Monday 13 August 2012

What to eat tonight - Cajun fish with sweetcorn and avocado salad



After having success after success with recipes from the Waitrose Kitchen magazine it is fast becoming my go to mag for a quick and delicious mid-week supper. Serve this beauty with a delicious crisp white wine and you're onto a winner!

Preparation time:10 minutes
Cooking time:10 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients

4 Icelandic plaice fillets
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp Cajun seasoning
326g can sweetcorn in water, drained
1 avocado, roughly chopped
1 x ½ x 250g pack cherry tomatoes, halved
1 x ½ red onion, sliced
1 lime, zest and juice
1 red chilli, deseeded and sliced
1 x ½ x 28g pack coriander, roughly chopped
4 tbsp half fat soured cream

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C, gas mark 4. Place the fish skin-side down on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper. Mix 1 tbsp olive oil with the Cajun seasoning and brush over the top of the fish. Roast for 5 - 6 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, mix the sweetcorn, avocado, tomatoes, red onion, lime zest, chilli and the remaining oil in a bowl. Season and toss with most of the coriander.

3. Mix the soured cream with the remaining coriander and lime juice. Serve the fish with the sweetcorn salad and the herby soured cream.

Friday 10 August 2012

Body beautiful - Top ten fitness tips

Photo courtesy of www.fitsugar.com

Today we are focusing on being fit, healthy, strong and beautiful. 

Pete Griggs (AKA Mean Pete) personal trainer deluxe who whipped us both into shape for our weddings, is on the blog today sharing his top ten tips to getting motivated, keeping fit, healthy and body beautiful. 

We sat down (or should I say, squatted, lunged, crunched and sweated our little hearts out) with Pete - who has just launched a new free workout website Zoobado -  to discuss everything you need to know about fitness. And trust us, this man knows his stuff. 

Pete's Top Ten 




1. Goals - from the word go decide specifically what you want to achieve. Make sure you know what your goals are, weight loss, toning, muscle building, fitness etc - as different goals will require different training programmes.

2. Choose a programme and stick with it until it gets easy - stick with any training for at least six weeks before you make any drastic changes, if you are one of these people that picks up a fitness magazine and does their latest workout every week, you might find yourself going round in circles.

3. Progress progress progress - make sure you always improve on the previous workout, that way you get fitter and fitter.

4. Diet - you should be putting as much effort into you diet as your workouts. Don't go and undo all your hard work by having a greasy curry after a hard workout. Stick to unprocessed natural foods. 

5. Carbs - if you are looking to shift a few kgs then try cutting out the carbs after lunch. Stick to meat and vegetables only (no potatoes or sweetcorn). Carbs are fine if you're very active because you will burn them off, but if you're not - they will be turned into fat!

6. Muscle - build some muscle up - don't worry you won't end up with bulging biceps. The more muscle you have on you the more calories you burn, its like having a bigger engine on a car - it needs more fuel.

7. Drinking - go easy on the alcohol, not only is it full of bad calories but if you have a boozy night out the following day's workout gets written off because you're too hungover to do it!

8. Diary - start writing everything down as it will help you keep track of your progress. Write down your workout stats including time, distances, levels etc it will help you make improvements. Also, write down the food you are eating as it will start making you aware of what you are actually putting into your body. Plan and schedule your workouts in your diary and make them a high priority - make SURE they happen.

9. To gym or not to gym? You don't need an gym membership to have a great workout, for around £100 you could buy everything you need to have a great workout at home. Part of the problem with the gym is getting there and back, this can easily eat up an hour out of your day. Trust me once you start training at home there is no going back!

10. Top tip - don't go running with the Pleasure, Treasure girls, Abi's run will end up in a wine bar and Nicky's will end up in a cake shop!

To give Pete's home workouts a try go to Zoobado - otherwise - you can contact him directly for more info. 

Tuesday 7 August 2012

We love Lamingtons

One of my all time favourite treats as a little girl was tea and cake with the grown-ups. And when it came to lamingtons, this was an extra special occasion. A lamington is a sponge cake square first coated in chocolate and then dessicated coconut - hugely popular in South Africa and Australia.



You can either bake your own vanilla cake or buy a ready made one (if you buy a ready made cake, skip to the Dipping Sauce step). I use the cake recipe below which is extremely light and airy.

Hot Milk Sponge Cake:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (a little lower in a fan oven).

Prepare a square cake tin (butter and line the tin with baking paper). Note: The cake can be difficult to remove because it is so soft, so make sure you let it cool completely before removing from the tin!

Ingredients:
4 eggs
pinch of slt
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 heaped cup sugar
57g butter
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cups sifted plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder

Beat the eggs with the salt, vanilla essence and sugar. Beat extremely well - about twice as long as you think  you need to, until the mixture is practically white.

Melt the butter in the milk. While the butter is melting, add the flour and baking powder to the egg mixture. Fold in very lightly and do not over mix.

Next, pour in the melted butter and milk mixture. Blend only just enough to mix everything together, then pour into tin.

Move quickly at this stage and get the cake into the oven as quickly as possible while the mixture is still warm.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until a tester comes out clean. Allow to cool completely and do not remove while still hot - the cake will break (I can vouch for this...)!

Once cool, cut cake into squares.

Dipping Sauce:
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 tablespoon butter

Bring to the boil and simmer for about 5 minutes. Allow to cool slightly. Dip cake blocks to coat with sauce and then roll in coconut.

Enjoy!

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Photo a day challenge - August

It's the first day of August and not only does it mean we're heavily into the Olympics in London and we are over half way through 'summer' of 2012 - it also means a new monthly photo challenge from Australian blogger Chantelle of Fat Mum Slim. Both of us in the PT team have been doing the challenge for a few months now and it is totally addictive. One of us is definitely better than the other -no names mentioned (Nicky) but as she says to me on a monthly basis: 'There are no hard and fast rules. It's just for fun, if you miss a day, just catch up or go to the next'. 

So once again I am dusting off my iphone lens and getting ready for an epic month of happy snapping! Hopefully this time I can complete the circuit and win the gold (sorry shameful but obligatory Olympic puns!) and finish the month without missing a day. 

If you're keen to take part, all you have to do is save the photo list below and get snapping. You can keep your photos to yourself or if you want to share to twitter or facebook remember to use the hashtag #photoadayaug. Let us know if you've done the challenge before as we'd love to see how you've done so far.  


To find out about how the photo challenge will change your life pop over to Chantelle's site. You can also follow her on Twitter @fatmumslim and Instagram and see how she does her thing - it might inspire you.

Nicky's #photoadayjuly 




Sunday 29 July 2012

Silent Sunday - Today we are...





































Loving the Olympics fever in London
Wondering where the sunshine has disappeared to
Making Jamie's strawberry and halloumi salad
Drinking Pimms
Eating strawberries and cream (we can't get enough!)
Going for gold with Stella McCartney

Are you watching the Olympics? What did you get up to today?