News
Chicken in the UK: A snapshot
'Back in 1950 the average Brit ate less than one kilogram of chicken a year, today we eat two kilograms a month.' Of those birds, about 80% are factory farmed, killed after just six weeks of life. This informative article discusses how many of the supermarkets have cleaned up their act in the egg stakes with many no longer selling those from caged hens but not much progress has been made in the meat market. Dutch supermarkets have recently stopped selling the most intensively farmed chickens, could the UK take their lead?
Fears Grow As National Biscuit Shortage Could Continue Well Into April
Apparently this is a real thing caused by Britain's biggest biscuit factory being flooded in December. Bad news. Good job I've still got that family selection tin leftover from Christmas...
Scalpel, please! The YouTube star performing food surgery on film
This series of clinical food operations is quite random but strangely addictive. Have you ever dreamed of seeing a Reese's peanut butter cup dissected? Me neither but still it's quite engrossing. And there are some interesting psychological points in this - click through to see if you too have autonomous sensory meridian responses (ie. head orgasm - you read right).
Morrisons signs deal to sell food to Amazon customers
Amazon continues its quest for world domination in all areas of life. Could this collaboration push the big supers out of the delivery market? Let's sit back and watch the veg fly.
Reviews
Chocolate digestives: the best and worst – taste test
In my biscuit rankings the chocolate digestive is a top tenner so this is of significant interest - will McVitie's reign supreme or does one of the supermarkets have a dunk-worthy dipper?
Recipes
Sweet Potato & Chicken Cacciatore
Cacciatore is a fancy (Italian) name for a tomato based stew with mushrooms and herbs; Jamie Oliver has decided to pimp this one further by adding sweet potatoes, olives and chicken thighs. A fantastic one pot dish that, after an hour in the oven, gives you tender, fall off the bone chicken and a delicious, red wine flavoured sauce. The only changes I made were to add a little sugar and reduce down the stew for 10 mins on the hob so it was a little thicker, making just the right consistency to dunk in some seeded bread.
Custard Cream Blondies
'I'm not normally speechless about any food apart from steak but these are something else,' says a workmate earlier today. These blondies are dangerous: both gooey in the middle and chewy on the edges, with crunchy biscuits and vanilla spiked white chocolate chunks. Ooo la la. Super easy to make too - weekend baking anyone? I kept them in the oven for another 5-10 minutes but depends on your oven's fierceness.
Food for Thought
Broken Down Into Its Ingredients, a Chicken McNugget Is Strangely Beautiful
If you are interested in finding out what all those strange sounding ingredients look like, then you'll like this article which provides a visual breakdown, almost a piece of art. 40 ingredients in a chicken nugget, wow.
Work lunch update: it hasn't gone entirely to plan to be honest, most days I've headed into town for something to eat but there has been one success - a tuna pesto pasta salad which is really tasty and quick to prep the night before. If my body will get itself out of bed early enough next week, I might try something a bit more adventurous.