I have a weakness for the sharp, sticky, sweet bottle I turn to to liven up many a dish.  I have an ongoing love affair with Sweet Chili Sauce!  I dip tortilla chips in it, I dip chips in it (chips as in the UK chip not the crisps type chips- confused yet?), I add it sandwiches and salads and that brings me to my current (diet friendly) lunchtime champion:

Sweet Chili Coleslaw
1/4 of a Red Cabbage- finely sliced
1/2 of a Red Onion- finely sliced
handful of Sugar Snap Peas
1/4 of an Iceberg Lettuce
Chopped Coriander

1 tbsp Sweet Chili Sauce
1 tbsp Low Fat Mayo/Miracle Whip

1. After the chopping of said ingredients simply mix in a large bowl with the Chili Sauce and Mayo
2. Choose method of eating and dive in.

I say method of eating as I use this as a slow eat plateful, eaten with chopsticks.  I have also be known to fill a warmed tortilla wrap or add to any number of sandwiches.  It is great to have in the fridge as good afternoon picking food- it has seen me through many a dark 3pm hunger quests of the kitchen. 

You can add any crunchy vegetables or salad elements you wish and chopped cold chicken is a fab addition as are cooked prawns. 

This is one of my ideal lunches as it has enough prep work to feel I have had a suitable kitchen workout but its easy and quick when the stomach calls. 

I love a good cup of tea.  For us Brits its the answer to all problems.  Having a bad day, hairdresser cut all your hair off, cat ran away, TV blew up, your house flooded- it's OK just stick the kettle on, it will all be OK with a cup of tea!  Its not fancy tea either, none of that herbal nonsense and definitely not that green malarkey!  It has milk in it, usually sugar too and it must be the colour of a good fake tan.  It will leave rings on your mugs that must be soaked off- I find bicarbonate of soda works well for this job. 

Perhaps a good cup of tea is more important to me now than ever in Canada.  It's all about the coffee here and that's no bad thing, I am a serious coffee drinker too, its just that a good cup of tea says Britain like nothing else and so far from what I know its nice to reminisce a little. 

My husband is a fan of leaf tea- he makes a great cup of leaf tea to his credit.  We stumbled upon a little shop in the Mall the other day and discovered David's Tea (http://www.davidstea.com/).  What a fabulous shop.  The staff were enthusiastic and helpful with little samples of tea and an eagerness for you to sniff many a variety of leaf tea. 
We sniffed, tested and purchased some good old English Breakfast and a Creme Caramel, organic rooibos tea.  We left with our little tins of tea and a booklet listing their many varieties of tea. 

I have scanned through this booklet and have marked many I intend to try but I cannot help but feel a little amused by some of their claims:

• Wanna be happy, friendly, thin and gorgeous?  Here is your tea 
• You’ll have more energy. You’ll have more patience
• Said to stimulate passion and creativity

I love their optimism. As a British tea lover I can relate to their claims.  In the UK a cup of tea can fix household dilemma's, marriage crisis and family emergencies so can this humble drink also give me energy, make me happy, thin and gorgeous- lets hope that it can? 

I am off to put the kettle on.......

http://www.davidstea.com/

The honeymoon period is over.  I can no longer use the excuse that I have just moved to a new Country to dodge the "Lose a Stone" diet I have been putting off for quite some time.  I realise that the term "Stone" might not mean too much to readers outside the UK but its 14lbs or about 6kg of extra me I would like not to be dragging around.  I also know that this is not a huge amount of weight to be lost, but I fear that this is also my undoing!  Its not a huge amount so why not just drink that wine, eat that pudding and scoff the contents of the fridge?  I have struggled with the motivation to lose this extra weight for quite a while now and have had my recent move as the perfect excuse not to worry about it. 

I am not fat, I just wobble in places.  Having two children seems to have given my body an odd sense of proportion and rather than evenly distribute the extra its collected around my middle.  Exercise is one way I know I can help myself but I hate sit ups- they make the fat bits collect up every time I sit up- nobody needs that! 

I love food, not just the eating of it but its planning and preparation too.  I quite like being on a diet- did I really just say that!!  I can focus on the food I eat and make sure that every bit I eat is good and I enjoy it.  All too often I eat just because, and not things I enjoy, its just there and I am bored/sad/happy/tired?  I like the challenge of making my days calories taste good so I suppose its silly to put it off any longer.  I don't plan to blog about my progress as I never intended this to be a blog about dieting, but I will blog recipes whether they are diet ones or not as I feel there should be no difference when it comes to taste and enjoyment.

Missing my usual chocolate fixes from the UK I have come to the conclusion that I must find a suitable alternative and face the fact that chocolate in Canada just does not taste the same as what I am used to.  I am not sure why this is but I have tried many different sources and its just not matching up? 

I have noticed that chocolate here does not tell you its cocoa percentage as in the UK, in fact Canadian packaging does not tell you very much when you are used to the UK's insistence that they must tell you everything from how to use it, how long you can keep it opened, where to store it after its open etc!  I think in Canada they just assume you will work it our for yourself.  I like this common sense approach, you are clever enough to buy it so you must in turn be clever enough to eat it without needed an idiots guide. 

In my quest for new chocolate fixes I tried a little inspiration from my beloved cookery books:

This recipe is taken from Nigella Lawson's, Nigella Express Book and they are amazingly good, or in my sons words they are awwwwersome (Canadian twang in full force there!) 

Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 125g dark chocolate
• 150g flour
• 30g cocoa, sieved
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 125g soft butter
• 75g light brown sugar
• 50g white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg, cold from the fridge
• 350g semi-sweet chocolate morsels or dark chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 340 F (170 C). Melt the 125g dark chocolate in the microwave on medium
2. Cream the butter and sugars in a bowl- I used my KitchenAid. Then add the melted chocolate and mix together.
3. Beat in the vanilla extract and cold egg, and then mix in all of the dry ingredients. Finally stir in the chocolate morsels or chips.
4. Scoop out mounds using an ice cream scoop and a palette knife- and place on a lined baking sheet about 6cm apart. Do not flatten them.
5. Cook for 18 minutes, testing with a cake tester to make sure it comes out semi-clean and not wet with cake batter. If you pierce a chocolate chip, try again.
6. Leave to cool slightly on the baking sheet for 4-5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to harden as they cool.

As Nigella suggested I froze half of the batch on a tray and then placed them into a freezer bag to be cooked, defrosted as and when I need a chocolate hit.