppers have 4 times as much vitamin C as a orange - Curly kale, okra and spinach are the richest vegetable sources of calcium - Tomatoes are a fruit rather than a vegetable in botanical terms - A small can of kidney beans counts as 1 portion of your daily 5 a day - Zinc helps the body heal wounds, so if you suffer with spots for instance eating foods rich in zinc helps to heal the skin, such as green vegetables, beans, pulses, figs and dried apricots all provide useful amounts - Eating foods that are naturally high in vitamin C can give your tired body a boost, for example oranges, grapefruits, kiwis & strawberries. You can even make a juice or smoothie for a boost from these fruits and do not forget tomato juice instead of orange juice for a change. - If you have been working long hours or just burning the candle at both ends this can potentially mess up your body clock leaving you shattered you could give yourself energy both with food which release energy gradually like bananas, dried fruits like raisins, dried apricots al supply a steady supply of sugar. - High sugar foods give you a quick blood sugar rush but this is followed by a crash which makes you energy slump. Bananas help satisfy a craving for sweet foods, to use up overripe food add them to a smoothie to use up your fruit. - Remember being told as a child that carrots help you see in the dark, this is true they are a good source of beta carotene which our bodies turn into vitamin A and this vitamin is important for night vision. - B vitamins are required for energy production, keeping the brain, nerves, blood and muscles functioning and skin and nails and hair healthy. Some of the B vitamins are found in peas, beans, bananas, lentils and leafy greens What actually counts towards our 5 a day? - Frozen, fresh, tinned, 100% juice and dried fruit and vegetables - 1 portion of fruit is for example 1 medium apple, banana, orange or pear or 2 small Satsuma’s or even 3 dried apricots - 1 portion of vegetables is for example 3 heaped tablespoons of cooked vegetables like carrots, peas, sweetcorn or a bowl of salad - A medium size glass of 100% fruit juice, smoothie or vegetable juice counts as 1 a day - Potatoes do not count as they are classed as starchy food like pasta and rice also - Fruit and vegetables in ready meals can count towards your 5 a day Interesting hey, obviously I would expect you as foodies to know some of these facts but there may be a few you a not aware of or clarify some areas for you I hope, Keep reading I have lots more to tell you and more stories too. Do not forget to keep sending me your comments we had some fantastic responses and comments so far so many thanks and keep up the good work. Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/34 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/33 Up up and away literally! Have you been holding on to your umbrella and imitating Mary poppins over the past couple of days with the rest of us at all. Windy or what, I was trying to drive yesterday and the gusts were so strong they were literally blowing the car across the road. At one point a land rover discovery came flying past me on the motorway only to hit a severe gust of wind and with the speed he was going he totally lost control of his car. It was frightening watching it in slow motion from where we were behind him. It seemed the further south we got the fiercer the wind became. I still couldn’t believe how people thing they can still put up an umbrella in wind of that speed. You see them down the street hanging on for dear life as the wind blows the umbrellas popping it inside out and then you instantly turn about to try to get it to pop back the other way again. The sea waves were very fierce with the high tide experienced by the south and west earlier this week. I remember being in Norfolk in a caravan when they had a high tide warning which was in September that year. The sirens were sounded as the water had breached the sea barriers and my son at the time was terrified thinking we had gone to war. We were evacuated that night to a local community centre for everyone’s safety and allowed back the next day to a very flooded caravan park. What windy experiences have you been up too? Why not email them across to us on jacqui@kitchenmonkey.co.uk One set of people enjoying the windy weather recently were kite flyers and this new trend of Kite Surfing, where a large kite is flown and you are upon a large skate board and basically off you go. What fun it look's, although I think one chap couldn’t grasp the basics of trying to look up to fly your kite and also look forward to see where you are going, and OUCH I bet that is going to hurt! Get in touch and I will pick my favourite and give this person a super surprise of their own!!! Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/33 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/32 The Spice of life!!! Here is one for you, recently while listening to a BBC broadcasting they threw out one of those listener trivia questions as they do, the question was: What’s the difference between a herb and a spice?? You know what, I knew the answer. But I have to say I was amazed by the numerous calls to the radio station and what the listeners actually thought the answer was. One caller even stated that this was a question on trivial pursuit the board game. So guess what, here is another one of those little glossaries of knowledge to impress your foodie friends with. Herbs come from non-woody, leafy plants, while spices are dried parts of aromatic plants – like the seeds, bark, roots and leaves – and are mainly tropical. Do you know how you should store spices, so that they do not lose their flavour? Well another bit for you is: Spices do not like daylight, so store them in the dark, airtight containers in a cool, dark cupboard. Buy them in small quantities, so you use them up at their best, rather than hoarding them in bulk. Here’s another which people manage to muddle up. Mixed spice and allspice what’s the difference? Mixed spice is a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, cassia, coriander and caraway seeds. Allspice is the berry from the pimento plant. Which spices for which foods? Heres just a few suggestions for you. Cayenne pepper Use with: chicken, beef, turkey,lamb,white fish & seafood just a dash spices up chutney Characteristic is hot & firey Ground coriander lamb, beef, chicken, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower & roast parsnips adds a twist to salad dressing characteristic are sweet-sharp & aromatice Ground cumin chicken,lamb,carrots ,aubergines,roast potatoes & parsnips great in home-made houmous characteristic are hot, sweetish & nutty Ground nutmeg veal,fish,chicken,spinach,baked apples, cheeses,whipped cream,custard and frothy hot chocolate sprinkle over rice pudding before cooking charactistic warm,aromatic & sweet Saffron Chicken,seafood,stews,carrots,risottos,paellas, cakes & breads infuse in milk& use the liquid in your cooking charactistic unique, honey-like flavour Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/32 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/31 Keep reading here’s a BUN with a Prize at the end!!! Can you believe that Easter is just around the corner?? Yes, lent will soon be over and Good Friday and Easter Sunday are a matter of weeks away. We have had so many events in such a short period of time this year with Easter being early. You cannot go anywhere without seeing a hot cross bun, as my friend tells me they have been on sale in some establishments since January! And we were discussing how next we will be having Christmas cakes on sale in the summer. How much faster can we make our life’s go? That aside, it made me think of a family recipe which we all love at Eastertime, which I am going to share with you all. So you can make use of those lovely hot cross buns adorning the shelves everywhere you go, so here we are: Hot Cross Bun Bread & Butter Pudding. (Serves 6, Calories per serving 403, cooking time 35 mins, cost around £2) You need: 6 hot cross buns thinly sliced 50g/2oz butter, melted 75g/3oz dried apricots, chopped 3 medium eggs 50g/2oz caster sugar 450ml/3/4pt milk Ground cinnamon for sprinkling 3 tsp runny honey Whipped cream to serve How it’s done: Brush each slice of the hot cross buns with melted butter and arrange the slices, butter side down in 6 individual ovenproof dishes. Sprinkle with the apricots, whisk together the eggs and sugar, then beat in the milk. Strain this into a jug. Slowly pour this over the puddings. Sprinkle with the ground cinnamon and leave to stand for around 30 mins. Preheat the oven to 170c/gas mark 3. Place the puddings on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 35 mins until they are just set and the top is slightly browned. Drizzle each pudding with a little honey and serve warm with whipped cream, DELICIOUS! Give it a go; why not let me know a favourite Easter recipe of yours. Watch out for a new competition we are running in support of Tommy’s the baby charity coming your way from kitchenmonkey.co.uk. We want you to send in your recipe’s, traditional family recipes which we will put together in a book to raise funds for Tommy’s the baby charity. The winner will have their dish made by our head chef and placed upon our menu, so all you budding chef’s get cracking, start talking to mum, dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles and send them in for this marvellous good cause and a great prize. Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/31 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/30 Did The Earth Move for You too Darling! Well everyone’s been talking about it; you can’t go anywhere without hearing people shopping, standing in queues, on public transport, the radio, everywhere. We are all talking about it! Guessed it yet, I’m sure you have, the Earthquake of course! There we were in the very early hours of Wednesday 27th February 2008 when most of us were woken from our sleep by a 5.2 magnitude earthquake hitting the UK. I remember going to bed around 00.30am and I must of gone straight to sleep. However I work and call it intuition, I knew somehow something was wrong (abit like when a mother wakes before her child cries, I suppose). The house was eerie quiet far too quiet. Then as I wondered why I was awake, that recognisable deep rumble or roar like a train coming. (I remember the last earthquake we felt, and remembered that distinct sound, it makes you think something has crashed into the house!). Then as it gets louder things started to shake. You heard the doors on the wardrobe, ornaments and photos moving on the dressing table and due to renovation work, items I had piled up moved about clattering together. Jumping out of bed, I could hear my son moving around, as he came darting out of his bedroom we both looked at each other. It seemed to go on for quite a while but this was obviously only seconds. Not knowing whether you should stay put or go outside and then it stopped. It’s really strange how quiet everywhere goes, almost like the calm before a big summer storm, and how the animals react as pets seem to become uneasy. It took us all awhile to settle that night/early morning, checking the house you could see lights on in neighbouring houses and people outside wondering what had happened. I think the one thing that struck me most, was how at breakfast, all of us shattered from the disturbance the night before, my mother suddenly said ‘how in 70 years this was the first quake she had felt and it had genuinely frightened her’. Then my 16 year old son said ‘I have felt 2 like that in a matter of 4 years Grandma!’ Which is true, as that earthquake which was on a Sunday afternoon we felt in our old house just as we had this time around. We had felt this to the extent that we came outside along with all our neighbours, all of us concerned by what was going on. We all looked at each other as we stood in our front gardens looking back at our homes and thought there had been an explosion or something. My son still remembers this today. It makes you wonder what is happening for us to feel 2 earthquakes of such a magnitude in such a short time. This quake’s epicentre was Market Resan in Lincolnshire and I believe the last one like this was in Northamptonshire. Dr Brian Baptie, of the BGS, said: "An earthquake of this size, of magnitude five or thereabouts, will occur roughly every 10 to 20 years in the UK. "So we can get this kind of moderate to significant earthquakes of this size but they're relatively rare." The BGS recorded an aftershock with a magnitude of 1.8 at about 0400 GMT on Wednesday 27th February 2007. The main 10-second quake, which struck at 0056 GMT at a depth of 15.4km (9.6 miles), was the biggest recorded example since one with a magnitude of 5.4 struck north Wales in 1984. What did you feel? The classic of course as I heard on the radio as I drove to work that day, and the DJ announced ‘how this was the first time the earth had moved for his wife!’ Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/30 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/29 Valuable mealtimes & what happened to the Sunday roast! I wondered how many of you realised that this week is actually eating disorder week. This is something still now we really do not speak a great deal about amongst family members. I was reading in the papers that this promotional week to discuss and support the issues of ‘eating disorders’ actually coincides with Paris fashion week which starts today 26th February 2008. I do not know any woman who has not at some stage dieted for whatever reason. Whether it just is for themselves, for an event like a holiday or a wedding. Whether it is after having a baby or as many mothers know and see in their daughters is it down to social awareness or fashion trends, but then of course there are health reasons while we look in to diet. All of us are influenced by celebrities and fashion trends. I remember my daughter telling me about the model Luisel Ramos who collapsed on the runway during Uruguay's Fashion Week in 2006. She actually later died of heart failure. Investigations publicised at the time revealed she had fasted to attain the level of weight loss she thought 'necessary' to take part. Much debating has happened since discussing such things as how thin fashion icons are a dangerous influence on young women and a possible inspiration' behind many eating disorders including anorexics. I remember how horrified I was and we sat and talked about the issues involved between the two of us that day. I could only start to consider the anguish of the mother involved being a mother myself. I too have had times where my children have not eaten as they should for fashion reasons, and I think that this is not an area which is also just dedicated to women, as my son has also been influenced in this manner too. Young men are also influenced to have a certain physic as shown in the magazines. My own point to be made is how very busy we all are and do we really take time to have proper meal times together as did my parents and grandparents or do we all eat or not eat, on the run as may be the case. We in the UK work the longest working day in Europe. But in all this it’s hard to keep the family quality time alive and kicking. Where are the times where we sat together to eat, catch up with each other and discuss. I know with some teenagers the art of conversation has turned to grunts and groans, but they do join in eventually honest! A recent program screened told the story of Sundays and further stated that now only 50,000 of us in Britain now sit down to a family roast on a Sunday, a British tradition so influenced and in decline since we opened the shops to 7 day trading. As shown on Wikipedia for instance ‘The Sunday roast is a traditional English main meal served on Sundays (usually in the early afternoon), and consisting of roasted meat together with accompaniments. It is popular throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Other names for this meal are Sunday dinner, Sunday lunch, Sunday Tea, Roast dinner, and Sunday joint. The traditional Sunday roast has been traced back to Yorkshire, England during the Industrial Revolution. It is believed this tradition arose because the meat could be left in the oven to cook before church on a Sunday morning (and was cooked by the local baker in their ovens), and it would be ready when the family arrived home at lunchtime. The meat would be used throughout the week to feed the family and even down to the vegetable water being used in tea. Part of the tradition was to serve the Yorkshire pudding first for example so this would fill the men of the house up so that less meat would be consumed after’ I make a point of having breakfast together no matter what; we discuss what each of us has on for the day and at least support each other. Plus as a busy working mum myself this is the only way I can find out about the taxing service runs I need to do and when and where to pick who up during the day. We all leave with at least a nutritious breakfast inside of us to start the day. I also insist we do the same at the other end of the day and sit down properly to eat again. I know exactly whose eating what and also what is going on with each of them. Yes, I have had some grumbles along the way but they know there is no compromise on this and we all look forward to meal times. In the words of Claire Boynton, Editor of generation one magazine, “As a busy working Mum, dinner always comes right at the time where everyone needs me and I’m most tired. I’d love to be able to find a quick solution but guilt prevented me from buying supermarket ready meals. In order to feel virtuous, I had to make myself even more tired and grumpy – not good for family relations by preparing the family meal. Kitchen monkey is an absolute revelation to me – the food is restaurant delicious, quick to prepare and nutritious. It has all the advantages of having your Mum cook for you, without having to tidy your bedroom” Take back the quality time in your life for the important things you need to do or for just your own leisure and well being! Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/29 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/28 A mini and a monkey! I have had my fair share of cars, but I have to say that I really have only changed my car when the need was there. My first car was a beautiful fun filled little mini 1000 which I loved to bits as everyone does their very first car. I had saved up for months to buy it, literally paying my board to my parents and then putting aside the rest. I remember paying just over £100 for it which I have to say was a lot of money then. A lovely white mini 1000 D registration (the original D registration that is, I hope I am not sounding old as it wasn’t that long ago, believe it or not). It wasn’t immaculate either it did have rust on it, but as my dad said I was a women first and also it was my first car, so why give me a sparkling new car which I would scratch or bump while I got use to the whole driving experiences of my driving independence. My father was a practical man, very fair and he had morals, which is why he had me save for that car out of my own hard grafted