Top Tips For Baking With Your Children

Baking with your children always feels like such a good idea to begin with, doesn't it? There's something wonderfully wholesome about donning an apron and showing them how to make food. And if that something happens to be sugary and buttery, then we've already fast-forwarded in our minds to the post-bake sample session that with any luck will involve a hot cup of tea and two minutes peace. To me, that's the point of no return.

The actual process of baking with children though? That's a minefield fit to test the courage of even the bravest soldier. Luckily for you, I've a few brilliant tips from my blogging buddies to hopefully make the experience more #instabaker than a scene resembling the aftermath of a natural disaster, with the attitude to match.

Christmas Gift Guide for Grown-ups

I love Christmas. I love it even more now I'm an adult and can enjoy the indulgent delights of booze-soaked Christmas puddings and warming sips of mulled wine. And there's the food too, of course: spiced, fruit cakes, citrus, sweet treats and deliciously steamy puddings covered in custard or a dollop of cool, whipped cream. That's why for this year's Christmas gift guide, I've chosen to feature the kind of food and drink I'd love to find in my own stocking on Christmas morning. The kid's Christmas lists can wait - this is all about us.

How To Make Homemade Turkish Delight

I absolutely love making yummy treats that I can gift to family to friends at Christmas. A few years ago I made fig, date and onion chutney which I gave away with a little bottle of my red berry liqueur, each wrapped with a twist of festive ribbon and tied with brown labels suitably marked 'Eat Me' and 'Drink Me'.

This is another of my favourites. There always seems something indulgent about Turkish delight. It's something I don't eat all that much throughout the rest of the year but come wintertime, I can't help but make up a batch.

What's more, it's so unbelievably easy! I mean, who has time for faffing when there's mulled wine to be drunk?

How To Make Home-Cooked Potato Peeling Crisps

This recipe for home-cooked potato peeling crisps from BBC Food popped up on my Facebook feed the other day and I knew immediately I had to give them a go. Okay, so they're probably not the healthiest snack in the world, but you need something to crunch on in between slurps of cool, crisp chardonnay, right?

The recipe appealed to me for a number of reasons: they're very simple to make, they require very few ingredients, and they are a great way to use up the peelings leftover from a mashed potato masterpiece.

I'm also hoping that the next time we have friends over for nibbles, it'll make me look like some sort of fantastic snack wizard. Fingers crossed.

Taste Inc - 100% Chargrilled Chicken Fillets - Review

It should be plain to anyone who follows my blog that I'm a big fan of food. And when Taste Inc got in touch and asked me to review their 100% Chargrilled Chicken Fillet portions - Ready To Eat - how could I refuse?

Each of the two flavours I was sent, 'Original' and 'Spicy', came in handy 35g pouches as part of a 5-portion multipack strip so are perfect as an on-the-go snack. 

The Day 'We' Made Apple Pie

Today, I made an apple pie, with the 'assistance' of my three year-old. I know. Brave.

My neighbour had kindly passed on to us a bag of apples and so had my mother-in-law, so I was keen to use them in some way before they turned brown. Admittedly, I didn't make as big a dent in the pile as I'd hoped, but it was a start. I may make jam with the rest.

I chose to follow a basic double-crust pie recipe which mainly exists in my head, but is loosely based on a number of recipes I've picked up from perusing the jumble of books that reside on my dresser.