If you’ve been following the blog for awhile, you’ll know that I truly adore chocolate, which of course includes the delicious Nutella.  Such is my love for Nutella is that I could easily put a Nutella recipe on these pretty pink pages every Friday, but that wouldn’t help us get our bootylicious bottoms, now would it?!

I would love to take credit for this recipe, but alas, I can’t.  If you love Nigella Lawson as much as I do, then you’re probably already aware of the original fabulous pudding.  I made it for some friends last weekend and it went down a storm!  Just as I can’t order straight off a menu, I seem incapable of following a recipe to the letter.  Some of the people I made this for last weekend were little people, so I made the decision to leave out the hazlenuts.  Yes, I know Nutella is made from hazlenuts, but I find seeing nuts in a pudding is sometimes off putting for children.  I also added 50g more digestive biscuits to compensate for the omission of the hazlenuts in the base, and adjusted the butter accordingly.  And being such a fan of Nutella, I added a good couple of extra tablespoons of Nutella!  This is a super easy and quick recipe to make; the hardest part is waiting for it to set in the fridge.

Ingredients

• 300g digestive biscuits
• 90g unsalted butter, melted
• 400g Nutella, room temperature (I used more than this)
• 500 grams cream cheese (at room temperature)
• 60 grams icing sugar (sifted)

Method

1. Break the digestives into the bowl of a processor and blitz.  Once the biscuits resemble sand, add in the melted butter a tablespoon of Nutella, and blitz again until it looks like damp sand.
2. Tip into a 22cm/8inch round springform and press into the base either using the back of a spoon. Place in the fridge to chill.
3. Beat the cream cheese and icing sugar until smooth and then add the remaining Nutella to the cream cheese mixture, and continue beating until combined.
4. Take the springform tin out of the fridge and  smooth the Nutella mixture over the base. Place the tin in the fridge for at least four hours or overnight. Serve straight from the fridge for best results.

Domestic Princess tips:

1. Make sure the cream cheese is at room temperature, as otherwise you’ll end up with a lumpy cheesecake.
2. If you don’t have a food processor to whizz up the biscuits, pop them in a zip lock bag and bash them with a rolling pin, then just pop the biscuits in a bowl and mix the butter and Nutella in by hand.
3. I like a thicker base cheesecake than Nigella’s recipe makes, so next time, I’ll probably double the quantity for the biscuit base and use 1.5 the quantity for the chocolate topping.
4. This is a perfect pudding to make ahead of time if you’re having people over for supper.

What is everybody up to this weekend?  We’re off to say goodbye to some very special friends this evening . That’s the downside of being an expat, you meet wonderful people that you would never have met had you not embarked on this crazy journey.

With much love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo

Don’t get me wrong, I’m super happy to finally be close to my target weight, but I’m just not that happy with my rear view.  Tonight I’m going to ask the Domestic Prince to take a “before” picture, and then at the end of the 30 days, I’ll get him to take an “after” one, and hopefully I’ll be able to see a change, even if it’s only a small one!  If the change is noticeable, I’ll consider posting them….some of you might want to look away, or ignore that post .  Regardless, I’ll come back in 30 days to give you an update.  I’m hoping that after the 30 days I’ll at least fail the pencil test*.  Don’t worry, I’m under no illusion that I’ll go from saggy to pert in 30 days, but you’ve got to start somewhere right?

And guys, this isn’t just a challenge for my fairer sex readers, oh no.  I’ll let you into a secret, girls love a man with a firm, pert butt!

Perfect Squat Form

1. Place feet a little wider than shoulder-width apart, hips stacked over knees, knees over ankles.
2. Roll the shoulders back and down away from the ears. Note: Allowing the back to round (like a turtle’s shell) will cause unnecessary stress on the lower back.
3. Extend the arms out straight so they are parallel with the ground, palms facing down. Or, if it’s more comfortable, pull the elbows close to the body, palms facing each other and thumbs pointing up.
4. Initiate the movement by leading from the hips first and then bending the knees almost simultaneously, so that the knees and the hips travel in opposition to each other, (as if you were going to sit down on a chair) there by helping you to maintain the integrity of your posture and spine right through the lower reaches of the movement.
5. Ideally, you want the hips to drop below the knees, for a full squat, but this may be challenging for the novice and it is perfectly acceptable to drop only up till the point where your thigh bone is parallel to the floor. On your way down, also check  that the knees do not travel beyond the toes. Make sure the chest and shoulders stay upright, and the back stays straight. Keep the head facing forward with eyes straight ahead for a neutral spine.
6. On your way up and out of the movement, focus on driving though your heels and recruiting the major muscle groups of the thighs and buttocks to get you moving upwards again. Keeping the weight away from your toes (DP I try and keep my toes up lifted up) and concentrating it in your heels, protects your knees and lower back, while maximizing the workload on the actual prime movers in this exercise, the quads and gluteus muscles.

