Big Burgers

Ingredients:


500g minced beef (or any minced meat of your choice)
1 thick slice of bread
1/2 onion
1 egg
4 tsp of cream cheese
pinch of mixed herbs
salt and pepper


Method:


Take 4 teaspoons of cream cheese out of its packaging now ready for later, do this now before you open your meat to avoid getting any of the uncooked meat near the remaining cream cheese in the packet, if you do will have to discard it rather use it for something else later.
Rub the bread between your fingertips until it is fine breadcrumbs and finely chop the onion and place in a mixing bowl with the minced meat, mixed herbs, salt and pepper.
Break the egg into the bowl then using your hands throroughly mix them all together until all the ingredients are mixed evenly throughout.
Divide the mixture into 8 equal size measures and flatten each them out into discs, in the centre of each disc make a slight indentation.
Place a teaspoon of the cream cheese into the indentation of 4 of these discs and then place the other disc over it with the indentation face down.
Pinch and blend the edges together so the join disappears.

Finished burgers ready to be cooked 

Cook in the middle of a preheated oven at 210oC for 20mins.

Place cooked burgers in some kitchen roll to remove excess grease before serving.

Served with grated cheese and BBQ sauce in a tiger bread roll with wedges

Obviously you don't have to use cream cheese for the filling, you could use and other cheese, ketchup, BBQ sauce... anything you like really, you could even have no filling at all if you like.

Snack - 250kcals

Following the 150kcal snack post here is a list of some more calorific snacks containing approx. 250kcals each:

• 1/2 frozen deep pan style pizza
• orient express snack noodle meal
• ice cream, ie: cornetto/snicker style
• 2 scoops ice cream
• 1/6 bag of tortilla chips 
• microwave fries
• Ambrosia creamy crunch
• 1 slice of toast with thickly spread peanut butter
• packet of walkers max crisps
• chocolate bar
• 1 pizza square 
• 1/2 can rice pudding
• 1/4 tub pringles
• medium packet of peanuts
• 1/2 sachet angel delight
• small bag of 50g peanuts
• portion of trifle
• 7 chicken nuggets
• custard slice

Not quite sure why there are peanuts on the list twice, these are lists that a friend of mine sent me given to her by her dietitian!

Lastly George, who I started talking to on Twitter recently has wrote this blog entry partly about making the vanilla cheesecake from earlier in this blog. It was emailing George that recipe that actually gave me the idea to start this blog :)

Alphabet Cookies

Here's one to make with your child/children this weekend. From my personal experience as a child food became a huge chore, most meals would take a least an hour to eat and I had very little enjoyment of the tastes and flavors, so I think that taking time out to make fun foods with your CF child/children can help to introduce enjoyment of food and eating rather than seeing it as a battle to avoid NG/PEG feeds.


This recipe is slightly more unusual using the seeds or candied fruits but if you don't think your child will enjoy those then I'm sure substituting those for the more traditional chocolate chips would work absolutely fine.


Ingredients:


225g butter, softened
140g caster sugar
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
2tsp grenadine
280g plain flour
pinch of salt 
5-6 tbsp unsalted dried pomegranate seeds or roasted melon seeds




Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy, then beat in the egg yolk and grenadine. Sift together the flour and salt into the mixture and stir until combined. Halve the dough, shape into balls, wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30-60 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 190oC/375oF/Gas Mark 5. Line 2 large baking sheets with baking paper.
Unwrap the dough and roll out between 2 sheets of baking paper to about 3mm thick. Sprinkle half the seeds over each piece of dough and lightly roll the rolling pin over them. Cut out letters with alphabet cutter and place them on the baking sheets, spaced well apart.
Bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. Leave to cool on the baking sheets for 5-10 minutes, then transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool completely.




For Tutti Frutti cookies: Replace the seeds with 25g each of chopped candied fruit, glace cherries and angelica and add to the cookie dough.

Comparing Calories in Crisps

Below I have compared the calorie, fat and carbohydrate content of 10 random bags of crisps (well not so random as they are what me or people I have been with have eaten recently, LOL) I have listed them with the highest values per bag at the top, lowest at the bottom.

The highest calorie crisps in this list have over 3 times as many calories as the lowest which is a massive difference when choosing a high calorie snack!

