The soup is great for a base and for freezing. Then when you want to eat it you can just add in some fresh vegetables and/or a bit of extra meat such as cooked chicken, bacon or prawns.

Ingredients

1 teaspoon of butter
2 large potatoes sliced
1 medium onion chopped finely
1 leek, chopped
3 rashers of streaky bacon, chopped
1 pint / 268ml of chicken stock
150g of frozen sweetcorn
700ml of milk
1 tablespoon of corn flour

Method

Fry the onions and bacon in the butter in a large/tall sauce pan until the onions are soft. Add the potatoes, leek and stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 15-20 minutes until the potatoes are soft (you can add in a chopped celery too at this point if you want to). Blend the corn flour with the milk and add that plus the sweetcorn to the pan and stir well. Bring to the boil and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Blend the soup with a hand blender. Mix in some seasoning to suit your own taste.

For freezing: put the soup into freezable containers and allow to cool before freezing.

For eating: put the soup into a saucepan and add some sweetcorn plus either some prawns, chopped bacon or chicken (all already cooked, but can be cold). Add some extra veg such as peas or leek if you wish.

It’s pretty simple but it’s quite filling and it’s great on a cold winters day

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I’ve also added in a couple of new plugins, one allows you to edit your comment for up to 15 minutes after posting it, and the other allows you to subscribe to comments on a particular post, so you’ll get an email when a new comment is made. I’ve got a few new sections to add too, which will come in the next week or two.

So hope you like the new theme. Let me know if you spot any problems

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Hugh’s Chicken Run – 7, 8 & 9 Jan, 9pm
The Diet that Time Forgot – 9 Jan, 10pm
The Truth About Food – 10 Jan, 9pm
Jamie’s Fowl Dinners – 11 Jan, 9pm
Jamie’s Eat To Save Your Life – 14 Jan, 10pm
It’s Not My Fault I’m Fat – 17 Jan, 9pm
Gordon Ramsay Cookalong: LIVE – 18 Jan, 9pm

So plenty to be watching over the next few weeks!

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So get in quick before they run out of available sets! You’d be daft not to! The link http://www.jean-patrique.co.uk/SI3K must be used to get the offer.

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So, go have a play and help towards a worthwhile charity in the process.

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I’ve run out of Zantac tablets too so it’s either off to Costco to buy more (thankfully I have a Trade card as they’re Trade only sale!) or go to the Doctors for stronger Ranitadine (effectly the same thing but 4 times stronger).

Typical, as we’re off to Cardiff tomorrow for an evening out at a leaving do.

I’ve run through everything I eat and can’t think of anything that could really trigger this off. However I have been exceptionally stressed this past week with overdue work, new work and our housemate now moving out. I think I worry too much.

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The new grill is quite nice. It’s a perfect size at just 66% of the old size. To be honest we only ever covered the last one if we were cooking bacon. Everything else will easily fit on this new one. The only downside to this one is that there is no timer on it. Our old one had variable temperature (which we never changed from max!) and a timer, and the timer was the handiest bit. However we do have the cooker timer so we can always use that.

I was pretty lucky when I bought it on Saturday as I only paid £45.95 for it, and looking at Amazon UK now, I can see it’s at £69.95. A good £24 saving there!

For anyone who things the GF Grill is simply for dieters, think again. We cook Tuna Steaks, lean Pork Steaks, steak mince burgers and more on it. Whilst it’s handy getting rid of the fat from fattier foods, it’s so good for cooking anything that doesn’t make too much mess, simply because it cooks so quickly. Usually I’d be cooking a tuna steak for perhaps 10 minutes, on this you cook it for about 4 minutes and it’s perfect (depending on thickness of course!). Plus there’s no turning it over, like you would in a pan, as it’s being cooked on both sides at the same time. Plus with the new removeable plates, there’s no excuse It’s quite fun (sad as it sounds) to watch the fat dripping into the tray, knowing it’s no longer in your food.

If you haven’t got one yet then I highly recommend this little grill.

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Where am I going with this? Well last week I had a Wedding brochure through to update on a Restaurant website that I maintain for a client. It’s quite a swish restaurant, 3 AA stars, and their main meals sound it with meals such as

Breast of Chicken, stuffed with Confit of Wild Mushrooms served with Supreme Sauce
Grilled Tuna Steak with a Ratatouille Vinaigrette
Supreme of Salmon in a Puff Pastry Trellis, with a Vermouth and Sorrel Sauce
Breast of Guinea Fowl served with Caramelised Shallots and an Oyster Mushroom and Port Jus

Sounds elegant right? Well it does to me (the prices are pretty elegant too!). However I then happened to notice the following

SPECIAL MENU FOR THE UNDER 5’s
Tomato Soup or Orange Juice
Chicken Nuggets or Fish Fingers, or Sausages, beans and chips
Ice cream

In my mind their menu has gone from elegant to cheap and nasty if you’re under 5 years old! Of course, the chicken nuggets or fish fingers may be homemade, or the sausages of good quality, but I can’t see why they couldn’t have perhaps had something a bit more adventurous than junk food. A bit of pasta and bolognaise, a few slices of roast chicken or turkey (the Turkey is already on their menu), bit of mashed potato and vegetables. Anything but something, beans and chips!

I realise under 5s don’t want to eat healthy food (well some may) but that’s besides the point How can you expect schools to rework their budgets, provide decent meals for our children, when top class restaurants only offer junk food as an option to them when they’re in a restaurant? Isn’t that what McDonalds and Burger King are for?

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The layout was different to the one in London as the NEC doesn’t go onto 2 floors. In theory this made it appear that there were possibly more stands for the food section. Again, as with London, the hall is/was incredibly hot which did start to make it uncomfortable after a while. However we had a good look around, grabbed a free pot of luxury muller yoghurt on the way in, taste testing around the stalls, tried some English wine (not bad!) and I got to watch Gordon Ramsey cooking and also book signing. Unfortunately I didn’t have any book for him to sign so I never got to meet him

I did see the dicer that I’ve been wanting since I saw someone use it on the F-Word, however at the show they were selling it at £20 and I can pay that up the road in our local garden centre. Whilst I know it would be used a lot I still feel £20 is a lot of money for what it is.

The show was pretty busy, and with the garden show on a lot of people had purchased little pull along carriers to put their plants in. Great idea until you’re in a packed busy hall and you’re the poor sod who trips over them!

So what did we buy? Not too much really. I got Dave a couple of jars of hot chilli puree which he’s already started and seems very happy with. My conversation with the seller was “What’s the hottest you have, but I don’t want to try it”!! I also came across a Pago stand and picked up a few bottles of Strawberry juice. I used to drink this when I lived in Austria, goes great with sparkling water, but cannot find it here. So I have 3 bottles to savour, slowly! We also of course bought lunch, freshly cooked burger from one of the farm stands cooking their produce. Besides lacking butter on the roll (cannot stand dry rolls with burgers or sausages!) it was very nice

All in all a good day out. Whilst we may not have bought much, it’s still nice to wander around the stalls, taste the variety of samples on offer and pick up a variety of money off coupons.

The festival runs until Sunday, and booking tickets online will save you money

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