Tips from Tribe Sports

Domestic Princess tips

1. If you haven’t squatted before, or need a technique refresher, watch this video first and look at your form in the mirror to make sure you’re performing the squat correctly.
2. You’re far more likely to see results during the challenge if you eat “clean”.
3. If you can’t manage the full set in one go, spread them out over the course of the day, and build-up to doing them all in one go.
4. If you’re finding the squats too easy, add some hand weights, and/or do jumping squats.
5. If consistent and diligent with this challenge you should also notice a difference in your legs too, so I’d suggest measuring them before and after to see if there’s a difference.

So, who’s with me on this challenge?

With much love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo

*If you haven’t heard of the pencil test and are wondering if you’d pass, then you just need to grab a pencil (or pen) and see if you can hold it under your bottom, if you can’t, then wooo hoo!  If it stays firmly in place, you might want to think about joining in the challenge!

Disclaimer

Please note, I am not a fitness instructor, therefore, if you are unsure how to perform this exercise, please consult a fitness professional first.  Also, if you are new to exercise, or pregnant, please consult with your physician before starting this challenge.

Mini shift sequin & lace dress, £65 from ASOS

Lemine dress, £189 from Reiss

Mango halterneck dress, £39.99 from John Lewis

In Bloom Crochet dress, £150 fom French Connection

Tempest Amber midi dress with gathered waist and embellishment, £135 from Designer Desirables

Oasis Grecian pleat midi dress, £100 from ASOS

Lace swing dress, £32 from ASOS

Layercake cutwork dress, £60 from Warehouse

Lace overlay pencil dress, £65 from Warehouse

Ted Baker floral embellished dress, £149 from Selfridges

Lydia Bright Blake dress, £75 from Bella Sorella

Domestic Princess tips

1. Never eat spaghetti bolognaise when wearing a white dress, and if you do, don a bib!
2. Only drink clear drinks when out in a white dress and avoid those drinking red wine or diet coke like the plague!
3. Invest in a whitening agent and stain remover for your laundry cupboard.

Which one(s!) do you think I’ve bought/have in my basket?  And are there any there that take your fancy?

With much love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo

Well, fast forward 3 years and Niko has ventured out on his own and launched Niko Physique.  The launch in late March, timed perfectly with one of my visits back to the UK. So, without hesitation, I set myself-up an account and booked in for as many classes as I could possibly fit in.

Niko has taken the basics from traditional pilates and combined them with dynamic moves to create an unbelievable workout that will help sculpt your body and get you in shape in next to no time.  I noticed a change in my body after just 10 sessions!

As we all know nothing in life happens without hard work, and these classes epitomise that. Each class lasts an hour and there is a maximum of ten people in any one class, ensuring that everyone receives one-on-one attention and tuition.  Extremely advantageous when you are popping your legs in maternity stirrups and standing on a moving platform that threatens to bring out the inner-gymnast in all of us!

Niko starts each class with some gentle warm-up exercises and stretches to prepare the body for the torturous intense workout ahead.  Every class is a combination of resistance and endurance moves that will push you to your absolute physical limits.  Niko will have you do anything from squatting whilst keeping the moving platform still (quite tricky!) to holding a plank on the torture bed, or doing what feels like a hundred pikes to help strengthen your core.

Niko’s reformer pilates classes are easily the best workouts I’ve ever done.  They are always so much fun (he is super cheeky and plays the best tunes!) and a complete challenge.  I leave every class feeling completely stretched and that every muscle in my body has been worked in several different ways.

Don’t expect a workout that will leave you gasping for your next breath, it won’t, but don’t be lured into a false sense of security…your legs will be jelly like on the way home and movement the next day might be a challenge….however, I can promise you it’s definitely worth it!  This is a workout for the fit, the unfit, the flexible, the inflexible, men, women – anybody and everybody will leave wanting to come back for more.  There’s not many workouts you can say that about, is there?

Signing-up and booking is extremely easy and your first class is FREE!

And if all that wasn’t enough to spur you on to book in for a class, Niko is also a former Men’s Health Magazine cover model….I’ll say no more!

With much love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo

So, if you haven’t got a clue what a BB cream is, yet alone a CC, then I’m here to enlighten you.

