Sian's Profile

Made the Debutante last night and LOVED it. Our tastes are quite classic in cocktails and it takes a lot for us to add a new one to our usuals, but the Debutante made it I think! A use for the grenadine sitting in the drinks cupboard, perfect balance between sweet and sour, and a gorgeous colour!

I know you're right, but you just depressed me a bit at the thought of summer coming to an end.. I've actually just been given a bulk amount of raisins so I probably should start my fruitcake soon, never thought about it until now.

I've just spent a couple of weeks mentally 'moving on' from my current house because I believed I was moving away soon.. now that's fell through, I'm suddenly gutted to be staying here for now, even though I loved it beforehand! So yes, I know the feeling..

But so many young women have an iron deficiency.. you don't just get iron from meat but it is one of the great sources. I found myself craving steak and spinach lots recently, took a blood test and I was iron deficient.. doctor said its so common in women in their 20s.

I don't think that lunch is an inherently boring meal but I do think the lack of time we have for it (whether making it or even eating it) does often make it boring.

I love classic lunch dishes such as quiche, many soups, substantial salads, cold meats, dips, a well-made sandwich, pork pies, ploughmans lunch...

But usually end up with the same cheese sandwich - nice bread, nice cheese, a piece of lettuce and some homemade chutney - its a good sandwich, but everyday does get rather boring. If I had the spare cash and a nice cafe around the corner I'd love to do lunch that way.

I agree with the people who say it breaks up the day though, that's a nice feeling!

In middle eastern groceries it may well be called 'Mograbiah' - its original Arabic name before Israelis assimilated it into their food culture.

You can also use the very small italian/greek pasta shapes such as orzo if you can't find giant couscous - I really like to mix regular and giant in the same salad for the different textures you get from it and sometimes use orzo if that's all I have in.

Yes kitchen's can definitely be too big. I recently moved from a box kitchen to one three times the size - the extra counter space (and double oven!) is great BUT I do a LOT of cooking (bread, roast and cake can all be on the go some sundays!). And even then I was fairly happy in the minute kitchen most of the time (its not why we moved).

Efficiency and tidiness is key though, I've also stayed in a few houses with huge kitchens that I found really stressful to cook in - they were 'too' big for me, but the stressful bit was that the extra cupboard space just allowed the owner to hoard which mean you just couldn't find any cooking implements in her overstuffed cupboards - I had full cupboards in my box kitchen but they were full of things I truly needed - in my newer kitchen I have the same amount of stuff but neatly and spaciously stored in the cupboards. My aunt's house has cupboards overflowing with 3 broken kitchenaids, 2 dusty blenders etc.

Do dishes with a little bit of meat where the main star is the vegetables to showcase the veg whilst still giving him the umani he probably likes from the meat - like a posh main course salad with high quality ham.

Aubergine dishes always go down well with meat eaters I think - pasta alla norma, or roasted aubergine (with a charmoula marinade?) with a pilaf on the side?

I'm glad this has been tested, I agree with breezyslp. I made my boyfriend (who gets hayfever) try this 2 years in a row (I really wanted it to be true!) and it didn't affect his allergies at all so I wondered whether that was coincidence or common. I know an anecdote doesn't carry as much weight as a study, but just sayin' :oP

I'm going to be boring and say practice. My boyfriend grew up eating sliced bread until he moved in with me, and at first he couldn't slice it thinly and cleanly. Now he can - it came eventually.

I think foodefafa has a good description of how to slice bread well there in the 2nd paragraph.