Finding my new home!

A new year brings lots of new things and for 'Back to the Table' I have found a new home for my blog which is expanding apace........

Back to the Table's adventures continue HERE!

Sp click the above link and I'll see you there for more kitchen shenanigans and tasty treats.
I'll be uploading a recipe archive too at last so all those delish recipes, kitchen hints and cooking tips will be easy to find.

 Before I depart for new shores, a huge thank you must be paid to Google Blogger, I couldn't have begun without you!

See you all at my new place!

Lesley, aka venusianfrycook x

A sausage fit for a king!.... Handmade pork & leek sausage.

Feel free to be outraged if you think I am wrong, but it seems to me as if there is a 'class war' when it comes to the sausage!
There are those among us who believe the sausage should only to be seen at breakfast or brunch, or maybe at a motorway service station where the lorry drivers 'fry' is the only substantial meal on the menu.  Never would these people dream of serving up sausages as their main meal of the day and those that do are, 'NQOUD'...'not quite one of us dear'.

The misunderstood sausage has for generations been viewed, that is when eaten as part of dinner or at tea, as a working class dish, probably because during the war years when meat was not only in short supply, it was expensive, and those who couldn't afford the 'superior' cuts of meat we take for granted today, were left with little choice but to use offal or the butchers house made sausages which never had much actual meat in them! Fast forward 70 years and from what I can see in the supermarkets, little has changed when it comes to meat content in what is a frequently eaten food.....apparently a few million sausages are consumed every day!

The sausage is hugely popular across Europe, from the German bratwurst, to the Polish kielbasa, the Spanish chorizo, to the Italian and French salamis and smoked and cured sausages, to our own pork or beef sausages. Sadly Ireland falls short when it comes to the general standard of ingredients and there are things in our sausages that might surprise you, and real meat isn't high on the list of ingredients! When we eat our supermarket bought sausage, we are consuming a mixture of gristle, colours, preservatives, fats, soya flours, rusk ...do you even know what rusk is?, then there are the nitrates, polyphosphates, artificial flavours, and then comes the meat...all 41 to maybe 67% of it if you are lucky!.....rusk by the way is a wheat based food additive...it helps bulk out the product so the buyer thinks they are getting more meat for their money. And I'm not telling fibs about your sausage only having 41% of it that is real meat, check the label on your own favourite sausage to see the meat content, you might be surprised.....or shocked.

Happy New Year! and a Pizza by any other name!

Well we have made it through the first week of the new year and I hope it has been an enjoyable one for you with not too many privations! We each begin the new year with high hopes and fine ideals, to change our lifestyles, but honestly, how many of us actually see these through the whole year?

As my guru Mary Poppins would say....'well begun is half done'..... so instead of launching ourselves 'cold turkey' into new regimes which are just too much of a shock to our delicate systems, why don't we try and make one small change each week, and who knows, maybe these changes can become a way of life more successfully.

First on the agenda is always addressing what we eat, and after the excesses of the season we are laden with guilt and a few extra pounds!, but this year I am not going to mention the dreaded 'D' word!  

Without fail, each year beginning brings a renewed determination to change ones eating habits and frankly I'm quite bored with it all because after a few well behaved weeks in which we are totally miserable but just won't admit it, we realise that these habits are unsustainable and it's back to business as usual! 

So let's try a different approach. Instead of attempting another new extreme fad why not change a few simple things about your eating style. For example...how many times a week to you have a takeaway or fast food? come on now, tell the truth!...one?...two? more than two? and if so why is that? ....If the answer is you don't have time to cook, well then maybe you can think of ways to organise yourself a bit better so you will have the time.

There are so many meals that can be made in batches and frozen, or even kept in the fridge for a few days, that there is no excuse for not cooking and eating real food at home, and really, how much time does it take to put together a healthy yet hearty salad, or a tasty stew or stir fry, especially when you can buy everything already prepared from the supermarket. Meat etc. can be bought already minced or diced, vegetables can be bought peeled and shredded or diced.....I even saw chopped onions for sale the other day...how great is that!

You will also find that home cooked meals are more satisfying, not only from the pleasure and feeling of accomplishment you get, but they do keep you fuller for longer as they contain more of those vital nutrients which the high processing of junk foods strips away.

Cooking your own food also makes you more aware of exactly what you are eating. Fast foods, pre-prepared meals, and processed foods have many hidden dangers lurking in the form of excess unhealthy fats, salts, and sugars. If you are cooking at home you know what you are adding to your food and can make conscious decisions to maybe not add more salt to your meal or to add some extra vegetables which you can easily see are missing as part of your balanced meal.

So take a look at what you eat and think about what little changes you can make to improve your eating and cooking habits, and after a while you might be surprised at the other little changes you begin to notice!