Everyone should be able to cook and hopefully i’m good proof that anyone can do it! Support Jamie in his mission and help spread the buzz that real food brings.

1. It’s my own idea and tastes fantastic (honest!)

2. I used my new HD camera for the very first time! (hopefully you’ll like the quality increase as much as I do!)

The recipe is fantastic, quick, cheap and easy to put together. I think you’ll love it – please give it a go and tweak it to meet your tastebuds

Tastes incredibly good, give it a go!

In this video my new Daughter (just as beautiful as Phoebe) instructs me how to make a great mixed fish potato bake – it’s soooo yummy.
Get used to Chloe, she’s Phoebe’s apprentice – I hope to make lots of great videos with them together going forward!

Yes they contain bacon. Watch the video, drool, then make them yourself (and drool some more).

One thing I removed from the recipe was 50g of dark sugar to the batter mix. I felt there was enough sugar in them already and it actually gave them a slightly more savoury feel.

Anyhow enjoy these guinness cupcakes, mix up the icing and batter ingredients and let me know what you think!

Have a go for yourself and let me know how you get on with them I promise they won’t be around for long!!

Ingredients
3 lemons
oregano and mint herbs
2 garlic cloves
500g lamb cubes
100ml red wine, half a cucumber
half a red lettuce, flatbreads,
100ml olive oil, beef tomato,
small pot yoghurt, chilli sauce

Souvlaki (Greek: Σουβλάκι, [suˈvlaci]) or souvlakia is a popular Greek fast food consisting of small pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer. It may be served on the skewer for eating out of hand, in a pita sandwich with garnishes and sauces, or on a dinner plate, often with fried potatoes. The meat is traditionally lamb in Greece and Cyprus, or in modern times increasingly pork due to the lower cost. In other countries and for tourists, souvlaki may be made with other meats such as beef, chicken and sometimes fish (especially swordfish).
The word souvlaki is a diminutive of the Greek σούβλα souvla ‘skewer’, itself borrowed from Latin subula.

Souvlaki is attested in Greece since antiquity and it was known with the name ὀβελίσκος (obeliskos), dim. of ὀβελός (obelos), “spit”, mentioned amongst others in the works of Aristophanes, Xenophon, Aristotle,etc. A meat and bread recipe which resembles the way pita souvlaki is served today, with pita bread was also attested by Athenaeus in Deipnosophistae and called the plate kandaulos. The skewed meat, kebab-like recipe, existed as a favourite in ancient Greece at Archaic times, as the earliest references are attested in Homer.However, excavations held in Akrotiri on the Greek island of Santorini by professor Christos G. Doumas, unearthed stone sets of barbecue for skewers (Greek: κρατευταί – krateutai) used before the 17th century BCE. In each pair of the supports, the receptions for the spits are found in absolute equivalence, while the line of small openings in the base formed a mechanism to supply the coals with oxygen so that they remained alight during its use.

Ingredients:
Half an onion (chopped)
1 bokwurst sausage
shot of paprika
1tbsp curry powder
30ml red wine vinegar
Tin of chopped tomatoes
pinch of salt
1tbsp veg oil, 40g sugar

Currywurst is a fast-food dish of German origin consisting of hot pork sausage (German: Wurst) cut into slices and seasoned with curry ketchup, regularly consisting of ketchup or tomato paste blended with generous amounts of curry powder, or a ready-made ketchup-based sauce seasoned with curry and other spices. It is frequently served at German ‘Imbissbuden’ and from food trucks.
The invention of currywurst is attributed to Herta Heuwer in Berlin in 1949 after she obtained ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and curry powder from British soldiers.She mixed these ingredients with other spices and poured it over grilled pork sausage. Heuwer started selling the cheap but filling snack at a street stand in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin where it became popular with construction workers rebuilding the devastated city. She patented her sauce, called Chillup, in 1951.At its height the stand was selling 10,000 servings per week.She later opened a small restaurant which operated until 1974
Today, currywurst is often sold as a take-out/take-away food, Schnellimbisse (snacks), at diners or “greasy spoons,” on children’s menus in restaurants, or as a street food. Usually served with french fries or bread rolls (Brötchen), it is popular all over Germany but particularly popular in the metropolitan areas of Berlin, Hamburg and the Ruhr Area. Considerable variation both in the type of sausage used and the ingredients of the sauce occurs between these areas. Common variations include the addition of paprika or chopped onions. Often currywurst is sold in food booths, sometimes using a special machine to slice it into pieces, and served on a paper plate with a little wooden or plastic fork. It is also sold as a supermarket-shelf product to prepare at home.
An estimated 800 million servings are sold in Germany each year.

