Sharabelle bakes

Waste not, Want Not Oops Kitchen Problems     We've all had them, those little Oops moments in the kitchen.  Last year I was making 3 bean vegetarian chilli and instead of flicking the top on my hot sauce bottle, I twisted the lid off instead.    Went right ahead shook the bottle the way I normally do, only this time I poured in nearly half the bottle instead of a few drops. I  like my food with a kick to it, just not that much of a kick!   Most people would have just dumped the chilli, but since I'm a thrifty Scot my first thought was how do I save this.    If I had had an extra tin of tomato sauce I would have poured it straight in too dilute the Spice.  Instead I decided to substitute cous cous for the rice, made some up and stirred through the very hot Chilli.  To my surprise it worked, the bulk of the plain cous cous made the chilli edible with out burning the lining of my stomach.  ...

SPRING ONIONS     Spring onions are a great salad vegetable that's really versatile to use.  Either on top of salads or sprinkled over cooked dishes.  The only problem is they have a really short shelf life.  They go limp after a few days of buying them.   I found this great tip on the Internet a while ago. Iv blogged about it before, however it deserves to be added to my Waste not Want not list.         Put your spring onion in water,  just like you would cut flowers.     1. Buy Spring Onions that still have some root attached.   2.  Place your spring onions into a suitable container and fill with enough water to cover the a few inches.   3 . Keep in the bottle drawer of your fridge or on your window sill.   It's that simple, the supply of water keeps the spring onions fresh for longer and can lead to new growth.     The longer they last...

 Kitchen Helper Sodium bicarbonate or Bicarbonate of soda there the same thing   Sodium Bicarbonate I had an appointment last week with  Ears, Nose and throat.   Iv had sinus problems for years, I have allergy like symptoms with out actually having an allergy!!!!  It's a bit like having food intolerance's with out having an allergy.  They can both cause a lot of pain, but are not life threatening.  Along with brushing my teeth in the morning and at night, I can now add rinsing out my nostrils.  According to the leaflet I got   "Rinsing your nose is a safe way to help wash crusts and mucus from your nose".  From my point of view it's not really a fun thing to do, however I'm willing to try anything to stop my nose constantly running.  Lucky for me I already had all the ingredients to make a rinse, so did not really have any excuse for putting it off.  Nasal wash Recipe   1...

Love Food Hate waste My mum's recently moved back down to Fife, and discovered our Councils new Waste recycling system.  Moving to a new house is stressful enough, working out which bin to put your rubbish in .........   Black - Paper Cardboard Green - Plastics and tin cans Brown - Food waste Blue -  All the rest for landfill waste Its prompted some random phone calls.  The only bizarre thing about the new system is they still don't collect glass!!!!       Until the new bins started I didn't realise how much of my Rubbish could be recycled.  It's also a lot easier to do than I expected.  The only draw back is that I can't tell which bin is which at night, since I can't see the colours in the dark  mmm.   My Waste not, want not  :tip of the week is - vegetable Oil Vegetable oil is a brilliant cooking ingredient for those of us that are Lactose Intolerant. It's already Dairy free, so n...

Chestnuts My baking and cooking experiments have taken a nutty turn lately. So far Iv made a Mushroom and chestnut pie for Christmas dinner, used them in a Meatless loaf recipe, added chopped mixed nuts to my banana loaf and attempted to make Almond cream cheese.  Like all of my experiments, they never quite turn how I expected....... Yesterdays experiment involved the chestnuts I had left over from Christmas dinner. I bought them  Frozen and already peeled, which made the cooking a lot easier.  Chestnut and apple muffins I started by cooking them for 15 minutes, blended them till smooth then added Agave Nectar to make them into a sweet chestnut puree.  (You can cheat and buy sweet chestnut puree pre-made in a can)  I then replaced the banana for the puree in one of my muffin recipe.  Again tastes pretty good but I know they can taste better.  Chestnut is a delicate flavour so I didn't add ...