Food

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Coq au Vin

I’ve made Coq au Vin a few times, and it isn’t too bad to get your head around if you practise. One of the things I do to make it a bit easier is to use individual chicken breasts rather than a whole chicken. Aside from that it is just a case of throwing everything in and waiting. When you are done, you can drain out the sauce and add flour to it to thicken it to serve, and my main point of advice here is don’t forget yourself and drain it down the sink because I have definitely done that in the past.

Fudge

Fudge sounds so hard to make but it is actually one of the most easy baking recipes I have ever used. A little while back I shared my no-nonsense fudge recipe with you. Follow it to the letter and you won’t go wrong. It’s just a recipe you have to keep your eye on.

Gratin dauphinois

Again, this looks quite hard to make and it can take a bit of practise with the thickness you slice the potatoes. Do it a few times for you and your family before you make it for guests and you won’t be able to go wrong. Although the sauce is easy to make, it is how you slice the potatoes that makes this dish a bit harder than it should be. Ensure that you cut them as thin as you can without the possibility of them breaking. I recently shared my dauphinois recipe if you want to try it.

Fried chicken

Another food I can shameless share my recipe for. I’m going to tell you a secret: fried chicken is one of the easiest foods you will ever make. All you need to do is coat the chicken and throw it in (I use a wok for my fried chicken recipe). Make sure you marinade the chicken beforehand so that it doesn’t dry out during the frying process.

Yorkshire puddings

This is one I have only ever got down ONCE. The main tip my friend’s Nan says about yorkies, is don’t keep opening the door to let all of the secrets out. I firmly believe the one time I have had success is because the batter was really cool, and the oil already in the pan was about 600 degrees. Alas, if anyone has any “work every time” recipes for Yorkshire puddings please let me know!

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I like to think of myself of quite the traveller, but when I started to put this blog together I started to realise there are a lot of places for me to go and a lot of foods for me to try. The only thing I HAVEN’T tried on my many trips to the Philippines is Balut, but we’ll come to that. I’d love to know if you have tried any of these foods, drop me a line in the comments if you have.

Century Egg

I’ve given the Century Egg pride of place and the featured image slot because I have never heard of anything that sounds more grim to eat in my entire life. A Century Egg is pickled, just like you get pickled onions and pickled eggs in the chip shop, however you might be in for  shock more than a surprise if you get one of these in the chip shop. A Century Egg is an egg that is soaked in saline solution which sometimes includes ash and rice hulls. The eggs are then left (only for a few weeks mind, not an actual century), and then served a number of different ways, like in the leaves of a ginger root.

 Balut

Balut is a little banger from my favourite country, the Philippines. Continuing the egg theme, Balut is a fertilised egg with an embryo inside it. Balut is boiled and then eaten as it is, usually on its own. The incubation period is between 14 and 21 days.

Casu marzu

Casu marzu is one of those ones you just have to look at and go “what the actual …?”. Casu marzu is a cheese which all sounds normal enough until you throw in the live insect larvae that are purposefully in the cheese. Even better, any Sardinian will tell you that if the insects are dead it it “not safe” to eat, so the cheese is only eaten while the insect larvae are alive. Christ on a bike.

Tuna eyeballs

One of the things I love about this is that it the name really drills down to what it is. No kids, this isn’t a euphemism, in some parts of Asia, very commonly in Japan, Tuna eyeballs are actually a dish. They are actually considered a delicacy as well. And you thought things like frogs legs were bad? Oh and also, they are MASSIVE just to make matters worse.

Jellied moose nose

Oddly, my stomach has held out doing all of my research until this one. No, a tuna eyeball won’t catch me off guard but jellied moose nose is up there with the most horrid thing I have ever read about. Like many of the others, it really does what it says on the tin. An Alaskan delicacy, jellied moose nose is made by boiling a moose snout with some garlic and spices. YUM!

Fermented shark

This is one I had the opportunity to try while I was in Iceland, and politely declined. Although I wish I had never now in hindsight, because it would have made a great video for my vlog. Basically the meat from a shark is fermented with a specific process and then hung to dry for four or five months. Safe to say the smell put me off for life, but Icelanders love it! Luckily, most of the other Nordic foods are delicious.

