Category Archives: Food & Drink

How To Make the Best Pork Crackling

If you are a fan of pork crackling but struggle to get it as crispy as you might like it then, having tried various experiments, we have come up with a couple of key ways to get your pork crackling well, crackling rather than breaking your teeth with a dull crunch or worse still a chew.

The key to getting the skin to crackle is to have it as dry as possible before putting it in the own. This can be done in a number of ways but one way to give it a head start is to take the pork joint out of it’s wrapping the night before roasting  and leaving it open in the fridge overnight.

The next day pat the skin down with a paper towel to take any extra moisture off, score the skin with a very sharp knife (but don’t cut down into the flesh) and rub with sea salt. Then the joint is ready to go in the oven.

When first cooking, put the oven on to a high setting (240 degrees or so) and cook for 20 minutes at that setting before turning the oven down to 160 degrees. Whilst the oven is cooling take the joint out and rub with fat (we used left over chicken fat) and more salt. Return to the oven for cooking slowly (35 minutes per 500g). Leave the joint to rest for 15 minutes after cooking.

Cheap Bottled Water

It is important for people to drink enough water but unfortunately some people can be against drinking tap water – whether that be from the taste or the fact that we may not know exactly what chemicals go into our tap water which can be slightly worrying. Although all tap water in the US and UK must meet certain standards, there are some people who, for their own reasons, prefer to drink bottled water. Whether or not bottled water is better for us can be disputed but it looks like bottled water is here to stay for the time being at least.

Personally I have different preferences depending on which country I am in at the time, as tap water tastes different in each country. I would prefer to drink tap water wherever it tastes OK, but maybe in some countries where I am not aware of what is being added to the water I feel like it is advisable to be a bit cautious on this.

However, there is a solution which means that you can drink tap water and filter it while you drink it, so that it tastes and is as ‘clean’ as bottled water, but without the waste of throwing away the empty bottle, and I will give details of this below.

Bottled Water – Too Much Waste

However, I do have an issue with bottled water in that it just produces far too much waste. Bottled water is amongst the highest rising beverage in terms of sales over the last few decades. Although the bottles are recyclable, the incidence of people recycling water bottles is quite low in the USA in particular, but also in other countries. This means that the build up of plastic waste is excessive. Over 50 billion bottles of water are consumed in the US every year and this figure is rising and not enough of these bottles are being recycled. So it is important that we find a way either to recycle more water bottles or to use less of them.

Drinking Filtered Tap Water

So here is a revolutionary new way to effectively drink bottled water, but to drink it out of your tap, and not have the problem of having to keep recycling the bottles, or producing lots of plastic waste.

This new product is called the Bobble and it is an FDA approved, BPA free, refillable, reusable and recyclable bottle that you can use as much as you like.

To use the Bobble, you just fill it up with tap water – it is like a sports water bottle and whenever you drink out of it, it automatically filters the water as you drink it. The filtered water meets all of the FDA standards for drinking water and the filter eliminates toxins and chemicals such as chlorine as well as other organic contaminants.

Each filter lasts for around 2 months or 300 fills of the bottle and is fully recyclable itself. The Bobble comes in 3 sizes, and for around $10 or under you can get the equivalent of 300 bottles of water – so effectively a price of under 4c a bottle, so this also makes financial sense if you are used to buying bottled water.

Check out the links for the Bobble in the UK and the US below:

          

Calorie Free Sugar

If you are struggling to reduce the amount of sugar that you eat – whether that be in tea and coffee, on cereal etc – then there is an alternative available that is both free from calories and also does not contain any artificial sweeteners.

This also benefits those who are trying to get pregnant, or who are pregnant (or in fact anyone), who are not happy with the possible side effects of manufactured sweeteners like aspartame or saccharin. Although there have been no proven links to artificial sweeteners causing cancer or problems in pregnancy, rumours still abound and some feel it is better to be safe than sorry and not to use artificial products in excess.

The new sweeteners are made from the stevia leaf and  so are a completely natural product. Products such as Truvia are now available and they taste very much like sugar, but without the calories, albeit at a much higher price.

The stevia leaves are steeped in water, like when you make tea, which brings out the sweet flavour. The resultant granules are actually much sweeter than sugar in terms of how much you need to use. Just adding a third of a teaspoon of Truvia is like adding a full teaspoon of sugar into your daily brew.

 

Making Easter Eggs

if you are thinking of making your own Easter eggs then now if the time to make sure that you have everything that you need. There are loads of molds/moulds available either in just the usual egg shape or else you can go for something else and make say, a chocolate Easter bunny.

Ordering your moulds from somewhere like Amazon means that you can get the molds at the best prices and in time for you to start making your chocolate eggs before Easter is upon us.

Making Easter eggs with the kids can be great fun whether you make a whole host of small eggs maybe for a treasure hunt or if you make big Easter eggs for friends and family.

Check out more info about How to Make Your Own Easter Eggs or check out a couple of ideas below for chocolate moulds that are maybe a bit different from your standard Easter egg mold.

Cheap Turkey

Well Christmas is upon us again and the majority of households will probably be eating turkey for their christmas dinner. However, when times are hard as they are for a lot of people right now, one question people might be asking is where to buy a cheap turkey?

Turkey can be quite expensive to buy and if you want a free range or farm turkey then you can be paying tens of pounds for a quality bird. But there are some cheaper options available and one of those is to get a frozen turkey as that can often be a good way of getting a cheap turkey.

Iceland have plenty of options for buying cheap turkey and so that would be my recommendation if you are in the UK. You can buy a turkey breast joint for as little as £6 upwards or even a whole turkey for £8 which will serve 4 to 6 people. They have plenty of other frozen joints too which will be great for a Christmas meal for the family.

So you don’t have to break the bank for Christmas this year if you get down to Iceland for cheap turkey before they sell out!