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Food and Drink

10 Sweets From Your Childhood That Will Make You Feel Nostalgic

Who remembers going to their local sweet shop, picking up a little white paper bag and filling it with delicious penny sweets? I certainly do! It was the highlight of my day!

Here are just ten of my childhood favourites, which I’m happy to say you can buy online from retailers like A Quarter Of.

1. Barratts Shrimps

Old fashioned sweets - Barretts Shrimps

Just looking at these delicious sweet, pink shrimps takes me back to the mid-1970s. They were soft, sugary and well… delicious!

2. Double Dips

Retro sweets - Double Dips
I remember these Double-Dips fondly;  walking home from school, dipping away!  These days, you can even get cherry, orange and cola flavour fizz dips.

3. Parma Violets

1970's sweets - Parma Violets
I can actually taste and smell these Parma Violets just by looking at this picture.

4. Anglo Bubbly

Classic Anglo Bubbly - Bubble Gum
What a classic! So many of us kids thought we were cool and grown up if we were allowed a Bubbly!

5. Milk Teeth

Old Fashioned Sweets - Milk Teeth
Admit it… did you also pretend you had a pair of false teeth every time you bought these old fashioned milk teeth? I can taste them now, they had a very light coating of sugar on the outside too. Scrumptious!

6. Barratt’s Fruit Salad Chew Bars

Barratt Fruit Salad Chew Bars
Does your mouth just ooze saliva when you think back to how great these fruit salad bars tasted? They were raspberry and pineapple flavoured, and when you were a small child, they looked massive!

7. Mr Tabs Mini Candy Bricks

Retro Sweets - Mr Tabs Mini Candy Bricks
Mr Tabs Mini Candy Bricks looked like mini colourful bricks which were packed with delicious fruity flavours and wrapped in a delicate little wrapper.

8. Candy Watches

1970's Sweets - Candy Watches
Who remembers nibbling these candy watches? They came on a little piece of white elastic which you placed on your wrist whilst so you could eat and play at the same time! If I recall correctly, they also made a candy necklace.

9. Matlows Refreshers Chew

Matlow's Refreshers Chew
These classic chews will certainly bring memories flooding back. The chew was yellow in colour and right in the centre you’d find a wonderful fizz. I remember these tasty chews being a wonderful lemony flavour.

10. Flying Saucers

Sherbet Flying Saucers
How could I not include sherbet flying saucers? These were a must when you were a young child, they came in various colours and consisted of fruit flavour sherbet in a wafer shell. No visit to the sweet shop was complete unless you had a couple of these.

Well, there you have it, ten wonderful, sugary, fizzing and tasty sweets to bring back your childhood memories.

I’m pleased to say that all of the above can now still be bought online from this amazing online shop called ‘A Quarter Of‘. Believe me, you’ll certainly be amazed by the huge collection they have and the best thing of all is that they are still so cheap to buy.

Happy memories one and all.

Fun Chocolate Treats You Can Make with Your Kids

Fun Chocolate Treats You Can Make with Your Kids
Photo: foilman cc

Baking and cooking with your kids is a great way to bond with them and have fun together. Kids just love getting messy in the kitchen, and they love the responsibility you give them even more.

By baking and cooking with kids, you can teach them the value of food and the skills required to support themselves when they’re older. If your kids love making potions in the bathroom, show them how they can make a potion in the kitchen that turns into something edible!

Almost all children love chocolate and some of the easiest things to bake with kids contain chocolate. Anything with melted chocolate is double the fun because it creates a gooey mess. But don’t forget you can teach your kids how to be clean and tidy in the kitchen too.

Try making some of these delicious chocolate treats that just about anyone can make whether they’re 5 or 85.

Chocolate Nests

Fun Chocolate Treats You Can Make with Your Kids
Photo: tompagenet, cc

These chocolate treats are so easy any adult or child can make them. If you want to get the kids into the kitchen, but you’re not very confident with your skills, these are simple enough for anyone to do.

All you need is chocolate and cereal, and maybe some treats to decorate. Pick whichever cereal you like, but since you’re mixing it with chocolate, don’t go too sweet. You can use Rice Krispies, corn flakes or even bran flakes.Just melt the chocolate (it’s best to do it in a bowl over another bowl or saucepan of hot water), mix it into the cereal and spoon it into cupcake cases. Add some decorations (chocolate eggs are great for Easter) and put them in the fridge to set.

Chocolate Cupcakes

Chocolate cupcakes are also easy enough for the kids to help out. They’ll need a bit of a helping hand with measuring, breaking eggs and handling anything hot, but they can do a lot of the tasks involved.

Have the kids mix, measure and pour, and they’ll feel so proud of themselves for helping in the kitchen. Once the cupcakes are out of the oven and have cooled down, let the kids have fun with decorating.