Deep fried spider

No explanation needed here. EWWWWWWWWWW!

*This post was written in collaboration with Square Meal.

As a food blogger, you can imagine one of the hardest things about the Coronavirus lockdown for me has been that the simple pleasure of eating out has been taken away from me. I have had the luxury of having a very well-stocked fridge during the lockdown and I have also enjoyed cooking more and sharing my favourite recipes with you. But now that restaurants are slowly but surely starting to reopen, I wanted to share a few tips with you on how to get the best out of your experience dining out with the “new normal”.

Take advantage of “Eat Out to Help Out”

I’ve been out a couple of times since the governments “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme started and I can honestly tell you that I am amazed by the discount. The basics of it are you can get 50% off of your meal and soft drinks Monday to Wednesday, up to £10. The fact that it is capped at £10 makes it seem like you don’t get a great discount, but it honestly makes such a difference to your final deal. The other day I got a curry, some chips on the side and a pint of Pepsi and it came to £8. This scheme is aimed at getting the economy going again so you are doing your bit for society as well.

Read up on the rules before you go

A lot of the restaurants local to me have updated their websites to let customers know what changes have been made post-pandemic. The majority of people look up the menu before they go to eat out anyway, so this is just like a little addition to doing that. If you can take the time to learn about any additional rules like one way systems or new opening hours, it will take a lot of stress out of your first visit back to somewhere you like. Preparation is always key.

Use booking services

Restaurant booking services are about to become your new best friend. Now that space is so limited, it’s highly unlikely you are going to be able to get a table anywhere off the cuff, especially during the “Eat out to Help Out” days. If you use an online service like squaremeal you can book quite far in advance. Now that people are starting to look forward and book venues for things like Christmas or special occasions in 2021 when things are a bit more settled, an online booking service can help you with availability and also give you other very important information about the venue. Recently, due to all that is going on, squaremeal have started to add hygiene ratings to their restaurant pages.

Enjoy it!

2020 has been the year the world changed forever. It can be a daunting thought getting back out there after lockdown, but it is worth remembering that things WILL go back to normal. Having a birthday celebration or a wedding to plan and look forward to is a great way to cheer yourself up.

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If I have learned one thing about my lovely blog readers throughout the lockdown, it’s that you are all nosy bastards. Only kidding. I’ve recently been doing some giveaways to grow my Twitter account and I’ve built a community of really nice, kind, engaging people. Something I promised myself I would do more when I changed my blog from a lifestyle blog to a food blog was to ask on my various social media account what content you guys want to see. Imagine. Writing content for the readers instead of me. Haha, only joking again. I like to think you like reading my posts because I like writing them so much. I’ve also noticed how much I need new plates since I started taking more pictures of my food so watch this space! 

So, onward to the serious business of, what is in my fridge?

Party sausages

I’m a savoury kinda gal. As much as I enjoy chocolate at “that time of the month”, the rest of the time I LOVE savoury like party food and crisps. I’m not sure how buying cocktail sausages without a cocktail party to accompany them started, but it is now a tradition to get party sausages on shopping day. Because let’s face it, shopping day is like a party day.

Quiche

So the party food niche continues. I enjoy quiche. Quiche Lorraine is the best one for me. Simple, yet effective. A lot of people don’t like quiche because of the texture, and I get that, I do, but it is SOOOOOOO tasty. The texture doesn’t come into it for me. Also, eggs are a great source of protein so if anything, quiche is healthy.

Starbucks Skinny Latte

Is there anything better on a hot day than an ice-cold latte? Well yes. Sitting at the Anemos beach bar in Greece with an ice-cold latte. But seeing as that is out until 2021, a Skinny Latte iced coffee it is. I’m not sure how many calories are in the skinny one because I never look because I refuse to acknowledge that the thing keeping me awake is also the thing making me fat.

