National Yorkshire Pudding Day - How to Make the Perfect Yorkshire Pudding with Aldi

Oh, I love a good foodie celebration and one of my favourites has to be celebrating one of Yorkshire's best loved foodies delights. The humble Yorkshire pudding! Who doesn't love a good Yorkie pud? In our house I always need to make more than there are people dining as you can guarantee that even when all of the plates are clean I'll have someone asking for just one more pudding.

So to get you in the mood for Sunday I thought that I would share with you the best Yorkshire puddings recipe that I have ever had, my mums! She makes the best Yorkshire puddings so instead of looking through books to find one that works I thought I'd simply ask my mum! There are so many ways that you can enjoy Yorkshire puddings. The traditional way has to be with a Sunday roast beef.

This Beef Roasting Joint from Alid is perfect for a Sunday roast with Yorkshire puddings.

The Ashfield Farm beef joint has been matured for 21 months, is 100% British farmed and has the trust red tractor logo, so you know that you are getting a quality meat. This 1kg joint is priced at just £5.99 and there is enough meat for a Sunday roast as well as some leftover for the following day! What more could you want?

To cook the meat I always slow cook the joint for a minimum of 4 hours, but it can be left for up to 6 hours on a low heat. Season with a little salt and pepper and allow the meat to gradually cook. When you are ready to eat remove the meat from the slow cooker or the oven and leave to rest for 20 minutes before carving. But be warned, the meat is so tender it will literally fall apart!

Now onto my mums Yorkshire puddings. This is what I did...

#CookBlogShare Week 5 - Plus 4 Lovely Lunches

Welcome to week 5 of CookBlogShare.

Things are changing a little bit with the CookBlogShare team. Unfortunately Mandy from Sneaky Veg is stepping down as a host. Mandy has been a fantastic part of the team and was with me from the start. But I am sure that we all wish Mandy the best and hopes that she continues being a big part of the community! 

As Mandy has stepped down, from now on it will be just Eb and I hosting. I will be hosting Mandy's slot as well as my own and Eb will continue hosting every third week. As I am going to be hosting more I will not be continuing with my Monday round-ups of CookBlogShare but will simply share it with the linky. I am hoping that this will give me one less job to do and I love reading through all the delicious posts that you share each week.

Now onto this weeks linky and four featured posts. This week is all about lovely lunches. Here are my four favourite recipes from week 4 of CookBlogShare...

Weekly Meal Plan - Week 5 2017

Hello and welcome to week 5 of my weekly meal plans. We are now at the end of January and heading into February. February is always a busy month. We have my nieces birthday, followed by the twins birthday and of course the first half term of the year!

I have to admit that last weeks meal plan went to pot. In hindsight my plan was not well thought out. To start with I had planned two pasta dishes on two consecutive days. So from Tuesday it was all change. On Monday I used the Pressure King Pro for the first time and loved it so the fish tagine that I had planned turned into a fish meal using the PKP (my review will be live this week!). When I wrote my meal plan I also forgot that the hubby would want haggis on Burns Night. So that was two days off plan. But thankfully by Thursday we were back on it!

Thankfully my weigh in at Slimming World was more successful than my meal plan. I lost another 1.5lbs which now gives me a total of 26lbs lost! Another 2lbs will give me my 2 stone award so this week I will be extra good and will step up my activity levels.

This is what we will be enjoying this week...

International Chocolate Cake Day

As it is International Chocolate Cake Day I thought it would be fitting to share with you my favourite chocolate cake bakes. All of these will leave you craving some chocolate cake, you have been warned!

My Well Done Celebration Chocolate Cake was a huge success and certainly helped to cheer J up after he had finished a stressful week at school doing his SATS. The sponges contain golden syrup which gives the cake some extra richness. The cakes have then been sandwiched together using chocolate butter icing and finally the top has been covered in marshmallows and chocolate stars.

My White Chocolate and Lime Cake is a decadent combination of Madagascan vanilla chocolate and sharp lime which leaves you wanting more. Sometimes white chocolate gets overlooked but it is a delicious alternative to traditional milk or dark chocolate and one that we love!

If you are looking for a birthday cake for a chocolate lover then you need to check out this Tunnock's Teacake Birthday Cake. This traditional chocolate cake bake has been revamped into this chocoholic delight, it has been drizzled with chocolate sauce that has been sprinkled with Flakes then topped with the ultimate marshmallow treat, Tunnock's Teacakes!

The next chocolate cakes contain a sneaky vegetable extra! My Chocolate, Lime and Courgette Cakes will leave you astounded, you simply would not know that they contain courgette, but you are getting all of the goodness that they provide. Again, the lime and chocolate are a perfect combination.

Brilliant Bread

I love bread! There is nothing better than having a slice of freshly baked bread, that is still warm, with deliciously indulgent butter melting into the slice. Oh just the thought of it is making me want to get in the kitchen and bake some bread!

But if you have ever made your own bread, you will know that it can be quite time consuming and in our ever busy lives, time is such a precious entity! However there are ways that you can enjoy freshly made bread at home without all of the hard work!

Haggis Cottage Pie and My Top 6 Whiskies for Burns Night

We love Scotland. It has to be our favourite holiday destination in the UK and we always leave with dreams of moving there one day. It is such a beautiful country, has lovely food and of course the best alcohol! So each year when Burns Night comes along we celebrate with a haggis served with neeps and tatties, all washed down with a wee dram, or two!

As much as we love haggis, it can be a bit a bit of a strong flavour for the children. That is how this recipe came about. But this also helps your haggis go that bit further if you are preparing a meal for more than 3 people. While we were in Scotland last year we had a fantastic haggis dinner at the Glenfiddich distillery. It was beautifully layered and came complete with a whisky sauce. This is where my idea for styling this dish came from. But what makes this haggis dish different is that it also contains Scottish Aberdeen Angus minced beef as well as other vegetables other than the classic neeps and tatties!

This is what I did...