cash. It’s a lesson his father had taught him and a lesson he passed on to me. A lesson of respect for your own independence and money, along with the responsibility of it all which goes with it, one that is a hard lesson to be learnt by some. That little car was my pride and joy, (as a further note I did actually pass my driving test first time which lost my dad his bet, and it was snowing hard to the day I took my test, they didn’t cancel your test in those days due to bad weather). I would polish, wax and clean that car religiously, why? because it was mine and I had worked hard to get it. Both in earning the money for lessons and the test and then earning the money to buy the car plus I wanted my dad to be proud of me too so I could show him I had learnt from him. I went everywhere in that little car, on one occasion the mini would be full of my friends as we went off on days trips. I remember distinctly once flying over a canal bridge in a back country road once on our way to the Zoo for a day, only doing 30 miles a hour however, the mini flew literally over this bridge like something out of the Italian job film. We all hit our heads on the ceiling as the car landed. I even drove out in the snow which was the depth of bus stop tops and just one tunnel open in my little white mini, it never let me down. My friend nearly had heart attack with me once when we were out on a Saturday morning driving down country lanes to visit a friend, when I drove around a 90 degree bend only to have a huntsman on horseback come flying over the hedge. The horse’s hoofs hit the bonnet and carried on over the hedge the other side of the road and off. We sat there watching in amazement as all these horses and riders piled over the hedges onto the road with the dogs and back over the hedge the other side. After they had all gone and we felt it was safe to get out of the car a farmer came over to us to ask if we were ok, who was following the hunt. We were of course, just shocked but the poor mini had another scare to its decor. We were amazed how no one had got hurt really including the horse. I remember coming home from work one night in the mini and at that point I use to have 2 other friends whom I worked with in the car with me. As we car shared to save money (and that was before the petrol prices of today). We were driving along a very long straight piece of country road when suddenly there was a dragging noise. When I pulled over and got out, the boot lid had come off and was being dragged along behind us. So I drove around for a couple of months at least with the boot tied on to the car. Then when I was out with my best friend on a Sunday afternoon, after we had treated ourselves and had a lovely day out at the local town carnival. We had had a great time. Driving back gossiping away, as there was so much to talk about when suddenly, the bonnet flew up for no reason and blocked my vision as I screeched to a halt. My poor little mini now it was tied up both ends it was then when I knew its days were numbered and this little car would have to go. I remember my Dad looking over the mini (did you name your car by the way???); he told me it was dangerous and that it needed scrapping. I was broken hearted and I welled up when I saw it loaded on the trailer for the car scrap yard. My poor little mini, but boy what fun and memories I had in it. I have to say I want on to have more minis (cars that is) and even brought a classic mini which I kept and brought out to attend mini rallies for years until I hadn’t the room but it was fun, just like the car. What are your first car memories, let us know. Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/28 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/27 Its Childs Play Monkeying around at the Nursery! I continued to work after having children I didn’t have the luxury of being able to stay at home and so my children attended nursery from the age of 3 months when I had to return to work. This can be a very traumatic time for mums and their babies, nothing seems to be simple, from if your breast feeding do you continue, every time you leave the house you have to take everything including the kitchen sink and the guilt on leaving them behind with someone else. Having more than one child, no two are the same and what happens with one will not necessarily be the case with your other children. The nurseries I used were marvellous and I really feel that my children developed their social skills and confidence especially from this. All my children are sociable they never had tantrums, plus they went to school being able to write and tie laces etc which was helped by the work of the nursery. The team at kitchenmonkey have rolled up their sleeves and gone back to the nursery. We are presently working together with St Georges Nursery Schools www.stgeorgesnursery.com to cook up full family evening meals for every age, from baby to grandma & granddad and the best bit, the lucky parents get to pick up their evening meals lovingly chef prepared with their lovely little bundles from the nursery at the same time. Talk about convenience I wish that had of been around when my children were at the nursery. We are the first to offer this sort of service. I speak from experience a full day at work and then collecting the little ones, and then the bigger ones, and then heading home, and then you start over again to prepare a meal for all those hungry mouths to feed you have brought home. Well sit back, put your feet up, let our marvellous chefs prepare everything for you and then you can come home and in minutes dinner can be served all wholesome and hearty for all. Then you have time to read that same book little Eddy seems to want every night and no other book will do, play with Emma who wants to show you her latest gymnastics moves she learnt, attempt to do Alan’s maths homework (and if you can keep up with the syllabus today, you are better than the majority of us) and that’s before he gets his IT homework out. Fill in the endless school permission forms you have to complete. Prepare the lunch boxes etc ready, along with the PE & Sports kits, (some of us constantly have the washing machines in motion don’t we), make up those bubble baths for bath time for them all, and then don’t forget the washing up (unless you’re lucky enough to have a dish washer,’ that’s the man of the house with marigolds on’). Then guess what, because you had time to do all the above and because we took care of dinner for you, the children are all fed and watered, warm and washed, and in bed and settled, and now you can have time for you, what a bonus in this busy life we all lead!! Enjoy! Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/27 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/26 AhOy there, have you done this before!! Have the roads been quite this week did you notice?? Well if you didn’t know it has been half term for the schools, colleges and universities this week. Have they driven you made yet with’ I’m bored’, or the fact that they have sat in front of the play station for hours without a word, only game speak. Or the loud music from the bedroom as Emily try’s to master the latest dance routine with her friends and Tommy try’s out his half learnt guns & roses track he’s been trying to master on his electric guitar, which your sister thought might be fun to buy him for Christmas! Shame she’s not here, to ‘hear’ the wonderful noises too! Yes I have both boys & girls. Well with half term for the schools etc nearly over, alot of people’s thoughts start turning now to holidays. I find it quite amazing how we have half term in February, yet most tourist attractions are still closed and do not open until Easter. Talking with my bestest friend she was recalling our adventure on the canals, how simple it was and how much fun all of us had, and you guessed it, it turned into a night of it, if you get my meaning. We went on a canal holiday in April, I had been planning my daughter’s wedding and that’s another story for another day. I was exhausted and really looking forward to a break. We planned a holiday for 7 whole days on a narrow boat on the Llangollen canal. Having only been on trips on boats before, and had the odd day boat on the Norfolk broads plus the school canal trip; this was something none of us had done before. My son was less than enthusiastic, no TV he said, no plugs for my play station, no gym for me to train in, you could see the panic in his eyes, ’I’m stuck with the old biddies for a whole week’. I on the other hand kept thinking ‘peace and quiet’, but if he wasn’t going to enjoy it, did make me apprehensive. Well we had a 58’ narrow boat and I have to say it was like home from home. The boat had heating, fully fitted kitchen and bathroom and space surprisingly. We were all given a quick guide on what to do along with a manual and code to the laws of the canal etc. We had been reading up on this from literature which the narrow boat company had sent to us with our booking material http://www.black-prince.com/ So off we went, it was cold we were all wrapped up and standing at the stern at the helm (where you steer), and the boat looked huge from here. I have towed caravans for years and some of them very long, but having all this boat in front of you somehow made the boat look even longer. http://www.caravanclub.co.uk/ I suppose it’s like driving a lorry or bus, but with water you cannot stop. The flow of the water still allows you to travel, even if you wanted to stop instantly, something alot of people forget when boating. I had my elderly mum and teenage son who incidentally sprung into action to become captain. We didn’t go far that first day having picked a week route appropriate for beginners. We moored outside of a canal side public house, another first our first mooring. But like everything, once you have done it once you have a routine and your away. We had a meal in the pub that night with other boaters and had a marvellous night. In fact to paint the picture properly, all of us laughed that much listening to tales of boating, even the landlord had joined in, that we had stitch. The next day was glorious sun, but cold you needed layers on. Out and about we mastered our first individual lock my son ran down the tow path to open the lock and watched me steer in as he opened and closed them in order to manoeuvre this huge boat through the lock. We stopped for a break and to eat, it was so quite. We had seen so many things and met so many nice people. Everyone spoke to you as you passed them, whether another boater or someone out walking the dog on the tow path. I can remember when caravanning was like this too. We all loved the experience and hadn’t missed any TV etc as I thought my son would. We were having fun with board games and cards, listening to the radio which brought back alot of memories for my mother, and talking to people we met each day and night. We travelled up and down the Llangollen canal, if you ever get the chance to do this please do. The views are spectacular. We saw so much wild life, kingfishers, squirrels, buzzards allsorts, I nearly had my head took off by a barn owl while at the helm one evening before mooring; they have such a wing span. We crossed the famous aqueduct which Thomas Telford built in 1805. This via duct is 38m (126’) in the air the width of a single narrow boat (the canal part is literally only this with inches each side) and a small walk way for people to walk across in single file, http://www.horsedrawnboats.co.uk/aqueduct-cruises.asp My mother was petrified and hid inside the narrow boat, my son and I Ioved it and would not have missed the views for anything. We had a fabulous 7 days on the canal, we were all so relaxed, no traffic or noise, the pace of life is so relaxing, my son found a new found love for running, which we did every morning and night along the canal paths. He had forgot how much fun you can have without the TV etc and to actually talk and have a conversation and play cards and board games. The fresh air had done all of us the world of good and we actually looked like we had been away abroad, despite how cold it had been. We had every weather possible and in one particular day at one set of locks, we had been out in the sun, rain and then the snow. We had woken up to everywhere being white over and frozen on more than one occasion. One thing we all said was how every single view out of boat, every minute was different like watching a painting change continually. Oh and the characters and people we met were fantastic and very memorable. If you thinking about a holiday like this, give it a go! It might surprise you and even hook you. Don’t forget we at kitchenmonkey.co.uk can help you still further by delivering your order to your boat for you, for everyone to while your all enjoying your holiday further. Happy holiday planning! Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/26 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/25 Monkey scores a try at rugby six nations 2008!! With the Rugby six nations in full swing, our kitchenmonkey.co.uk guide can help you explain some of those mysterious phrases and positions you hear mentioned: Rugby a game played by 15 men with odd shape balls (well I had to start by breaking the ice didn’t I?) The pack or forwards are 8 hansom burly guys who you would want your daughters to marry The front row consists of 2 props & a hooker: Props are strapping men who support the hooker (but no money exchanges hands) Hooker stands between the 2 props to secure the ball for his team Second row also known as locks, are 2 guys who are often the tall power men of the pack, who are the driving engines throughout the game. They can be found working deep in the scrum, in the line out or behind the front row. The back row consists of 2 flankers and a number 8: Flankers have to be quick and are used to get under the ball and disrupt the field of play Number 8 you can find him at the back of the scrum, he controls the scrum and must be powerful and fast at the same time The rest of the team are the 7 guys known as the backs they are made up of: Scrum halve distributes the ball and kicks Fly halve, first of the backs, like Johnny Wilkinson, the man with the Foot Centres another pair of the back guys, who must be power runners to get the ball to wings Wings are 2 back guys ideally the fastest men on the team, they score with the ball And finally the Full back, a guy who can catch and kick is the last in the line of defence Within the game of Rugby there are 3 ways of scoring points, they are by drop goal ( 3 points), penalty (3 points) or scoring a try (5 points) and extra points can be scored in a try if you convert this by kicking between the sticks for 2 points (these are posts to you or I). The Game is played in 2 halves of 40 minutes sessions with manoeuvres such as: Scrum (test of strength between the 2 teams), rook (free for all brawl when the ball is placed on the ground), maul (free for all brawl where the ball is kept in the air), line out (ball has gone out of the field of play and thrown in to 2 lines of players to try to obtain possession of the ball), penalties & free kicks (given by the referee when a infringement of the rugby laws are committed and the sinbin is where you are sent) So now you are all armed and dangerous and your secret is safe with me. So wait until that precise moment, (remember timing is everything) during the next rugby game and impress those around you by dropping a line like, ”that should of been a penalty when the fly half committed an infringement at the rook, just a shame is was on the referee’s blind side ”, and watch their faces drop in amazement around you. (Ladies or gentlemen I have to say that this is a superb chat up line to impress that special someone you have had you eye on for this valentines!) Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/25 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/24 Laughter is the best medicine!!! Firstly can we congratulate The Leicester Comedy Festival http://www.comedy-festival.co.uk on their 15th Birthday? Running from the 8th to 17th February 2008 in Leicestershire it is said that 60,000 people will attend the 60 separate venues which are covering 230 events and alot of laughs later! Well done you have the UK’s longest running comedy festival. In light of all this laughter I was listening to BBC radio Leicester http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/local_radio this morning who were passing comments on some rather funny jokes this morning. One which made me laugh while listening to Ben Jackson and stuck in a horrendous long line of traffic was: God & the devil decided to have a football match; they prepared their teams and had a bet on the outcome. God placed a moderate bet but the devil bet everything he had on to win. God questioned the devil saying ‘I cannot believe you have bet everything on winning this football match as I have all the best players’, the devil replied ’ I know you have all the best players, but I have all the referees!’. We were featured on the Ben Jackson show on Monday did you hear all of us? You can hear the team cooking up some scrumptious welsh dragon in our kitchen on radio Leicester, play it again. Talking about being stuck in traffic queues. Yesterday I was in standing traffic as the sun was coming up and I have to say it was a beautiful sun rise yesterday and hard to believe it was actually February. When a Flock of starlings caught my eye, I watched them for what must have been 15 minutes while we were at a standstill. These birds performed their aerial act for all to see and its quite spectacular as you see the shapes they make in the sky change, darken and then again when they fall from the sky just like sand falls from your fingers, it’s quite something!. I wonder how many people spotted this event or were they cursing and clock watching due to the traffic holdups. Send our team your favourite joke, we always enter jokes upon our newsletters so we would love to hear from you with your jokes. Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/24 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/23 Monkey Smell, Monkey See and Monkey Eat!!! Talking with friends recently we enjoyed one of those terrific evenings over a glass of wine and great food from our range, we were recalling our funny past memories and moments. It’s on occasions like this that you truly appreciate how lucky you are to have such terrific family, friends, and colleagues around you! We were talking about how a smell, a particular food dish, a place or even a tune for example can make you recall a magic moment! For instance when I smell bread and cakes cooking, I can see my gran, as if it were yesterday. There she is in her best flowery piny (apron as its known today) in full cookery mode in her small but loving farmhouse kitchen. Big cooking pots on the agar, a roaring fire in the open fire place where a kettle hung. Strings of onions hung for drying in the corner. Rows of big plates and dishes displayed upon her dresser. The kettle was always on, ready to mash in an instance if a visitor came along with freshly baked scones too. There would always be that baking smell wafting throughout the kitchen, which filtered throughout the entire