Easter

Just a flying visit...

For a change I've not spent the day slaving over a hot stove, instead I've been wading through Easter Eggs and other various seasonal treats.

That's right, who needs to cook on Easter Sunday when we're inundated with eggs and chocolate, I've enough here to last me till... well next Easter. Actually, while I'm here, could someone explain why we celebrate with eggs, it's beyond me?

Anyway, the real reason I'm blogging - I have a confession to make. Back on Ash Wednesday I wrote that I would be giving up on chocolates, sweets and fizzy drinks for lent... well... lets just say it's not gone so well.

But I have a valid reason, it has become a tradition to eat such rubbish on a Thursday afternoon while I present some student radio... I blame Amy (she's a bad influence).

If you do feel let down, please feel free to comment below... but be kind, I have made some progress! But avoiding the good stuff (the stuff that's 'bad' for me) is much harder than this cooking malarkey. 

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is widely associated with food because it is the beginning of Lent. Now, I'm not usually one to carry on with the Shrove Tuesday thing past my pancakes, but this year I have decided to give it a go.

In the interest of my blog and to increase any chances of becoming a master chef I have decided to give up chocolate, sweets and fizzy drinks.

You may ask 'what has this got to do with your cooking blog?' well there is method in my madness because too often I substitute a good meal with a bar of Dairy Milk or a bag of Jelly Beans.

So, fizzy drinks aside, this should lead to me cooking more and consequently needing more lessons - after all I can't live on tomato soup alone.

I'm going to have to be more proactive about my cooking but I am still trying to figure out why I included fizzy drinks?

Oh well, we'll see how long this lasts.

Pancake Day

Well, here's a little treat... I was expecting to be blogging about a simple main course this evening but instead I am tossing up a topical challenge.

It's Shrove Tuesday and if you are anything like me that means it's PANCAKE DAY. Now this occasion crops up every year so you would think that we would all know how to make pancakes? Well I don't, or at least I didn't.

As always there is a cheat to this and buying a ready mix would be easy, just add water give it a shake and you're away, but frankly that would be flipping wrong because that's just not learning to cook. So I'm taking my second lesson and learning how to make pancakes - from scratch.

Now I was expecting to get battered during this lesson... I can't be doing with eggs! Once I'd measured my flour and milk, eggs were required (I thought Mum was yolking). Now I understand that raw meat comes from an animal and all that business but an egg comes from a chicken's backside... and the inside of an egg, well we won't even crack into that... first lesson of the day, don't think to much about the origin of eggs.

Anyway I get over my phobia and crack the egg into the mix.

Here I make mistake number one and decide to whisk the mixture using a fork, which proved to be eggstremely difficult. After a few minutes I was bush whacked so out came the electric whisk, I'm a wimp and technology wins. Lesson two, if it's powered by electricity use it!

Other than that everything about making the mix went swimmingly and my good form continued into the cooking process, until it came to flipping the pancake. Naturally Mum demonstrated the flippin procedure and I followed suit, however my first pancake turned into what can only be described as 'battered'. It was immediately discarded and I started again.

After that my pancakes were raved about and I'm sure certain tasters will leave comments (please leave comments).

I am now unofficially the best tosser in Shropshire.

Toppings at the bottom (don't ask)!

P.S Check out my how to make pancakes video on the recipes page.