Mango juice

One of the most repetitive conversations I have with my Mum is the old “where has all of your money gone?” chestnut. What my Mum, who has never worked or lived in London, doesn’t understand, is that you only have to sneeze and you have spent a tenner. One of my little extravagances is a daily hotshot from Pret. I can’t remember how much they are now but I think they are easily £2 per day. The reason I liked them is that they apparently kick-start your metabolism and they also wake me up. It was one of a few little things I’ve been missing from my morning routine going up to the office, so when I found out we were not returning until 2021 I decided to make them at home. They are super easy, all you need is:

• Mango juice or orange juice or both
• Chilli powder (I have mine VERY spicy)
• Ginger powder 
• Turmeric powder
• Lemon juice (Jif lemon is fine)
• Apple cider vinegar

All you need to do is pour out a shot of the juice and mix one teaspoon of each ingredient into the juice. Then shot it.

Potatoes

For anyone that thinks it is weird to keep potatoes in the fridge, I don’t disagree with you, but they do last longer in there in the summer months when the UK gets quite warm. Potatoes are pretty much one of my favourite foods. Mashed potato with cheese and mustard is number one on my top ten things to with potatoes. If you have read my easy Gratin Dauphinoise recipe you’ll know it is the joint top spot with mashed potato.

Steak and Mince

As you would have heard me banging on about it on my social media channels, I have endometriosis which makes me severely anaemic. And I don’t mean that they just sent me away with the advice to eat some more iron. One of the other levels is meant to be between 130 and 180 and mine were 89. Currently, I am taking liquid iron but it doesn’t hurt to eat some iron where I can. My Mum is a vegetarian who hates touching meat and she’s been cooking bolognese and steak for me when I’ve been too unwell. 

Yoghurts

Ain’t even mine mate.

Pasta for Ron

Whenever I do dinner, I make some for me, and some for Ron. Later Ron. Seriously though, is there a knack to measuring out pasta or spaghetti? My friend has a spaghetti measuring tool which looks super handy but I have never used it. When this picture was taken I had last night’s spicy tomato pasta was being saved in the fridge for today’s lunch. I cheated and used an Asda spicy sauce which was just like standard Arrabiata sauce, tomato-y and a bit of a kick. 

Fresh orange and mango

For my aforementioned “hot shot”. I do think it is a bit mad you can buy stuff like the coffee syrup from Pret but not the hotshots.

Diet Coke

O.K I have an admission to make: I will only drink cans of coke. I’m sorry but bottles go far too flat. It’s one of my little extravagances in life and I won’t make any apologies for it. I very rarely drink any more than one per day.

Salad vegetables

My Mum eats pretty healthy food, and I enjoy it myself. My favourite salad vegetable is tomatoes, little sweet cherry ones. I also like peppers and think that a little side salad made with peppers and cut finely with a salad knife gives any meal a lot more depth. If you are anything like me as well, you will NEED a salad spinner before you even think about putting your salad on your plate. 

*This post is sponsored by Design Bundles.

Writing a food blog is the perfect outlet for anyone who has a strong passion for all things food, but might just fall short of a career being a gourmet chef. One of the reasons I love blogging about food is that you get to eat it and I also get to share quite a lot of my favourite recipes with all of my readers. But anyone reading this thinking that all you need to do if you run a food blog is to eat things and write about them would be incredibly incorrect. So much work goes on behind the scenes with a food blog. Recently I wrote a post touching on how you can use different fonts to make your food pictures stand out. In this post, I will be going through a few tips on how you can brand your food blog. If you take just that one step further from a food blog by turning it into a brand, you’ll get a lot more blogging opportunities, traffic and ultimately you’ll probably enjoy your blogging experience a lot more.

Think about your favourite food

It’s unlikely that one single food will ever provide you with enough content for an entire food blog, but you can still incorporate what your favourite food is and market yourself as a particular expert of this food. The ideal scenario would be that when someone is looking for a recommendation for a certain type of cuisine, they pick your blog because they associate you with that cuisine. One of my favourite foods is the very basic (but very tasty) fried chicken. I have a whole section on my blog called “tried chicken” which is specifically for this food. Creating a separate category for one food alerts your reader to the fact you eat it a lot and you might be the best person to go to for advice on it in a certain area.

Create a logo

Many people will tell you that a logo is the most important thing you’ll need to create a brand, and they would be more or less right. Although there are a number of things that are important when you are creating a brand, a logo is one of them. You can use websites like DesignBundles to make a mockup logo to see what it is like. You don’t necessarily need to overdo your logo by using it on every post. You can just use it on your blog theme or header and then put it in other places that feel appropriate down the line. Another benefit to creating a logo early is that if you look to sell printed merchandise to your fans down the line, you’ll already have something designed.

