Worm's World

My Uni is blessed with an excellent selection of slightly odd Korean noodles in the student shop. You can tell I'm deep within the semester because my eating habits have dropped to abysmal levels. Anyway this is my choice: (they were on a BOGOF offer so 2 x noodles = 85p - bargain, and very handy due to the fact I've just paid the deposit for my Christmas Dinner and the cash machine is broken) Anyway, on the Left - the spicy 'artificial lobster' flavor, on the right the 'spicy shrimp' flavor. In a lesson as to why you shouldn't read the ingredients for things I learnt the following: The 'artificial lobster' has shrimp in it, the 'spicy shrimp' one doesn't, it has artificial shrimp in it - I'm not sure what artificial shrimp is, and I'm not sure why it requires beef extract - as a thickener I imagine. All of this is largely academic, because whichever of these I eat - and in fact I went for the 'artificial lo...

I'm blessed to work somewhere with not only a small, but functional kitchen, but also a well stocked shop, a bar, a canteen and an alright coffee shop. While this is lovely, it doesn't really help with snacking. I love snacks, ever since I was packed off to school with a flapack for my 11am break time - but it's a habit that's hard to break, specially since I spend so much time in front of my pc writing things. I used to find I was doing quite a lot of 'stretching my legs' and going off to buy a muffin, or a chocolate bar - and when even disappointing, dry  mass produced muffins are £1.50+ then I started casting around for something else. First Up The Graze Box  - this is sent to my door every Monday. I get a nice mix of sweet and savory things and it's excellent for padding out left overs or just having a little pick me up. One box will last me all week and for the most part I have everything available on 'try' because otherw...

One of my favourite things that I own is a Dalek cookie cutter - brought as part of a make dalek cookie pack thingy. Guess which one didn't make it to the decorating stage...  It does have a habit of making slightly misshaped, mutant Dalek's, fit only for the asylum, but I think that has more to do with the cookie dough recipe then anything else. I'm still casting around for the perfect sugar cookie recipe if anyone has suggestions.

Just for once, something worked... The Original Pin.... Source: cakecentral.com via Nia on Pinterest And Mine - well, they arn't as tidy - but they kind of look like lego bricks...

There's something very soothing about a spot of late night baking. Isn't there? Having promised my office mate cake (I don't actually make anywhere near as much cake as he was led to believe when he moved into the office, I think he feels hard done by) and it's not only been one of those weeks, and I've got some beetroot to use up so it's five to midnight and I think the chocolate beetroot in the oven has at least 20 mins to go. Pete is out at jam night, we ate late between him coming back from a radio appearance and going back out again, but I'd planned ahead for once, which means it was a pre made cheese sauce I found in the depths of the freezer and defrosted with some pasta. Very nice, like gourmet pasta'n'sauce, but while I'm not hungry this, and a thrown together, but lovely, post Zumba meal yesterday means I haven't really had chance to cook and I've got an backing itch to scratch as it was. I can't be the only person who find...

I'm a sick of fast food and takeaways. There I've said it. I've spent the last week skipping around the place for work eating an exciting selection of fast food, well, when I say exciting I mean my go-tos mexican food where I can, Burger King where I can't. This week of excess has been bookended by curry out one night, and takeaway curry tonight. Add to this 2 nights of networking with some excellent pizza and I'm sick of it all.... ...but that isn't really true - what I'm really bored of is the same thing. In my heart of hearts I know I wont change, because deep down I love fast food, There's something about the uniformity, the nothing like the pictury-ness about it, even the high end fast food type stuff I adore. I know it's bad, I know I shouldn't, and I can go for weeks without touching anything (that's the upside of living in Stafford,m your choices are limited on such things)  - I think my problem is I've exhausted all of the fast f...

This thread on Reddit  about what point cookbooks have in the digital age got me thinking. First up, it was nice that so many other people said the same thing I did, cookbooks are a nice get away from the digital world, and their great for inspiration. If I didn't have cookbooks I wouldn't even think about making half the things I do. I do use digital things, Pinterest is a great source of inspiration, and I've spoken about that before (and for my sins, I've got a baked blueberry oatmeal recipe in the oven as we speak I spotted on there). Similarly I use Evernote to nab them in one place, and share them. All of these are linked at the top of the page . It's great to be able to think of something to make for dinner, inspired by something you've read, or something in the veg box, and quickly google for a recipe that either matches or you can adjust and make for dinner. There's also a few blogs I keep my eye on - some are listed on the right, and a few ot...