Some bags I have looked at are multipack bags which tend to be slightly smaller than single bags so I will mark these with a *

Calories: Per bag/Per 100g

1. McCoys Flame Grilled Steak - 252kcals/504kcals
2. Doritoes Tangy Cheese - 200kcals/500kcals
3. Walkers Ready Salted - 185kcals/537kcals 
4. NikNak Nice n Spicy - 171kcals/570kcals
5. Cheese Wotsits - 123kcals/547kcals
6. Frazzles* - 113kcals/488kcals
7. Monster Munch Pickled Onion* - 109kcals/493kcals
8. Salt and Vinegar Chipsticks* - 108kcals/481kcals
9. Cheese Quavers* - 88kcals/534kcals
10. Worcester Sauce French Fries* - 83kcals/435kcals

Fat: Per bag/Per 100g

1. McCoys - 14.6g/29.2g
2. Walkers - 11.8g/34.1g
3. NikNaks - 11.3g/37.8g
4. Doritoes - 10.8g/27g
5. Wotsits -7.4g/33g
6. Monster Munch* - 5.5g/25g
7. Frazzles* - 5.3g/23g
8. Chipsticks* - 5.2g/23g
9. Quavers* - 4.9g/30.1g
10. French Fries - 3g/16g

Carbohydrate: Per Bag/Per 100g

1. McCoys - 26.9g/53.8g
2. Doritoes - 22.8g/57g
3. Walkers - 17.1g/49.7g
4. NikNaks - 15.6g/51.9g
5. Frazzles* - 14.3g/62g
6. Chipsticks* -13.7g/61g
7. Monster Munch* - 13.2g/60g
8. Wotsits - 12.6g/56g
9. French Fries* - 12.4g/65g
10. Quavers* - 10.3g/62.5g

So McCoys Flame Grilled Steak flavor top all 3 of the lists so if you fancy a bag of crisps and are unsure of which ones to go for then these are the top calorie option.

Welsh rarebit

Here is the final Welsh recipe for the day, a classic small meal/large snack.


Ingredients: 


2 slicesof bread
1 tbsp of butter
50g of grated Caerphilly cheese
1/4 tsp mustard
whole milk
salt and pepper


Equipment:


Small saucepan, grater.


Cooking Method:


Toast the bread under the grill.
Butter the toast, using half the butter, and keep hot
Melt the rest of the butter in a small saucepan.
Remove from the heat and add the grated cheese, a little salt and pepper, and the mustard.
Stir in enough milk to make into a stiff paste.
Spread the cheese paste onto the toast.
Grill gently until golden brown.

Quarryman’s Favourite (Feffryn Chwarelwr)

Many traditional dishes evolve from workpeople’s need for portable food to eat at their workplace. Cornish pasties are one example. This was popular with the slate quarry-men of North Wales:


1 lb | 450g flour
1/2 lb | 225g lard
1/2 lb | 225g currants
1/4 lb | 225g sugar
pinch salt
few dabs butter


METHOD
1. Make pastry with the hour, lard and salt.
2. Divide in two, roll out fairly thinly and cover a large oven plate with one half.
3. Spread the currants evenly over the pastry, dot with butter and sprinkle with sugar.
4. Cover with the rest of the pastry,seal the edges, cut air holes in the top.
5. Brush with milk and egg and cook to golden brown (425°F, Gas 7, 220°C).


This recipe also appears in A Book of Welsh Country Pudding and Pies by Bobby Freeman


Both this and the previous recipe (Patagnoia Cream Tart) and many other tasty Welsh recipe are on http://www.recipesfromwales.com/

Patagnoia Cream Tart (Teisen Hufen Patagonia)

As it's St. David's day today I thought I would post a few Welsh recipes for today, a nice creamy pudding, a Welsh version of the Cornish pasty and a classic Welsh dish, Welsh rarebit.


Firstly Patagnoia Cream Tart:


A rich, dish designed to use the overplus of dairy produce which resulted when the Welsh settlers finally succeeded in
damming the river Camwy.


8 ozs | 225g flour
4 ozs | 125g butter
3 eggs, separated
1/2 pint | 10fl. ozs | 275 mls double cream
1 tbls. vanilla sugar


METHOD
1. Rub the butter into the flour and bind with the egg yolks to a rich paste.
2. Rest it for several hours before rolling out to line a fairly deep pie dish.
3. Beat the egg whites until stiff, fold into the cream with the sugar (use essence if vanilla sugar is not available).
4. Sprinkle nutmeg on the top and bake in a slow oven (325°F, Gas 3, 170°C) for 35-40 mins.


This recipe appears in A Book of Welsh Country Pudding and Pies by Bobby Freeman which is published by Y Lolfa [ISBN 0862431409].