Virtuelicious

I love pancakes!!!! Love love love!!! I get so excited about pancake day. But given that they are so easy to make I have no idea why I don't eat them more often. 

In this episode I'll share a recipe to make it super easy to make pancakes without a measuring jug or weighing scales! Yep, you heard that right. It will blow your mind how easy it is. 

So make sure you have flour, eggs, milk and butter. A jug, a decent pan and a spatula (just in case you can't flip it) are all the equipment you need. And as for the fillings...where do I start? In this podcast I share some of my favourite fillings - savoury and sweet...even my breakfast version. 

Click the link below to check out my Instagram and Facebook channels to see my recipes and videos. There's also a link to my meal planner journal. 

https://linktr.ee/virtuelicious

It's that time of year...let's make some healthy eating resolutions. In this episode I share my resolutions...ones I have achieved in past years, ones I have failed to achieve and my new ones for this year. Click the link below for your FREE habit tracker.

Get the meal planner here: meal planner

Get your FREE habit tracker here: habit tracker

Wow, what a year! 

It's being doing my nut...

I'm hoping to spread a little Christmas cheer

Gyms are shut

We can't flex our muscles

But we can still have a small Christmas 

Not forgetting the Brussels 

Wow, what a year!

Usually tonight I'd be sipping on beer!

Hope you liked my little poem :)

In this short episode I reveal how we cheat at Christmas....yep I know I'm the cook from scratch queen but sometimes we just need to do what feels right. And right now is one of those times. After all, I'm not perfect, I'm human. So join me to hear what Christmas dinner is like in our house. Believe me, you will feel like a domestic god(dess) when you hear about my cheats. And listen to the end to hear about my quick and easy cranberry sauce made from juice. Oh and it's healthy too!

It's been a crazy year so I am wishing you the Merriest of Christmases. Stay safe xx

This is a personal one - I share my experience of my Dad getting Coronavirus. 

In this episode I talk about how it affected me emotionally and physically as well as the practical steps that we took to deal with it and the support that we got. 

I know this podcast is meant to be about food but I thought it was important to share this story in case it helps you, or a loved one, deal with this difficult situation. 

Please share this with anyone that you think might benefit. The reason for recording this podcast is because it would have helped me a lot if I could have listened to someone else's story whilst I was going though it. 

We are having a cake-off! #nervous!  Check out the links below!

Paul Couchman is a Regency Cook - he specialises in cooking in the style of the regency period. Seeing as his Christmas Cake is made using a time old recipe and my Christmas Cake Kit is a modern version that takes 10 minutes to prepare (it even has chocolate in it and is more akin to a brownie than a cake) we thought it would be fun to compare and contrast the two approaches.

Here are some nuggets from the episode:

The Christmas Cake was originally eaten on the 12th night of Christmas, which is 5 January. In those days Christmas Day wasn’t the main event, rather, there were celebrations on each of the 12th night. As you may already know, Christmas was originally a Pagan festival. It was only later that it was nominated as the day to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

The Christmas pudding is the same this as a plum pudding - the word plum refers to the dried fruit rather than the fresh fruit we think of now. And plum pudding was originally served at harvest time. So interestingly we have moved the Christmas pudding forward to Christmas Day and the Christmas cake back to Christmas Day and now we tend to eat whichever we prefer on the day.

Christmas Puddings have similar ingredients to Christmas Cakes but have less flour and more suet. The Christmas pudding, however, originated much earlier. In fact, the first puddings were meat-based, for example using sausage, intestines and blood – that's where we get black pudding from. The meats and cereal would be bound in the intestines and cooked with water. In the 17th century cloth became used instead of the intestines. As time went by, the amount of meat reduced until it became non-existent. And as sugar became more accessible, it became cheaper and Christmas pudding and cake no longer became the preserve of the wealthy.

Interestingly, the distinction between sweet and savoury food being served as different dishes and at different courses is a recent one. The concept of desserts only came about in the 19th century, around about the 1830s.

Paul’s Christmas Cake:

The recipe comes from The Modern Cook, a book written by Charles Elmé Francatelli who was chief cook to Queen Victoria. The recipe is featured a book by Annie Gray called How to Cook the Victorian Way. You can find the recipe, along with Paul’s pudding making course here.

Paul’s is a definitely a traditional Christmas Cake, cooked for six hours in a low oven. And as if that isn’t long enough, he spends days on the marzipan and icing to cover it….worth a listen to hear about how he goes about that.

My Recipe:

I made my Christmas Cake using my Christmas Cake Kit, the recipe for which has a special place in my heart. Mine would more appropriately be called a Christmas Brownie - it’s laced with chocolate and and has a squidge to it.

Now, I generally don't like Christmas cake but Aunty Ann's Christmas cake is something else! Aunty Ann was my neighbour when I was growing up - she's from Granada in the West Indies so her cake was deliciously moist, spicy and very boozy :-) when I was young one stir up Sunday she invited us over to teach us how to make her version of the Christmas cake. Even after all those years I still remember that day, it was such a special day. Unfortunately we lost touch with Aunty Ann and lost the recipe. But, as with all hand me down recipes, I recreated my own version of it from memory and adapted it to my taste. Whether or not she would approve of my version, I may never know. 

You can get your hands on my Christmas cake kit here.

And here’s the video of me making my Christmas Cake kit.

Here's my Meal Planner waitlist.

Hey Hey Hey!

In today's episode I speak with the wonderful Cami Layne...fellow podcaster whose voice I am just a little envious of ;) 

Cami is a busy mumpreneur of two - to be honest I don't know how she does it! But she did confide in me that she could do with a hand when it comes to bringing calm to mealtimes. So.....I put on my coaching hat and helped her out :) 

Fast forward to the end of the show to hear how much my cook coaching session helped Cami to tap into her cooking zen. 

Before we get to that, let me tell you about my Meal Planner Journal - it will help you serve up amazing healthy food without the stress and energy depletion. It’s so much more than just a schedule to list what meals you’re having. It’s a simple yet effective framework with tools to help you use up what you have, plan when you’re going to cook, manage batch cooking, write your shopping list, track your key stats and even reflect. Honestly, it’s a game changer. Get on the waiting list here: https://mailchi.mp/b7caa2ef4fd7/pc75sfnd1y

Back to Cami....we talked about the obstacles holding Cami back when it came to cooking and found ways to work around them including my roasting veg hack, how to batch cook meat and carbs so mealtimes are just an assembly job and that it's ok to use ready made sauces and spice mixes to save time - yes, that includes my own spice mixes that you can get on my website if you're in the UK: https://virtuelicious.co.uk/shop/ 

And if you want to find Cami's podcast you can do so here: www.momstartabusiness.com

I hope you enjoy the episode....if you did then hit subscribe and tell a friend!

Happy cooking :) x