My office is right next to the buildings tiny kitchen, equipped with an interesting rag tag bunch of appliances. There is, 1 microwave, 1 dishwasher, 3 fridges, 1 with an icebox compartment, 3 kettles, 3 toasters, a george Forman mini grill and a scary toaster oven contraption legend has it someone brought as part of a science experiment. I'm guessing it's all donated items, or scavenged, and there's a good selection of crockery and cutelery. No one is stupid enough to leave prized mugs there but it's a nice space even if no one ever eats there. But then there's only 6 chairs and there's hundrads of people in the office do maybe that's a good thing. We'd have to take it in shifts. Since I'm vowing not to move office again, I did that enough last year, I've gotten quite attached to my new office location, and I've been exploring exciting ways to combine that collection of equipment into new and exciting ways in ever increasing elaborate lunche...

I love making breakfasts, and above all I love making pancakes. I leave hearty buckwheat creeps or delicate pancake day pancakes to Pete, my domain is big thick American ones. Now, I've perfected my American pancake method, afteer trying a few I've settled on a method taken from a now very batter splattered recipe in a Jamie over cookbook. I did have my eyes opened a little with the pancake laboratory section of a cookbook my friend brought me, partly I thin because eh knew I loved pancakes, and armed with the knowledge that things like the milk can be replaced with fruit juices and it still walks. Handy if you have a lactose intolerant house mate. Anyway, you'd think being armed with all of this knowledge I'd know better then to trust a slightly confusing recipe for pineapple upside down pancakes (to make good use of the pineapple corer I got for my birthday) that involves banana in the mix. Source: apronstringsblog.com via Nia on Pinterest Anyway, here is a massive...

Yeah, I'm still not convinced they're worth the hassle. I feel much the same about broad beans. Anything you think isn't worth the effort of prep for the return?

Dammit, I saw a Gbbo spoiler on twitter, so I know who was booted out... But anyway, catching up.. Contestants Victoria is a little odd, I bet she's a member of the local WI, or maybe she thinks she's above them, I don't know, I'm sure she's lovely, but. Can't warm to her. I love the vicars wife, sarah jane, and her lucky Pastry knife. I'm finding Kathyrn a bit odd, I've seen people like that camping, and that shot of her in a gilet explains a lot. The lads are lovely, especially last weeks Star baker, maybe... Ok, here's my crib sheet for the identikit blokes: PE Teacher - Stuart Scottish one - James. the other one, umm, Peter... Challenges Signature - tart tatin, I've had hit and misses with these, I love the idea of a savoury one, never though of that, especially taken with the pear and blue cheese one. I have however made plenty of rough puff pastry - miles better then the frozen stuff, although that has its uses. There's a interesting m...

Week 2 GBBO Ok, it's week 2, I'm not watching this live, I'm a few days behind (it's Thursday) but I've not spoilers, just no community to snark with this week. The idea of 2 days of bread baking does not fill me with joy, much as I love eating it I don't care for making it. I did buy a bread makers when I was tipsy once in Asda (aah, 24hr super markets) but we freecycled it years ago when my beloved kenwood came on the scene, since we only ever used the machine to make pizza dough. I've long since relegated every type of bread making bar chappatis to Pete. He makes excellent pizza. Contestants I'm pretty sure there's people in this weeks episode they didn't even feature in the last one, like the bloke who collects recipes from magazines to cook with his son. He seems nice, but I've already forgotten his name.  I'm sure Brendan being called a 'keen gardener' is a euphemism, who goes through breads of the world as a project, that...

We're not long back from a trip to Germany - which was many shades of awesome, and one of the stand out things was the food. I kept a food diary for once (I'll let my husband blog about the veggie offerings, but my fears were misplaced, everywhere we went had a choice of veggie options, with no fan fare) Anyway - this is from a week, in Augsburg & Muinch. We were visiting a friend so some meals were family meals - which always makes food taste better --- Monday - Hueveros Rancheros at Giraffe, lunch with Anna's mums - roasted tomatos and a couscous salad . Pretzels. Peppermint tea. Beer. Tuesday - Nordsee cold fish finger type thing, chips with tartar sauce, tiny weeny Cokes. Ice cream. Schnitzel with Bavarian pasta and mushrooms. Beer. A pretzel waiting for Pete and Anna to come back from running. Wednesday - coffee and Apple cake (in a weird, dated coffee shop) Hofbräuhaus ! Brockwurst, German potato salad, pretzels and bread. Beer, more beer. Coke a Colas, afri Co...