house. You could smell my Grans cooking as you walked up the long drive, your mouth would be watering at the thought of what was on offer as soon as you entered the back door. I can remember as a little girl how big that old kitchen farmhouse table was and that I had to stand on tip toe to see what was going on upon the table itself. Gran would grab a stool and placing me on top she would go about wrapping me up in one of her enormous pinnies, so I looked the part, of course! Then she would place me right in the centre of the action. Within moments I would have my hands in a bowl of mixture, have a rolling pin given to me, be peeling vegetables or be simply putting meat through the mincer (do you remember those hand held mincers?). It was a true home cooks kitchen. Fresh vegetables adorned the vegetable basket still intack with the fresh dirt on them, where we had picked or dug them up. Fresh bread was always in the oven or on the bread board. The pantry was full of endless preserves of all vegetables, fruits, jams, pickles, all lovingly hand prepared by Gran so we could enjoy seasonal offerings throughout the year. I use to love doing the paper tops and creating the labels for her to dress the jars. Of course game hung in the pantry the odd rabbit, pheasant even goose was always in there. A tin bowl of fresh eggs was always on the side, some of them were still warm. My Gran taught me how to cook, she made it fun. We had countless sessions at the agar. She taught me about seasonal produce, how to shop, how to preserve and budget for the household. How to grow my own vegetables and what to look for in good produce. I have in turn passed this knowledge on to my children. We are home cooks who prepare wholesome meals for a family no matter what their age or size. I hope my children will pass on this knowledge again to their children for there is many a magic moment made in the process. This like kitchenmonkey.co.uk is what a true food lover would try to promote, but we are busy today and do not always have the time to do everything, but at least with our kitchenmonkey.co.uk’s meals you could spent the time baking and creating memories while still enjoying the home cooked value of our range just as my gran made for me. Send me your food memories to jacqui@kitchenmonkey.co.uk the team would love to hear them. Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/23 http://www.kitchenmonkey.co.uk/news-details/22 Early morning monkey business!!!! Well have you ever had that feeling when you’re woken by your alarm clock only to feel like you had literally just got in to your bed? Well I had this only last week literally when I was woken at 2.00am (yes I did say 2.00am) to get up to go to work. The house was pitch black and cold, the heating doesn’t come on until 5.30am and I had forgotten to change it. It really felt like I had just gone to bed ,as I had been up the previous night with my son revising and helping him complete a final piece of coursework for his exams he about to start until 10.30pm. I remember sneaking about, but the more you do this the louder you actually are. After showering and rushing a quick cup of tea I ventured out into the darkness. It was a cold, dark, wet Monday morning and still pitch dark. I started driving towards Leicester it was strange driving on deserted roads. It was only when I reached the main motorways and roads that other cars started appearing. It always makes me wonder where people are going at that time of the morning, are they to off to work? or possibly on their way home? As you reach the city limits suddenly there are traffic lights stopping you, it amazing how vulnerable you feel being the only car stationary at a city centre set of traffic lights and I remember reaching over to hit the internal door lock switch to lock my doors. As I reached the centre of Leicester I was joined by a queue of cars, it was obvious we were all going in the same direction as we pulled in to the dairies car park. Yes you guessed it, I had volunteered to spent 2 days (or should I say nights? Not sure) working as a Milk lady. I was actually going to be working, milk rounds with two marvellous people a milk lady and a milkman on two separate rounds one covering the county villages and the other covering the city centre. Here I was, still in the pitch dark of around 3.35am as I entered the dairy gates with the other milkmen/ladies dressed in 3 layers, waterproofs, scarf, hat and gloves and including walking boots, but as I mentioned it was raining and cold. We meet up in a meeting room where we all obtained our computers which detailed our rounds and the orders needed for the days deliveries. This room was a hive of activity but little chatter. Here was Clive who was there to check in each rounds person and make sure everything ran smoothly. He marked me in and I was paired up with my partner for the day Milk lady Jo Chigwell. We were about to go on the country rounds covering Billesdon out to market Harborough and the Langtons from the A47 to the A6. It was abit like playing bingo as we waited for our round number to be called, so we could move forward to collect the milk float and goods as you were allowed through in groups, so as not to congest the warehouse, almost like a drive in. We wrote out our good tickets, detailing all the milk and produce required for our round that day. Suddenly Clive called our round number and we sprung into action at 3.50am. Searching for the float we cleared the back of the float so we had a number of empty crates in place. We then joined the queue of milk floats filing through the warehouse in single file. It was like a scene at a drive in, only with milk floats. It was cold, the inside of the windows were steamed up, and the windows were left open so you never got too warm before you had to start getting in and out of the float to deliver the milk. As we entered the first stage we collected the school milk and the small portion bottles which some parents order for packed lunches for their children. Then we reached the stores where we handed over our completed stock forms for items of dry produce like bread, eggs and chilled items etc. We placed these items in to the empty crates for safe keeping while travelling. We moved on reaching an area which was small and very tight to say the least, but somehow they all manoeuvred their milk floats to back in to this area completing eight delivery bays. From here as