Various blenders, grinders, whisks, food processors and hand-held food mixers are found in many modern kitchens be them home or commercial kitchens. One brilliant time saving device, which I have to say that my first one was brought for me as a anniversary gift is the food processor.  I also have brought food processors as both a great wedding or anniversary gift for my friends and relatives over the years. The brilliant food processor I love using mine it saves me lots of time and gives consistant results everytime.

The chopping, grating and shredding blades of a food processor can make the business of preparing large amounts of raw food a matter of seconds, rather than minutes if done by hand. They are exceptionally useful for chopping a succession of ingredients, for instance when you are making vegetable soup or even a salsa. Processors make easy work of making soft bread crumbs in seconds .  Just  simply cut the crusts off a few thick slices of bread and process them in your food processor into bread crumbs for you to use in your cooking. Another useful thing that food processors are useful for is to make flavoured butters, which beats having arm ache from beating the butter by hand.

The Kenwood KM020 Major Titanium Food Processor 6.7 Litres, 1500-Watt for example is a great machine which is versatile and will last to be used for endless applications within your kitchen and save you hours. With its different speeds & powers, plus its selection of 20 attachments you will find this will become your top kitchen gadget.

If you only want to chop one item most processors have a additional small bowl and chopping blade which is useful for such small jobs such as chopping herbs. Most processors come with a variety of blades and discs for various chopping, dicing, slicing, blending and mixing jobs. You just select the tool you need for the cooking job you are doing.

Here is a great idea for an instant sorbet you can prepare in your processor:

Use your food processor to make an instant sorbet by simply tipping a punnet of raspberries, (or other such soft fruit available or in season), into your food processor and add 2 tablespoons of icing sugar. Then process until smooth. Then freeze your sorbet  in a suitable container. It is up to you how you serve this, in a glass or wafer cone, decorate it with some fruit and mint for example & enjoy.

Why not let me know what you use your food processor for? Which attachments do you use the most? Tell me all about your great instant food processor tips or recipes?

A lot of cooks collect snippets over the years of cookery items. If you take a look in to my kitchen, you’ll find my cooks scrapbook. It’s crammed with tips, clippings, recipe variations and other bits i wanted to keep, all of which I have collected over the years. This book which I cherish, is held tied together with ribbon, from years of repeated use while cooking through the seasons. Some of my cookery notes, which I have made may only be referred to once a year, such as Christmas. I might  simply remind myself how I varied a recipe in the previous year and how my guests had commented on my changes. Just  like the christmas pudding that Auntie Pat preferred due to the addition of a variety of nuts, sherry and port.

I was looking through my book at some notes I had made for my daughter. This was when I was teaching her to cook, and I had written about ’skinning’.

I was explaining to her that some fruits, vegetables and  fish can be skinned that little bit easier with a little know how. For example to remove the skins easily from  peaches, small onions and tomatoes, all you need to do is pour over enough boiling water to cover them. Then leave them to stand for a minute or two and you will then find that the skin will simply peel off cleanly and easily.

However Peppers are not so easy and quite a few people do not like pepper & tomato skins in their meals so it is well worth knowing how to quickly take these skins off.  I skewer peppers and hold them to a gas flame turning them gently until blackened. You will then find that the peppers skin will peel of easily. You can alternatively cut them in half and roast under a hot grill until blackened, to do the same thing.

What about skinning a fillet of fish. This can be made easy if you place your fish on a chopping board skin side down. Insert your sharp kitchen knife at the tail end, with the blade held at a angle between the skin and flesh of the fish. Then while pulling the skin with one hand and using a sawing motion with the blade in your other hand to cut the flesh away from the skin. Let the fish flesh fold over away from you do this.

Any cook needs a good set of knives as their tools to create any recipe. This set of superb knives is a great collection of knives for many a culinary dilemma. This set would also make a great gift for a new chef starting their training or for a great home cook. Made from a special steel to provide a tough edge to last but an edge that can be sharpened too.

Did you know that in a busy kitchen a chef or cook may sharpen their blade up to 10 times a shift depending on what they are preparing?

What tips have you given to a new cook?

How remarkable is it that in this day and age, how we can undertake some phenomenal things.

Take the fact we can go to the moon, (it is entirely up to you if you believe in the conspiracy or not). We can develop cures for many fatal diseases. We can fly and develop many transportation devices to get all of us around the world.

I can remember a marvellous conversation I had with my grandmother. How she remembers the first car coming to the village and how everyone was scared of it, that was except for the children who were fascinated. My grandmother had never been out of the village, let alone travelled abroad by any means of transport. I realised that, in her lifetime, she had seen such marvellous inventions appearing from cars to airplanes and what about the gadgets we all take for granted now a days for example.

Such inventions of devices like the TV, Washing Machines, Computers, Telephones and installation of electricity and road lighting.

When you actually think about these things, it is hard to actually envisage how one person such as my grandmother, could of seen so much in a lifetime.

One thing I do know, is that she never ever passed her driving test. Despite driving tractors and taking her driving test several times. Even when she was in her late 90’s, she would cycle on her bike down country roads. But, in the middle of the road I might add, without a care in the world, as if she was still in the era before the car.