They may not be the prettiest cupcakes ever, but they’ll be a great achievement for your children.

Chocolate Brownies

Fun Chocolate Treats You Can Make with Your Kids
Photo: chatirygirl, cc

Brownies are another easy thing to put together with the kids. You can buy a ready made brownie mix, or you can be a bit more daring and start from scratch. For extremely sumptuous brownies, use a good quality dark Italian chocolate, instead of just cocoa powder.

You can have all kinds of fun with brownies too – they don’t have to be just plain chocolate. Try adding popping candy for a giggly time. You can use nuts, caramel, marshmallow and peanut butter. There’s no limit to the different flavors you can add to your brownies. You can even try blondies – brownies with white chocolate.

When you’re baking with the kids, make sure they’re supervised with anything hot or sharp. Baking should be fun, not cause for a trip to the ER.

Edible Flowers – Spice up Your Summer Cooking

Flour is not the only kind of flower that can be used in your recipes. No, that isn’t a typo – your garden is home to some fantastic ingredients and very tasty ones at that. Summer time is awash with colour and food stuffs that are not only attractive to bees.

If you are looking to do something different with your picnic or barbecue this summer then you need look no further than your garden. Of course, the best thing about using flowers as a garnish or seasoning – they contain no calories or fat!

For a beginner the easiest thing to do is using them in a salad. Not only do they make an average salad look stunning but they add a new flavour too. Most petals have a peppery taste, others a bitter taste that accompanies the other flavours in your salad.

Rose Petals, Nasturtiums, Dandelions, sunflowers… they all have qualities that add another dimension to your cooking. They can add a sweet or spicy flavour to a classic dish and can give it a contemporary twist and a great game to play over dinner – guess the ingredient! This will have your guests guessing for hours.

A nice entrée to a meal are stuffed courgette/zucchini flowers they are delicious if they are stuffed with ricotta and chilli. Dip them in batter and fry until golden and serve with a side salad and they are different take on a traditional starter.

Panna CottaIf you are looking for an impressive desert then look no further than this take on a classic summertime dessert Rose Petal Panna Cotta with Damson and Lavender Shortbread from Chef Francis Atkins conjures up sunny days even with just the title alone.

As a delicious accompaniment for a picnic, you can always try flat bread made with olive oil, asparagus, and cheese, topped off with chive flowers – you have created the perfect picnic pizza!

If you are feeling extra creative you can sugar frost your flowers to use as a garnish or decorate a dessert with. Violets and miniature pansies are good to use for this; of course, it takes a longer period of time but worth doing if you are looking for something a little extra special.

Flowers always look great on a cheeseboard and can be used to enhance the flavour as you would a pickle.  Or as a different entrée try making goat’s cheese balls with calendula petals on top – these are a lovely contrast against the white background of the cheese and are the perfect summertime food, most of all they look and taste amazing, especially if served with crostini or crackers.

For a special table talking point why not go all out and serve an amazing cheeseboard where you can use the flowers as a garnish or embed them into the cheese. Whole brie decorated with miniature pansies will look great and very pretty and as before the petals will add a lovely peppery after taste with the cheese.

Who knew we would all have a kitchen garden right on our doorstep? Or on our windowsill for that matter! Why not share your new found love for edible flowers with someone away from home and let them know what they could be sampling? Send them a bouquet with some of the flowers  in and they can try it for themselves? Plus they have a lovely surprise too!

A few things you need to remember are that not all flowers are edible so double check against a reliable source.

Another good place to buy seeds to grow your own or if you wish to buy fresh ones is ‘The Edible Flower Shop’. Remember never pick flowers that have or may have been contaminated by pesticides. The same goes for flowers on the roadside as these will have all kinds of pollution on them from passing traffic.

So you don’t have to be an artisan chef to concoct a ‘different’ meal or side dish, in fact throwing a few petals into a dish is as easy as adding a hint of herb or spice to one of your regular dishes. So this summer why not add a splash of colour and unlock a whole new world of flower food!

Image Sources:
George M. Groutas
deartomedotcom

10 Spooky and Creative Food Ideas for a Halloween Party

Halloween is just a few weeks away, and time will go very quickly, so if you are planning on throwing a party on the scariest night of the year and you’re looking for some inspirational food ideas, here are a few that could help you along.

Halloween Candy Apples

Halloween Candy Apples
What drew me to these lovely creations is the fact that real twigs are used for the candy apple sticks, which I think are more realistic and in-keeping with Halloween than the plain sticks you would use at any other time of the year. For full details on how to make these candy apples visit abeautifulmess.com

Green Witches Fingers

Green Witches Fingers
Well…what can I say! These green witches fingers look absolutely amazing. They’re made by mixing up butter, sugar, egg etc and using almonds for the fingernails. If you take a close look, you should be able to see the blood (made from red decorating gel) under the nails – nice touch. They’re an ideal choice for your menu if you are planning a Halloween party. We sourced this fabulous idea from this site.