before we hand loaded the milk. I have to mention, you really do not appreciate how heavy a full crate of milk is until you lift one. We loaded the float now to two crates high of skimmed, semi-skimmed, gold top, organic, full milk the varieties were endless. We then joined a further queue where we obtained items like pints of fruit juice etc to complete the stock required for our round. Our last queue was where we were inspected, for audit purposes to make sure everything was in order by George. What a fantastic character George was, he had been with the dairy for 36 years and due for retirement soon. He started as a milkman and worked his way up to supervisor and manager. He was on hand for every member of the staff and he knew everything, he had the final word with everyone as they leave the light of the covered warehouse area to venture out in to the dark pitch-black of the early morning. I couldn’t really believe it when I looked at me watch and it was 4.05am we had ran around to load the float and I thought we had been ages, but it turned out to be a mere 10 minutes, which just shows how good they are at undertaking this mammoth task every morning of loading 118 milk floats in turn. We were leaving the dairy, a line of floats all following each other as we travelled through Leicester to get to the A47. The floats broke off from one another as if in formation like a dance troupe performing sequence dancing. As we left the light of the city out into the country all we had was the headlights of the float and then suddenly Jo pulled up at our first port of call which was a garden centre. I was just amazed as you couldn’t see anything literally, nor were the country lanes well lit or signed. We jumped out and I recall Jo saying ‘bring 2 pints of semi-skimmed’. As I glanced down at the crates on the float that was easier said than done, as it was so dark you couldn’t see the colours of the milk tops, even if I did know I was looking for red milk tops. There I was a small torch in my mouth , held by my teeth, while I found the milk to follow Jo to the individual destinations of each customer’s pint of milk, of which, some are very strange places I have to say. Then as I placed the bottles down trying to be a quiet as possible, I saw what seemed a staggering amount of empty bottles. I heard Jo behind me ‘its Monday were going to get alot of empty bottles from the weekend’s delivery’, she said. I had a bottle on each finger at this point and I remember saying to myself ‘please don’t drop them!!!’ Jo was laughing as we returned to the float. I had taken off my gloves by now; there is no way you can pick up milk bottles like that, on gloved hands. I asked what was so funny and she said ‘you can tell your new at this, sneaking about’, ‘I remember doing that when I started 3 years ago’. She said ‘not only do you look silly, sneaking around; you actually make more noise than you do if you just get on with it’. We were both laughing now as we got back in, to move on to the next port of call. No one can explain how dark and cold it is that time of the morning, during this time of the year, you see no one, well Jo didn’t anyway. The deliveries were so far apart, and some places we arrived at a drive and then walked what seemed like half a mile up a pot holed road only to find a note at the end saying, you guessed it ‘no milk today Jo thank you’. It was quite a lonely job; there is no one to talk too or to ask, like someone in an office would do by running up the corridor. Jo explained she loved her role as a milk lady and it enabled her to follow her passion for horses, which is no different to a mother working part-time to fit around the children. It was quite an experience, watching the dawn come up and the birds start their dawn chorus. We were cold and very wet, but we scaled driveways like Everest and negotiated long drives like a rally drivers dream rally run. We hid milk in numerous places, as requested by the customers. We called in to the smallest of hamlets just to deliver milk to 1 or 2 door steps. I really felt, we didn’t truly appreciate the excellence in customer service these guys actually give to the customer. I personally have the milkman as my mother and grandmother did before me and has my daughter does because I do. It’s a tradition and service with a personal touch which I like others very much enjoy. As it started to get lighter and I mean now it was only 7.00am small villages started to come alive with the paper boys delivering and people leaving their drives to go to work? It was during this last 3 hours of the round Jo gets to speak to almost most of her remaining customers as they greet her to collect their milk for their breakfast at farmhouse gates etc. It was amazing to watch people’s reactions when they saw me and I was questioned ‘if Jo was ok? was Jo ill?’ They really cared about Jo and obviously looked forward to their quick minute chat with her each morning. Jo like the other milkman/ladies are a lifeline to some customers who never see anyone all day long. It was hard work, as any manual job lifting etc. It was harder dealing with the elements of the dark and weather, which they cope with throughout the year. It was great to see the scenery as the dawn broke, I would imagine in the summer that this is quite a sight. The people I met were terrific. As we completed the round we started heading back towards the diary. It was now 9.30am; obviously we were finishing our shift as everyone else starts their work. As we headed back towards the dairy it didn’t take long before we were in line again, a line of floats. On the return to the dairy you then had to return undelivered stock and audit this accordingly, clean up the float and park it ready for the next day. Update the computer with notes from customers of no delivery as away next week, or can I have an extra 2 pints on Friday etc. All the necessary paperwork has to be accounted for and handed in and each computer docked for recharge. This is when were met by another manager Ken who takes care of everyone returning. This in turn, is when another queue appears, of the milkmen/ladies on their way home. I looked down, I was muddy, wet through and very cold but I had enjoyed the experience and can really appreciate the marvellous job they all do. The next day I was back for more the difference was quite dramatic. This time I joined Jason Thomas on a city round. Again we went through the same