BB Creams

BB stands for Beauty or Blemish Balm and have been a beauty staple in Asia for many years. BB creams promise to reduce redness, even out skin tone, camouflage pores and wrinkles, moisturise and offer anti-aging benefits.  Many BBs on the market also contain an SPF.  BB creams tend to be lighter than foundation, but heavier than most tinted moisturisers.  BBs promise to be a primer, a tinted moisturised and a sunscreen; basically an all-in-one product.  BBs are quite concentrated, so a small pea-like amount goes a long way.

Which BB to choose?

I’ve tried a few over the last year or so and I’ve been really pleased with these three:

Bobbi Brown BB Cream SPF 35

Dior Diorskin BB Creme

Dr Brandt BB Cream with signature Flexitone

CC Creams

CC stands for Colour Correcting and have been designed to address skin issues such as redness and/or sallowness.  CC creams are generally lighter in texture than a BB cream and provide a lighter coverage.  CC creams are more corrective than their BB cousins.  A CC cream will address more existing issues like age spots, acne scarring etc.

I haven’t tried any CC creams yet, but I have my eye on testing these two – I’ll let you know my verdict in a few months.

Nip & Fab CC Cream SPF 30

Supergoop SPF 35 Daily Correct CC Cream

Are you a fan of BB and CC creams?  If so, which one do you use?

With much love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo

Makes a 2lb loaf tin (23 x 13 x 7cm (9″ x 5″ x 2¾”) )

Ingredients

• 175 grams plain flour
• 2½ tsp baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 125 grams unsalted butter, softened
• 180g soft light brown sugar
• 175g crunchy peanut butter
• 2 large eggs (approximately 100g)
• 5 small ripe bananas, roughly mashed (approximately 400 – 500g flesh)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/340F/gas mark 3.
2. Grease and line a 2lb / 23 x 13 x 7cm / 9″ x 5″ x 2¾” loaf tin.
3. Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt into a medium-sized bowl.  Put to one side.
4. In a large, separate bowl, cream together the sugar and softened butter – I use my KitchenAid for this.  Then slowly beat in the eggs one at a time.
5. Now mix in the mashed bananas and crunchy peanut butter.
6. Add the flour mixture a tablespoon at a time, giving it a good stir each time to make sure it’s all incorporated.
7. Scrape into a loaf tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 55 to 70 minutes.
8. When a skewer or tooth pick comes out fairly clean, your loaf is ready.
9. Pop the tin on a cooling rack and leave in the tin until completely cold.
10. Serve either plain or spread with cold salted butter.

Domestic Princess tips:

1. For a more indulgent loaf, add 200g Reese’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups, or 200g roughly chopped milk chocolate at stage 5.
2. Whilst banana bread is brilliant for using up over-ripe bananas, they don’t need to be at the completely black stage.  I’ve made a loaf with just yellow bananas, and the end result is exactly the same.  What you don’t want to use, are green bananas.  The benefit of over-ripe bananas is the mashing is super easy!
3. Smooth peanut butter can easily be substituted for the crunchy one.
4. To make this a dairy-free cake, substitute the softened butter for vegetable oil.
5. If you fancy making this a bit more showy, then you could add a frosting:  mix equal quantities of softened butter with icing sugar, half the amount of crunchy peanut butter and beat together.  Add a drop of milk if the frosting needs loosening.
6. Bangaloreans, since our bananas are on the tiny size, you’ll need more like 7 small bananas.
7. If you notice the bread browning too fast, lower the temperature and loosely cover it with foil.
8. Also, be careful not to over-stir the batter, as the texture will become crumbly and your loaf will just fall apart.

All you need now is a cup of tea and peace and quiet for 30 minutes!

Hope everybody has a lovely weekend.  We’re off to watch the IPL tomorrow night.  Come on Bangalore!

With much love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo

You can find this gem of a restaurant in The Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane.  Being in situ on Park Lane, this place obviously isn’t cheap, but it’s worth every penny in my opinion.

We’ve been here twice for lunch and twice for supper, and never have we been disappointed.  (The only other restaurant I’m this loyal to, when our time in the UK is so precious, is Nobu.) The lunch and dinner menus differ, and whilst neither is extensive, whatever we’ve chosen has always been cooked to perfection.  The lunch menu offers lighter fare:  salads, sandwiches etc.  Whilst the dinner one has more substantial dishes available.  Our most recent visit was for lunch for my father-in-law’s birthday.  When I made the booking, JW Steakhouse asked if it was a special occasion and I said it was a birthday celebration, and didn’t think anything of it.