Which brings me back on to my original thought, which is, how come despite all these marvellous inventions over the years why have we not come up with a way to run a car say on water?

With our British weather, we wouldn’t need to go to the petrol station to fill up. All you would need to do is leave your car boot open overnight and you would have a full tank by the morning!

Now there is an invention for ‘University Challenge’. What would your invention of today be?

I have been enjoying some more creative moments in the kitchen listening to the cool rhythm of blues and jazz, which is of course one of my own personal favourites ‘Jools Holland’. This got me thinking.

You would hear many a work colleague grumble, that the sound of music actually disturbed their concentration. Which, I have to say I have had on more than one occasion over the years. However , in some cases many people work better with music.

Obviously everyone’s music tastes are different, and in certain job roles the speed and tempo of music pieces could potentially obtain maximum production from the listener. I personally love relaxing, easy listening music to listen too while I am cooking. Especially if it is a recipe I know well. However, if I am creating something new I want inspirational music!

In the words of one of the greatest bards, ‘Let music be the food of Love’

From Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, 1601 by William Shakespeare, his character Orsino asks for more music, as he is frustrated with his courtship of another character the Countess Olivia. The character Orsino thinks that an excess of music might cure his obsession with love, in such a way as that of eating too much would remove your appetite for food. Hence the saying ‘Let music be the food of love’.

What music would you play while creating in the kitchen on various audio players ?

There are a superb selection of audio players to choose from to suit everyone’s tastes. My son would go for his Ipod which would be playing heavy rock. He would bang the kitchen utensils in time with the music’s heavy rock beat, along with performing air guitar with a saucepan, which I must say, always brings a smile to my face. My own choice would have to be Apple Ipod Classic 80GB MP3 player in black (as shown). This mp3 player not only looks fantastic, but this range also has loads of accessories and devices to use with it. All to bring music to your ears in an variety of ways and designs, together with loads of room to store as many tracks as you need to create all those exciting recipes in your kitchens at home.

Why not let me know how you listen to your favourite music and of course what your favourite track to cook to is and we will compare notes (that is music notes if you pardon the pun, between all of us!)

Switching off properly at nightime before you retire to bed could save you £’s. How many times have we heard about the credit crunch? Are we in a recession, coming out of one, or in the midst of one, with still worse to come?

No matter what, all of us have noticed a significant difference in the money we have in our pockets today.

Anyone with a car should be astonished at the rising price at the petrol pumps and what we are paying for petrol and diesel, and tax over and over again. In my own case I actually had to buy another car unfortunately only last July. My very reliable car decided after years of loyal service to ‘blow a head gasket’, which turned out to be of the unrecoverable form. (Of course at a most inappropriate time I might add. Luckerly for me my son plays rugby and on the night it blew up I had a whole team of 15 strapping youngmen at my disposal to push my beloved car to safety for me. So they definitely scored a try with me that night!). Like many of us, I am not sure if I am angry or just amazed at how prices have risen and continue to rise. For instance when I collected the new car I filled up with petrol, this was back on 27^th July 2007 at the cost of £57. Today I filled up the same car with petrol, (a car I have not even had for a year) and I had to pause at the digits displayed on the petrol pump. This was showing £75.78p, that’s a whole £18.78p per tank extra, every time I fill up just on fuel. I might add I was not the only one gazing at the pumps prices as the man on the other side of the pump made some rather rude remark as we met replacing the petrol nozzles, which I couldn’t possibly repeat at the size of his petrol bill.

On top of this which is just a small proportion, my own household gas and electric energy bill has risen up, up and away (I think the saying goes?). Now to the extent that I was paying £75 a month, less than a year ago, and now I am paying £145 per month and on top of this I am now being told that this will be rising a further 40% before the end of this year.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for many of us, as our weekly grocery bills escalate, with some food products rising by 60% like dairy & butter for instance.

A great way to save is to use a microwave, steamer or hob method of cooking for instance, to save on having a full oven on for hours. This great microwave Baumatic BTM23.1SS Built-in Microwave for instance can be ideal, if not for yourself, then for a relative or son or daughter studying away from home. With its 23 litre capacity and 900w stainless steel microwave oven, its perfect to cut down on cooking time and energy.

Many people have looked at different ways to cut their costs, including switching energy providers or fixing their energy prices. Shopping trends are changing with increases in home delivery, to save on petrol etc. Many are turning back to shop has our grandparents did, close to home and by going to local farmers markets & shops, along with using the internet. We are buying ingredients that would potentially make up to 3 family meals by using left overs, such as cold meats & vegetables to make a further dish the next night, but thats for another blog for you.

I recently read that the average household could actually save £1,048 or even 30% per year in energy bills by simply switching off the lights, television, computer consoles and other items which we all leave on standby overnight (that is just short of 14 full tanks of petrol to me!). The National Audit Office (NAO), who monitor public expenditure, have found out that many builders were not sticking to energy efficiency regulations and that there are not enough home insulations installers and manufacturers in the UK. Also the fact that the UK lagged behind Europe in promoting energy efficient appliances.