Think about your average reader

When you think about your average reader, the idea you might have of who they are and who is actually reading your blog could be completely different. Start by going through your blog stats and then look through your social media followers and ask yourself a few questions like “how old is my average follower?” and “which tow or city does my average follower live in?” and most importantly, what content they are consuming. The more you understand about your audience holistically, the more you can create content that is intended to resonate with them.

Schedule regular interaction

One of the best things about writing a food blog is how easy it is to write content that is useful to people. Things like restaurant reviews and recipes are frequently searched for using search engines, and even people that do not have a particular interest in food probably Google at least a few recipes per year. A good way to help with branding your food blog is to move that usefulness from your written content to your social media channels. Also, people love regularity, so make this a regular thing and it will quickly become associated with your food blogs “brand”. There are a number of ways you can do this. Perhaps you will release a recipe on a certain day each week, and then always do a live Q&A session a couple of days after so that you can see how your readers have go on with making the dish. Or, you could set aside a time to eat the food you are an “expert” on once a week and rotate through different places so that your followers always get new content.

*This post is a sponsored post for font bundles. It contains a sponsored link whereby the company paid me to use this link in the text. 

If you have ever used a recipe website like BBC Food, you’ll notice that although the recipes are good, the pictures and imagery are more than a little dull. This is one of the reasons more people are turning to food blogs to get their recipes. One of the ways you can cash in is by creating a popular recipe with some great imagery that draws in the reader. Posts of this kind are often more popular the more simple they are. There are so many great things you can do around food. It is an unlimited source of content. Many food bloggers now also rely on tools like social media to publicise their blogs. Instagram and Snapchat stories are a great way to do short, sharp recipes. Having a lot of time at home means you can experiment and cook more, so this is a great time in general to have a food blog.

If you write a food blog and you are looking for some inspiration for your layout, there are a few options you might consider.

Text over the finished food

Sometimes there might be instances where you can only share one photo. As well as several blog layouts only allowing you to have one picture, this method also works well for Instagram and Twitter. Bold, simple fonts always work well on this type of recipe imagery. This is also a technique that works on Pinterest. Pinterest is a great place for cooking content as food tends to be naturally photogenic in general. The final product should be written on the food picture so that people can tell what it is. That might sound silly, but if you are photographing something from above that has cheese on top, there could be anything underneath. Pictures shot from above tend to be very popular with people who read food blogs. I like these pictures myself because they are very neat and tidy.

Step by step posts

Step by step posts are a great medium for Instagram or Facebook stories or Snapchats. You can use  freebies fonts to do this, to make your step by steps stand out from other bloggers. Using specific fonts on a step by step post will make your cooking storey stand out from any other content. Clear and concise fonts work the best here, because there may well be people following along and trying to cook the dish as well. There is also the option for you to tie the steps posts together to make a Youtube step by step video. If you are not verbally explaining the instructions of how to cook the dish, you can use a free font to write at the bottom of each image what the step is and how to do it.

Youtube thumbnails

I think we’ve all stood and filmed a cooking vlog or a “cook with me” post and imagined having our own cooking show. People tend to veer towards the visual when it comes to content, so fonts can be used to make your thumbnail stand out. Imagine how many cooking videos there are for things like shepherd’s pie and spaghetti bolognese? These fonts do not need to be necessarily as clear and concise as a step by step or a story post, so you can afford to be a little bit adventurous here. This is also a good opportunity to play around with some bold colours, as Youtube thumbnails tend to be a bit “in your face”.

The actual recipe

If your website allows, you might consider using a free font to write your recipe. As soon as a user clicks on your link, they will instantly judge your blog by how pretty it looks. This is also why the images are so important. If you have a good enough image at the top of your blog post, people will stay on your page and continue to read. Make sure the image isn’t too big though, or too covered in ads. This will turn many people off of a website instantly.

Where should I get my freebie fonts?

Free fonts are easy to find if you look in the right places. Font Bundles is a good place to start as they have loads of free fonts and you don’t need to provide a huge amount of personal details to register. You can also upload your fonts to design tools like Canva, which is incredibly helpful.