After Christmas a lot of people try to change their lifestyles and adopt a healthier approach.
Of course companies operating in the dieting / health sector know this so in the run up to January 1st there’s a LOT of promotions and incentives to get people “hooked”.
Food Matters are running a 3 day detox in the New Year which might be of interest to some people.
You can grab the recipes and shopping list directly from their site and Facebook page.
More details here
I love trying out locally produced food, so I picked up a packet of Pasta Milano’s Fresh Ravioli with Tomato & Mozzarella:
Fresh Ravioli with Tomato & Mozzarella
I like pasta and buying fresh pasta is something I like to do assuming that I’m planning on cooking it within a couple of days.
The Fresh Ravioli with Tomato & Mozzarella comes in a fairly simple package and is made from Irish ingredients – at least in part: ricotta cheese, Irish mozzarella, tomato concentrate, potato flakes, parmesan, cheddar, pecorino cheese, whey powder, milk powder, oat flakes, salt, garlic.
I cooked it this afternoon and while it was tasty – served with a sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan – I’m not sure if it was worth paying the premium price.
While I like being able to support local business there is a line – paying almost double for the “pleasure” is a bit much.
I love cooking. Chopping, slicing and dicing vegetables is a very calming process.
However the cleanup is a pain. You peel an onion, or top and tail a carrot and you have debris left over.
What to do?
I *was* either letting it sit there until I’d finished the prep and then scooping it all up and putting it in the bin.
Or using the empty packaging from mushrooms or meat to hold all the peelings
But neither option is particularly satisfactory
So I finally succumbed and got a counter top bin:
It might seem silly, but having a bin on the counter that I can dump peels into directly makes things a LOT easier and has also meant that I’ve been able to keep the kitchen work area a lot tidier.
I paid around €14 for the bin in my local Argos. You might find cheaper, but I wanted a good quality bin so opted for the Simple Human one
I love coffee. Nothing new there.
Last week I was in Brussels for a meeting, so I stopped off in the duty free shops on my way home to get a few bits and pieces. Of course “duty free” isn’t true these days, as you only really get those kind of prices when you’re flying outside the EU. Brussels airport may not be my favourite airport, but it’s got a fantastic selection of chocolate and other gourmet products to tempt you. One of them is Godiva Hazelnut Crème Coffee.
It’s not cheap – if you buy it online directly from Godiva it’s about 15 Euro for a packet – but it is a wonderfully tasty way to spend a few Euro 🙂
Jokes aside, if you like coffee it’s worth it to treat yourself from time to time.
Hazelnut coffee and other flavours may not be acceptable to “purists”, but nobody is forcing them to drink the coffee!
At work I’ve been buying a variety of different flavoured coffees to try out.
Some of them have been very good, while others, like the Christmas pudding flavoured one, were “odd”
The Fitbit Force, which is the latest Fitbit device, is now available to order in the US.
It’s not available in other markets as far as I can tell and the US orders are currently showing a 4 to 6 week waiting time on deliveries.
The Force brings back the ability to measure how many stairs you climb per day, as well as adding a watch / clock function that other trackers incorporate. If these features don’t matter to you, then you might be happy sticking with the slightly cheaper Fitbit Flex. Personally I was quite disappointed that the Flex didn’t include tracking of stairs climbed, so I’m very tempted to get a Force.
What else does the new device offer?
They’ve released a pretty slick video to show off the device’s features:
http://youtu.be/1Eig_xyVMxY
If you already have one of the other Fitbit devices it might be quite hard to justify getting the newest one.
However, if you don’t have the Flex then maybe moving to a wristband device can help, as the One and Ultra are quite easy to either forget or lose (based on my own experiences and that of various friends)
Here’s a simple comparison chart to show the differences between the different devices, including the now defunct Ultra:
Fitbit tracking devices compared
According to a report on The Verge, Fitbit is working on a new version of their tracker.
The new model will be an upgrade to the current “flex” and will add back the ability to track stairs climbed.
It will also, apparently, have a watch function.
Personally I miss the altimeter function that the Fitbit models, other than the Flex, have. Being able to track stairs climbed encouraged me to take the stairs more!
According to The Verge the new device will be called “the Force” and will retail for around $129.
The freezer compartment of my fridge freezer isn’t exactly “big”. Once you put a few frozen vegetables and leftover mince etc., in it you run out of space.
This has been annoying me for months, as I end up not being able to freeze items that would be suitable to freeze.
I don’t like going shopping more than about once a week, so I’d like to be able to use the freezer more. That’s been nigh on impossible due to the space issues.
Solution? Freezer bags.
And why I didn’t think of this before now is a mystery to me.
A packet of freezer bags costs about 1 Euro. But it’s worth a lot more.
The typical issue I run into is with minced meat. Most supermarkets sell packets of mince that are between 300g and 1kg. Most of the time I’ll use between 100g and 150g for a sauce of some kind, leaving me with 150g or more. Of course the plastic tray that the meat comes in is physically quite big, so you can only fit a few of them in the freezer before you run out of space.
However if, instead of using the meat’s original tray, you empty the leftover mince into a freezer bag you get an immediate space saving.
(I’m not advocating for frozen food, but I am being practical – unless you can go to a fresh meat counter you’ll nearly always end up with excess meat)
As I work my way through the contents of the freezer and replace the original packaging with freezer bags I should be able to free up quite a bit of space 🙂