Here is a great product as this Kenwood Energy Saving Kettle JK450 saves up to 35% energy when compared with an ordinary kettle. With its 1.7 litre capacity, concealed element, rapid boil feature and removable & washable limescale filter. So all in all this is one practical kitchen appliance to have at the moment.

Picnic in style with the trend setters. As the sun shines and we are all out and about enjoying the fantastic array of sporting events we have available at the moment having just had the European football cup and Wimbledon Tennis Tournament in full swing. We also have the pleasure of the British Grand Prix this weekend and an abundance of horse race meetings. Not forgetting those fantastic summer regattas, evening outdoor concerts and plays that you can attend and take along your very own picnic. For all of these great events a mix of great food and company can make a good evening to become a exhilarating excellent evening . So what do you take? Well gone are the days when you just took the old car rug and no longer is the sandwich box with a sandwich and sausage roll in top of the picnic ingredients. Now today it’s all about indulgence.

You need comfort in the form of table and chairs (remember you may have to carry them a long distance, so make sure they are light). There are some great outdoor furniture which can be found on price grabber which is well worth a look.

This Ultra Fit Camping PT002-Folding Table and Chairs This folding picnic table and chairs comes complete in its own carry case. It’s easy to assemble and fold away, making it the ideal companion for a family day out or camping trip. Table size 65 x 85.5 Box dimensions 86 x 39 x 11 cm Price: £35.00 Now £14.00 Fantastic value ,so get it quick!

This range of furniture is not only exceptional value for money but its light and easy to carry. So just dress it up with your own table ware, glasses, napkins and table cloth etc and your ready for a picnic hamper loaded with goodies. Fill your hamper full of regional delicatesses, honey meats, speciality cheeses, rustic breads, mouth watering quiches, tasty nibbles & savouries. Then just for the sweet tooth amongst us pack some chocolates , fruits & summer trifles. Don’t forget the cool box with somefrozen ice packs in to keep everything at a safe temperature for you to avoid any nasty bugs later. Plus the cool box can become yet another surface for your feast.

Take along plenty of drinks to suit all of your party, be this a variety of wines including sparkling for that special touch and non alcoholic drinks for the driver amongst you, even tea and coffee.

I found this brilliant product Bodum K1790-01 Yoyo Set - Cup and Plastic Infuser Its a corona glass mug with personnel infuser. With a capacity of 0.4 litre, 13 oz which gives you a rich tasting tea made from tea leaves, not bags. This infuser is not only easy to use but also easy to clean. Perfect for everyday use and your picnics so make sure you have a flask of hot water with you.

The important parts though are don’t forget the table dressing to create your own little ambience. Take a table cloth, napkins, chopping boards, an array of cutlery, plates etc and candles are a must. I recently noticed alot of chandeliers being taken too these events aswell. But it’s all about having fun. So enjoy the good company, scrumptious food and electric atmospheres and keep warm when the night draws in with either a loving arm or remember a blanket. Enjoy yourself!

I join the blogging team just as the full summer berries are being harvested. Our allotment is abundant with strawberries, raspberries, black & red currants as the local black birds and hedgehogs too, have also noticed. With all these fantastic colours and flavours both sweet and tart , we can all make so many delights such as summer pavlova’s, crumbles and charlottes, summer puddings and great sauces to accompany any meat or fish of your choice.

What’s more, why not make some homemade jams? You can really make this a fun family activity with first picking the fruit and then making the jam, even down to decorating the jar with labels etc. There is nothing quite like that just cooked homemade flavour, even more so if you have grown it yourself too. All of the picking farms (pick your own) are open now throughout the UK and you cannot drive anywhere without noticing the display signs along many a roadside, so why not have a go.

Don’t forget to check out the great storage containers available upon Pricegrabber I fell in love with these great funky storage jars with a twist and surprise under the lid for you when you open the jar what better to serve your homemade jam in,

Alessi Storage Jar, Pink, 15cm

Fun glass storage jar which features a plastic lid with a little man hanging on for dear life on the underside. Designed by Mattia Di Rossa. Product code - 81265807 £10

To make a quick and easy jam which you can store in your fridge and keep for around several days. That is of course, if it manages to last that long, when the rest of household have discovered it. Just take, just ripe or slightly under ripe fruit, as this is when the fruits pectin levels are at their highest which causes the jam to set. So you will need 3 cups of fruit (like our strawberries), to 1 cups of preserving sugar and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice. You can put all of these together in a saucepan, place the lid on and leave this to soak for up to 2 to 3 hours as my grandmother would do to enhance the flavour of the fruit. Then you simply heat in a saucepan gently at first to melt the sugar, then bring to the boil and cook for about 10 minutes. The jam will thicken as it cools and it will start to set slightly, take care as the jam will be very hot so leave to cool. Then you can place your homemade jam in sterilised jars to spread on the fresh bread or toast and scones. Make sure your jar is sealed and cool before you store in the fridge. It’s so simple and tasty you will wonder why you never tried this earlier.