I have a little bit of a history when it comes to chocolate. Apart from being a chocolate lover, that is!

When I was a kid, my mum had her own home-based business making handmade chocolates. Everything from the tiny hand-painted delicacies filled with sweetness, to a giant Easter bunny which had around a kilogram of chocolate in it. Sometimes I would help her individually wrap each one for sale and occasionally I would make my own chocolates for gifts.

Later, the first department I worked in at Grace Bros, quite a few years ago now, was the confectionary department (when there was one), which became the Easter egg department at this time of the year (and for at least two months before Easter). So I learnt a couple of things about chocolate.

Chocolate is high in antioxidants and therefore is pretty good for you. The problem is, that most of us don’t actually eat real chocolate. Many of the popular brands that we consume are cheaper than real chocolate because they substitute the cocoa butter for vegetable oil and then increase the amount of sugar to make it taste ok. Vegetable oil and sugar cause the very problems that the antioxidants are supposed to prevent.

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Brown bagging seems to be one of the symbols of frugality, often touted as a way to save money in these hard economic times. And it’s true, buying lunch every day can really add up. Why pay up to $10 for a sandwich when you can make it for $2? So why do we need to be told to save money by taking our lunch to work and why is it so unappealing?

I think that the problem is that we see homemade lunch as boring, or we’re just not organised enough to get lunch ready in the morning before work. Also, I don’t think that twelve years of warm, soggy schoolbag sandwiches encourages sandwich taking to work.

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With 24/7 supermarkets, and the ability to buy what you need to cook and eat every day, it’s not that common these days to keep a well stocked pantry. While it may seem restricting to cook with only what you have on hand, if you keep a well stocked pantry, the variety of meals possible are endless.

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Do you have a food blog that you love to read? While I’ve come across a couple, I’m always on the look out for new food blogs, especially Australian ones. In my more cashed up (pre-mortgage) years, I used to love food magazines. Now I can indulge in my recipe cravings with free food blogs.

Below are some of my favourite food blogs. For me, the key to a wonderful food blog is the photography. Some of the photos on the blogs below are so professional and very, very tempting.

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A homemade cake beats a packet mix cake hands down any day. And despite what advertising might have us believe, a basic butter cake is simple to make with everyday pantry staples.

What’s more, a homemade cake is made from real butter, real flour, real milk and nothing artificial (no colours, preservatives, egg substitute, soy flour, anti-caking agents).

I rely on a good old fashioned wooden spoon to mix my cakes. As long as the butter is sufficiently softened, it takes less than 10 minutes to make a cake and throw it in the oven.

You may already have the world’s best banana cake recipe or the most awesome chocolate cake recipe. The idea here is that with a few staples on hand, one basic batter recipe and  a little understanding cake baking, you can create all sorts of cake variations based on what’s in your kitchen. Creative, spur-of-the-moment baking is only limited by your imagination.

A couple of things to keep in mind: cakes need leavening agents to make them rise. These are the eggs and the baking soda (conveniently found in self-raising flour). If you’re adding ingredients that will make your cake dense and heavy, you may need to add an extra egg or a little extra baking soda. Also, denser cakes will take longer to cook. Cook them at a lower temperature to prevent them burning on the top.

Have fun and experiment. You can’t go wrong with sweet stuff. I’ve never had a ‘failed’ cake (ok, there was this one, it was supposed to be ‘healthy’ and involved potato and chic pea flour). No one will knock back chocolate cake no matter how it looks.

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My DH is a meat and three veg kind of guy. Actually two veg: potato and corn. Not that there is anything wrong with meat and veg, I like it too, it’s easy to prepare and cook, and it’s healthy, but sometimes it gets a little boring. Adding a sauce can change that.

A good sauce lifts a dish from the ordinary to gourmet and you don’t need to buy expensive bottled sauces or packet sauces full of additives, or spend hours making a French style reduction to get a great tasting sauce for your steak.

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