Sure as eggs is eggs

Well it's Easter and we are all consuming eggs, be it from a chicken or a coca bean.  Perhaps you are even painting them!  Eggs and Easter go hand in hand - the reasons are religious and not for this blog :) 

What I was to talk about is the humble egg, that little oval shaped food stuff that can be part of a quick meal (scrambled perhaps) or wow guests at a dinner party (nothing like a high-topped souffle).   

Converting butter to oil

Butter or olive oil? 

That’s a good question, calorie wise butter seems to do a little better;

Butter = 100 cals per tablespoon (tbsp.):  Olive Oil = 120-130 cals per tbsp.  But fat wise, well you don’t need me to tell you how much worse butter to olive oil. 

I doubt there is an advert in Italy showing a group of elderly British men and women dancing to techno with the caption “butter keeping hearts and joints strong”.  Amusing as that would be it would never happen.

Personally I have a weakness for butter, as a child I would cut of bit of butter and eat it like cheese.  I still have to resist the temptation to put a huge hunk of butter on my hot cross buns or scones.  I just love that buttery tasty ….  

Banana and coconut loaf - an experiment

We had a flurry of birthdays in my office this week and it is tradition for the birthday people to provide cakes and other snacks to celebrate their getting older.  Although I am not sure why the birthday guy or gal should have to bring in the food when it is THEIR birthday - but anyway that's the way it has been and always will be.

So as part of this "fuddle" - a northern term for smorgasbord, collection of food.  It does have another more obvious meaning but in this case it does relate to food ;) - I said I would bake a cake.  I can't remember the exact moment of inspiration, but I fancied making a banana and coconut loaf with limes thrown in for good measure.  

In the scale of

As mentioned in my first post, I wanted to write about the different scales of [x] when cooking.

I love cooking, but I know a lot of people don't or only do it as a necessity.  While I don't want to convert anyone who really doesn't like cooking I hope that you readers will get a better idea on how long and or easy it is to cook something.  But I have also added a more personal scale, the scale of smug.  Just how pleased are you at the end of making something.  I will give examples to help you understand my thought process – lists are by no means exhaustive.  So let’s begin...

Carrots and Potatoes

The exercise I am about to write about was the main inspiration for this site.  After a comment on a friends upload on Facebook, I got thinking about “is it really more expensive to buy from a farmers market than a supermarket?”.

The comment wasn’t directly saying that, but the gist of it was “it’s alright to be picky if you have money.  Try shopping when your'e on benefits”.  This is not the first time I have seen such comments, the BBC Have your say is always full of these sorts of comments.  People assume because there is a small amount produced by a smaller farm that it must be more expensive.  (There are those people who are just food snobs and love nothing more than to show off at how they can afford to shop at these markets.)  HYS can be amusing at times, with these extreem views from either side.

So back to the point, which was, I honestly didn’t know if buying veg from the market was more expensive than at supermarket and wanted to find out.

My first attempt proved very interesting.

Welcome!

Welcome, welcome!

Welcome to this food blog, unlike most (well perhaps some, ok quite a few) food blogs, I am not going to be talking about what I eat.  But about comparing the cost of food from various shops and markets, comparing homemade to shop bought.  There will be recipes, hints and tips, I will also be introducing scales of difficulty, time and smugness more on that in a different post).  Where possible anything made will have a price per head (and how it is worked out) so you can see whether it is truly cheap to make something yourself or buy it in.

So why have I started this blog... Well it was impart due to the horse meat scandal that has undermined the ready meal industry and the UK supermarkets.  However, all this has done as added more fuel to the "I can only afford the cheap ready meals" which has been raging for years.

This got me thinking (after commenting several times of the BBC news website "have your say") is it really that expensive to buy the raw ingredients of a pizza rather than a pre-packed or even take away pizza?  Is shopping at a farmers market a middle class luxury?  And does it really take that long to make spaghetti bolognese over shop bought heat in the oven ready meals?

I hope that you will find some interesting answers to such questions and more.  I will always be honest and if it turns out that it is cheaper/fast and more convenient then I will say so.


Of course this is just my own personal opinion, and I will try not to preach; but I will be honest.  I hope you will enjoy some of what I write, and at times I hope you will comment on what I write.  Don't be afraid to disagree, just be articulate and respectful and I am sure we will have a decent debate.

This page will remain the first thing you see, but look to the side for new pages jam packed full of stuff!  Wordy, foody stuff - just no drink.  I love a tipple but this isn't what this site is all about.

Happy reading :)





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