The currywurst is an icon of German popular culture. Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is a noted fan of currywurst. By tradition, every candidate for Bürgermeister (mayor) of Berlin is photographed by a currywurst stand.
The song “Currywurst” on Herbert Grönemeyer’s 1982 album Total Egal is a tribute to the snack.
The 1993 novel Die Entdeckung der Currywurst (“The Discovery of the Currywurst”) by Uwe Timm was made into a 2008 film of the same name. The plot is based on an alternative but unproven theory that currywurst was invented in Hamburg.
The Deutsches Currywurst Museum opened in Berlin on August 15, 2009, commemorating the 60th anniversary of its creation. Curator Martin Loewer said “No other national German dish inspires so much history and has so many well-known fans”.
The currywurst is also regularly featured in school books and nursery books.

But the two weeks before pakjesavond are full of exciting visits from Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet to malls, schools etc. Children are allowed to make wishing lists and drawings for Sinterklaas. In the evening they sing songs and put a carrot in their shoe, hoping Sinterklaas will pay them a visit and leave a present. The carrot is for Sinterklaas his horse, Americo. He is a special horse, because he is able to walk over rooftops, while the Zwarte Pieten enter the houses through the chimney. That explains why they are black.

Sinterklaas is a very wise man, but can’t work without his loyal helpers; Zwarte Piet. Even though the Zwarte Pieten sometimes mess up situations, they always do there best to fix it and Sinterklaas trusts them. One of the nice things of the Zwarte Pieten is that they don’t only have gifts, they have candy as well, which they scatter all around the place. In houses, trough the mailbox etc. They don’t care, they are here to share.

There are many kinds of treats they can scatter, but traditionally it’s kruidnoten and pepernoten. A lot of people always mix them up, but there is a big difference between them.
Wikiepdia info:
Pepernoten (literally, ‘pepper nuts’, the Dutch equivalent of Pfeffernüsse) are a cookie-like kind of confectionery, traditionally associated with the Sinterklaas holiday in the Netherlands and Belgium. You will see the pepernoot in two varieties. The first is light brown, randomly shaped, and made from the same ingredients as taai-taai (flour, sugar, anise, cinnamon, and clove) and is fairly chewy, though it hardens gradually when exposed to the air. The other more common variety is hard like a nutshell, hence the name (nut = noot). It is made using the same ingredients used for making speculaas. This variety’s actual name is kruidnoot, but people mistakenly call them pepernoot so often, that the distinction is not of much practical importance.
The Kruidnoot is available in different sizes small ones and bigger ones. Besides the difference in size they have different colour, taste and are harder. The bigger one is the most common for sale in the shops and there are multiple brands, the smaller one however is sold by one brand and these are more expensive but tastier and used when Sinterklaas reaches shore (this is also done when there is no shore) by his helper black peter and given to children.
A particularly distinct custom associated with both variants of pepernoten is throwing them in handfuls through the room so children can look for them. Originally this is an ancient fertility symbol (like a farmer sowing seeds) not unlike throwing rice at a marriage.
There is another variety of pepernoten called ‘chocolade-pepernoten’ (officially ‘chocolade-kruidnoten’). These are regular kruidnoten covered in either milk, dark or white chocolate.

If you give it a try let me know how you get on and where Herman goes!

These delightful bitesize balls of fun are delicious, easy to make and super cool. Mix them up and customize them the way you like and I guarantee you’ll make them again!

Here’s a very simple oven conversion table: -
Gas         F              C           
1⁄4          225°       107°
1⁄2          250°       121°
1             275°       135°
2            300°       149°
3            325°        163°
4            350°        177°
5            375°        191°
6            400°        204°
7            425°        218°
8            450°        232°
9            475°        246°

Breaking down cup sizes to grams etc isn’t as straight forward as you would like and can be pretty intensive. Here is a comparison of some popular measures,  will add to these if any specific requests come in

DRY INGREDIENTS

LIQUID CONVERSIONS

WEIGHT CONVERSION

DRY VOLUMES

AMERICAN / BRITISH GENERAL COMPARISON

Ok, I think that’s about enough information for now…..here’s an excellent online calculator for specifics. http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking - if you have any specific questions you guys normally contact me direct but I’ll do my best to put them on here.

Cheers.