I've spoken before about Pinterest, and how pretty everything is on there, but there's another side, a very definite, and I can only guess american trend - the easy fix. Easy cheats, how to make things without the effort, how to cheat, how to make restaurant specials at home, so you end up with a massive jug of frappachino mix or a dressing not too dissimilar from the amazing blue cheese dressing at Pizza Hut (this is our holy grail - we've gone to PH just to eat the Blue Cheese dressing) and it shows an interesting side of people, and if you look at the ingredients they use, and most of these tips and tricks would be impossible to remake outside of the states. Source: therebelchick.com via Rebecca E. on Pinterest This isn't a new thing - Top Secret Recipes was one of the first websites I remember checking back and linking too - even if I was looking at recipes I had no idea what the original tasted like, but it's impressive so much effort is given over to ma...

Ok, so a new series of Great British Bakeoff has started. I'm not fanatical about it, I'm not that fanatical about baking (well, that may be a slight untruth), but having been uninterested when it first started but now I'm hooked - thats probably as much about the twitter community on #gbbo. Anyway, they have my upmost respect for entering, and I can't ever make anything pretty enough at the best of times to ever think about entering anything like The Great British Bakeoff I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring about the contestants this year. Contestants Too early for any of them to make much of an impression - apart from the already departed Natasha and the master baker this week, whose name escapes me but the odd neckline on her top will confuse me for weeks. There's a vicars wife,  a quirky Scottish one with glasses, one with perfect hair, a handful of blokes, one a student who says he bakes cakes after coming back from the club, one who looks like he play...

I've been playing on Pinterest for a little while, since I was aware of it I suppose - a visual version of reddit, mainly American, and judging by some of the names of people that follow my pins, big in Scandinavia. If you're not familiar with it then it splits into board - which are made up of peoples individual boards that are sorted into these categories - sometimes it slips up - weight loss pins seeping into the geek board but the Food & Drink board is pretty solidly full of pretty, yummy things to eat. That's the first thing you notice is how pretty everything is on there. There's the instagram effect - everything looks pretty with a faux-vintage digital filter (even us ) and the rise of good cameras on mobile phones I'm sure has had something to do with the quality of photos on the boards - even if everything I take a photo off comes out yellow - but so many of the pins focus on pretty little party food - things on sticks ( Coming soon, a board entire...

Hopefully, next year, I'm going back to the states for a holiday. I won't have been back since a History and Sociology school trip to New York & Washington in my final year of sixth form, over a decade ago. In that time I've consumed daily amounts of US Television and cinema. I promised my husband for his 30th birthday that we would go to New Orleans, we put it off for a year so we could save enough and at some point soon we'll actually go and book it - or else we'll put it off for ever... Anyway, I'm so super excited, I get to eat American food, in America again. My pinterest addiction and my selection of expensive, imported pop tarts at work has only fed my desire for honest to god, in now way good for you American food. A little annoying it was a Rick Stine documentary on e food of the deep south that made me really hungry (rick Stine is on my top 3 list of tv chefs that annoy me) but watching all the arrived chicken just made me so excited, I'm just ...

Last night was the 5th annual Stafford beer festival - backed by CAMRA  and it's nice to see it grow as an event year on year. It's also held in a Catholic high school, which amuses me no end, I'm not sure why, it works really well and the beer festival in Liverpool was held in the Catholic cathedrals crypt so maybe it's totally normal. Anyway, I'm quite a fan of beer festivals, in that I'm quite a fan of beer - I like cider and perry too - but they tend to be lethally alcoholic at a festival and mixing them both lies madness and drunkenness. What I couldn't help noticing is how very 'British' it seems, and where do all these people come from - and more to the point why do some of them still have mullets (how do you even still have a mullet in this day and age). But there's lots of people stood around peering at a festival listing, trying to juggle a tankard, a pen, a beer and a programme - working on what they want to drink next based o...