Banana & Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

I was sorting through some magazines earlier today and came across a Mary Berry recipe suplement.
I skimmed through and saw a recipe for Banana and Chocolate Cupcakes. Now this is not normally a combination that I particularly like, however, I had a couple of ripe bananas so decided I would give it try.
I must say it's very easy to put everything into a bowl and beat!
This was the end result

Banana & Choc Chip Cupcakes
Mary Berry Recipe
Makes 12

100g (4oz) butter softened (can use marg)
2 eggs
175g (6oz) castor sugar
225g (8oz) self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons milk
2 very ripe bananas mashed
50g (2 oz) choc chips

For Icing
50g(2oz) dark choc melted

Pre-heat oven 180C/160C(fan)/ gas 4.
Line muffin tin with paper cases.

Method
butter,eggs,castor sugar,flour,baking powder, milk & bananas in bowl beat together until combined and smooth  Mix in choc chips
Spoon into paper cases and bake for about 25 mins until well risen, golden brown and shrinking from cases.
Cool  Drizzle choc in zigzag pattern.
Freeze well for up to 3 months.

Being conned or am I unrealistic!

Every so often I make a pasta bake and one of the ingredients I used is bacon.  However, being mindful about having too much fat I cut this off before chopping it and dry frying it.
I have long resented the fact that meat and bacon, in particular, is packaged in such a way that the amount of fat is skillfully hidden! Embee would love me to cook the fat until it is really crisp and tasty; and whilst I might agree it is definitely not good for our expanding waistlines so this treat is rare!
I decided to take a look at the amount of fat I was actually paying for but throwing away.

Sometimes I use basic bacon pieces and yes they are cheap so you might say you get what you pay for and you would expect it to be fatty!

However, I couldn't believe I was actually throwing away over a quarter!

The next time I made the same dish I decided  to go for a quality bacon and it looked reasonably lean in the package. Not so; when I came to prepare it I soon realised the fat had been carefully concealed.

This pack of British bacon contained an even higher amount of fat (i.e. 4 gms more than in the basic pack) and it cost almost three times as much!
So my little experiment didn't really help me, whether I buy cheap or expensive bacon I'm still paying to throw more than a quarter into the food recycling bin. Maybe I need to stop buying bacon for my pasta dish but then it does make it tasty and this way I can get Embee to eat cauliflower, when it's all topped in a cheese sauce!! And before anyone comments on the fat content of cheese, I only cook this about once a month in the interest of our cholesterol levels!

Working up some muscle!

I don't know about anyone else but I seem to have got very lazy about keeping my brass and silver clean. It's funny really when I was working I, somehow, managed to do this little chore far more frequently than I have since I retired. I probably used caring for my mother as a reason (excuse more like)! So the other day when it was raining I decided to tackle a brass tray that sits on a ledge on my stairs. It took me an hour of hard rubbing to bring back the shine. My arm was aching but I was quite pleased with the result:

You might not be able to see all the detail of the patterns etched into this tray; and I do wish I knew more about it's origins! For example how old it is, and what the picture depicts. It looks oriental but this sort of design was often copied. I'll probably never know!

What's for dinner!

There will be few of you who will not have heard that Findus Foods have been passing off horse meat as beef. Now Embee says he's eaten it and as far as he's concerned there is nothing wrong with it! Having tried all sorts of foods (meat), particularly, when visiting other countries, I'm not really sure why I don't fancy horse meat!
Recently during the snowy weather we did some shopping at out local Farm Food shop. They had a Findus offer running and, as it now turns out I bought one of the beef lasagnes just to have in the freezer as a stand by!

 Looking at the ingredients it says 25% beef -no mention of horse meat!!!! I'm hoping that the shop will give me a refund. If not Embee can eat it; only fair as he likes horse meat LOL.

However, this is not what's for dinner. We are having our first serving of this:

The crop this year is poor but if I can get a few serving I'll be happy!

Men can't shop without being supervised!

What happens when someone goes shopping alone (no not me!)
He comes back saying " you will be proud of me I got a BOGOF" "well done" I replied and thought no more about it.
Then this morning when I was tidying up I noticed these.......

The conversation then went:_

Me "what colour shirts did you buy"?
Embee "white of course"
Me " no they are pink"
Embee "put them in bleach"
Me "No  they will have to be returned: do you have the receipt"?
Embee "I think so"
Me "will need to be sooner rather than later"
Embee "well you wouldn't come with me"!
Me "no I couldn't I was actually at work earning money"

End of conversation he started reading the newspaper.

As it happens I do need something at out local Mall so you can guess what I will be doing this afternoon- Oh he did say there probably weren't any white ones  so let's hope they will refund!

P.S. One thing I will add in his defence is that he is colour blind!