The word ‘barbecue’ is a synonym to any kind of outdoors social gathering where food is being cooked and served fresh.  People around the world tend to think that it has been their country, nation, race, or ethnicity that invented barbecue.

The truth, however, lies elsewhere as different people from different cultures have been cooking their meat with the high heat of a fire, usually lit outdoors, since thousands of years ago. Smoking, baking, braising, grilling using would, charcoal, natural gas or electricity, barbeques have always been popular in every corner of the planet.

Argentina

‘Gauchos’, the traditional inhabitants of the vast Argentinean plains (Pampa) have a long tradition in ‘asado’ (grilled meat), accompanied by a piece of bread so they don’t get burnt.  Argentines claim they are blessed producing   ‘world’s best meat’, which may be true given the size of the country in relation to its population, as well as the free lifestyle of their cattle. Using high quality meat is half the secret, though. What makes the real difference is how the meat has been cut, which putting it in simple words is ‘as thick as possible’ but it is much more complicated.  The seasoning is always quite simple, as good quality meat doesn’t’ need any kind of special sauce, apart from a generous amount of salt.
Read the rest of this entry »

Now I have to admit that some years ago I could never stand Olives on their own until I had them on a pizza, but since those days, I do quite enjoy them on their own or specially in a salad.

So what are the benefits of the humble olive, well olives are a good source of vitamin E and contain natural antioxidants, the only drawback is they do contain a high amount of salt.

Some time back it was thought that the olive was  high-calorie food due to the oil that they contain. But both black and green olives actually contain very few calories and an average serving of ten olives only contains around 30 to 40 calories.

As I mentioned earlier olives do have the benefits of vitamin E, you have to eat a large amount to give your diet a good supply of vitamin E. Olives also provide you with natural antioxidants.

The oil that is derived from the olives is quite high monounsaturated fatty acids, unlike saturated fats do not affect your bloods cholesterol levels and may even help to cause them somewhat.

This morning we had a letter from the local council with regards to “Notice of Application for Planning Permission”

My first thought was “I wonder which one of our neighbours is planning to build now!”, but after further reading of the letter it turns out to be planning permission to the council from the council on operating collection of food waste and bulking!

So it seems that we will be getting the council giving us little bins or something similar for us to recycle our food waste, now no longer will we be throwing food in the normal bin, but now into a recycle bin.

That means we will have the normal wheelie bin, a bin for glass and tin, a bag for paper and a bin for waste food! You may of noticed no bin for plastics, no, in the councils wisdom, food waste is more important than recycling plastic, yeah right!

It’s all very well having the fun of Christmas and New Year with all the gorgeous food and alcohol, but, it really plays havoc with my waste line!

So now it’s time to start that New Year diet regime, off the fatty foods and alcohol and onto the salads and fruit drinks. It’ll take ages to shift what I’ve put on over Christmas and New Year.

But I have a new outfit hanging on my wardrobe waiting for me to get into, so that’s my incentive and I’m going to work hard to get back in it