Creepy Crawly Brownie Bite Spiders

Brownie Spiders
When I saw these brownie bite spiders I thought “yes!, what a great idea!”, and put them on my ‘to make’ list. I love the way they look so very ‘spiderish’, and the brownie recipe they’re made from looks delicious. The recipe and method to make these can be found here.

Dracula’s Dentures

Dracula's Dentures
I think if you made these and served them on Halloween you’ll get a round of applause. They are such a simple, yet wonderful creative idea for foodies. Here are the full instructions on how to make Dracula’s Dentures!

Halloween Meat Head

Halloween Meat Head
I have to admit when I first saw this I was shocked at how good it looks, and I thought it must be extremely difficult to make. However, after reading how to make it I changed my mind. This is definitely would make a great centrepiece for a Halloween buffet.

Halloween Worms in Dirt

Halloween Worms Recipe
You have to admit it, these worms in dirt look very realistic! The way in which these gross worms are created is by using flexible drinking straws. These worms would be perfect to go on the table especially if you are holding a kids Halloween party (I’d say for children 8 years and above). For full instructions on how to make these Halloween worms just click here.

Chocolate Spider Cake

Chocolate Spider Cake
This chocolate spider cake is very simple to make and yet looks the part. To see how to make this cool spider visit here.

Funny Bones

Funny Bones
I love these funny bones because they are so easy to make and kids love them! For full details on how to make them, click here.

Halloween Bats and Spiders

Halloween Bats and Spiders
These Halloween bats and spiders are sure to amuse both children and adults alike. I love the way licorice is used for the bat wings, such a great and affective idea. Full details on how to make these Halloween Bats and Spiders is here – taste.com.au

Eye Ball Cake Pops

Eye Ball Cake Pops
Yet again, here is a fantastic idea which is very simple to make and looks absolutely wonderful. These great creations were sourced from bakerella.com.

10 Delicious and Spooky Halloween Cupcake Ideas

With Halloween fast approaching we took to the interweb to find some delicious and spooky cupcake recipes.

Cupcakes are all the rage at the moment so it didn’t take too long but it did make us hungry!

Here are pictures of 10 of the best fiendishly tasty cupcakes we could find. A link to the recipe and method is underneath each picture.

Enjoy!

If you know of any great Halloween cupcake recipes please get in touch, we might add it/them to the list.

Creepy Cupcakes

Creepy Cupcakes for Halloween
For the creepy cupcakes recipe click here.

Witchy-Poo Cupcakes

Witchy Poo Halloween Cupcakes Recipe
These super halloween witch cupcakes can be made using the following recipe and techniques here.

Mummy Cupcakes

Mummy Halloween Cupcakes
For the mummy cupcake recipes and decorating technique click here.

Mini Ghost Cupcakes

Mini Ghost Halloween Cupcakes
These dainty little cupcakes will go down a treat. Click here for the recipe.

Broken Glass Cupcakes

Broken Glass Cupcakes
We think these broken glass cupcakes by Martha Stewart are wonderful! Click here for the recipe and technique.

Easy Halloween Worm Cupcakes

Easy Halloween Worm Cupcakes
Kids will absolutely love these ‘worm’ cupcakes. Click here for the recipe.

Jack-O-Lantern Cupcakes

Jack-O-Lantern Cupcakes Recipes
Everyone will enjoy these cupcakes, they are simple, yet effective. Click here for the recipe.

Owl Cupcakes

Owl Cupcakes for Halloween
Kids and adult alike with love these owl cupcakes. Click here for the recipe.

Spider Cupcakes

Spider Cupcakes for Halloween
These spider cupcakes will go down a treat on Halloween night. Click here for the recipe.

Skeleton Cupcakes

Skeleton Cupcakes Recipe
These tasty looking Halloween skeleton cupcakes look delicious. Click here for the recipe.

Leave a comment below to let us know which is your favourite and if you will be making any of these delicious cupcakes on Halloween.

Do not throw away your leftover wine – freeze it

Wine Group: Pizza Wines

‘Can you freeze wine?’ she asked. ‘I don’t know’, I said, but I can soon find out…two minutes later and thanks to the interweb we had the answer – yes you can.

Not that there is ever much wine left in our house, but if there ever is at least we know we can make use of it.

And red and white wine both freeze equally well.

The downside (for many) to freezing wine is that it can only be used for cooking once frozen. This is also a plus side for many.

The easiest way to freeze wine is by pouring it into an ice-cube tray and popping it into the freezer until it’s needed.

In cooking, some of the uses for wine include; adding flavor to sauces, as a poaching liquid or for reductions.

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