When we arrived, they had sweetly decorated the table with balloons and birthday confetti on the table.  A small touch that most definitely started our lunch off on the right foot.  The service is impeccable.  Nothing is too much trouble for the staff, who have the knack of making you feel as if you’re the only diners in the restaurant.  The Restaurant Manager came over to welcome us, and Giovanni our waiter for the day, was fabulous!  He was ebullient and chatty, yet managed to strike the balance between being friendly and professional, yet not being over-bearing, intrusive or too familiar.  He should set-up a waiter training school!

The restaurant is a large and spacious room – very like many American steakhouses we’ve visited – with floor to ceiling windows looking out onto a terrace that has views of Park Lane and in the distance, Hyde Park.  One of the Domestic Prince’s bugbears when eating out is the proximity of tables – thankfully, this isn’t an issue in JW Steakhouse.  The tables are close enough to each other to feel busy and bustling, but far enough apart that you don’t feel the next table is part of your conversation.  The perfect balance.

For some silly reason that morning we’d had a late breakfast (I know, what were we thinking?!), so in light of this, we didn’t have any starters, plus I was saving space for the cheesecake!

There were so many dishes I fancied as my main that unusually for me, I struggled to choose. I ended up opting for the Steak and Bourbon pie (another pie, I know!) and mash.  It was delicious.  Packed with chunks of tender steak and a rich-gravy with a hint of bourbon.  I’m a bit fussy when it comes to mash, so the mash is probably perfect to normal beings, but for this princess, I felt it needed some more butter, a dollop of cream and a good shake of the salt cellar. The Domestic Prince ordered  some grilled asparagus to go with his 6oz fillet, which was divine.  The Prince’s steak was cooked to perfection and could only be described as “melt in the mouth”.  My mother-in-law went for the Fish and Chips that was probably the best fish and chips I’ve ever tasted (yes, I had to taste everybody else’s!) outside a fish and chip shop.  Quite often restaurant fish and chips leave a lot to be desired; not the case at JW Steakhouse.  My father-in-law chose one of the specials of the day – the Shepherd’s Pie, which again was just delicious.  In keeping with an American-style steak house, the portions are massive.  Come super hungry!

When it came time for dessert, we didn’t even look at the menu, as The Domestic Prince and I were insistent that his parents absolutely had to try the cheesecake.  JW bill the cheesecake as “the best this side of the pond” – a bold claim, but one which they actually surpass!  I wouldn’t be lying to say that back in Bangalore, I often lament about this superlative cheesecake.  The crumb (a Graham Cracker one I believe) encases the vanilla bean middle and it’s finished with a sour cream topping that cuts through the sweetness of the middle.  The first time I had this cheesecake, I thought it would be rich and heavy, but it’s not – it’s incredibly light.  And there’s a massive 6 inches of it to enjoy!  Most people probably share this over-sized pudding – not us though.  We have one each and box-up what we don’t finish at the restaurant (there is sometimes!) to takeaway to enjoy back at our apartment.  I can’t tell you about any of the other puddings I’m sorry, as I only ever want the cheesecake…it’s THAT good.  Not even chocolate makes me cheat on this beauty.

Whilst choosing what we were going to eat we had a bottle of Champagne, and then The Prince and his Dad had a glass of red wine and I had a glass of Cloudy Bay with our main courses.

Domestic Princess tips:

• If having a starter, I’d choose either the Maryland crab cakes, the tortillas with spinach & artichoke dip or the super-size calamari.
• In the evening whilst waiting for your first course to arrive, they bring scrumptious hot buttered salt-and-pepper popcorn for you to munch on.
• If bourbon is your thing, then JW have an impressive collection.
• Diners with big appetites, should give the mahoosive 32oz “Tomahawk” ribeye steak a whirl.  I’ve heard incredible things about it!
• If you’re visiting on a nice day /evening – ask for a table outside on the terrace.

*I did!!

If you’re after excellent steaks, a good atmosphere and impeccable service, then I really can’t recommend JW Steakhouse highly enough.

What’s your favourite steak restaurant?

With much love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo

I’m back after my extended absence, and you’ll be pleased to know that I’m back for good! There’s no getting rid of me now!

The last few months have not been easy, and whilst I’m not naive enough to think that life will ever be the same again, the dark clouds are starting to lift.  Don’t get me wrong, there are still some very hard days that I struggle to get through, but it’s definitely getting easier.

I haven’t really had much time (nor motivation) to workout as much as I normally do since that fateful day in January, but I’m all too aware that bikini season is just around the corner and I need to get my backside in gear if I have any hope of donning a bikini!  So, with this in mind I’ve trawled around for some new tunes to help make our workouts a little easier…..

What is your current favourite tune to workout to?

With much love

The Domestic Princess

xoxo

Is it just me that thinks this year is flying by?  I cannot believe that it is Easter this weekend!  It’ll probably come as no surprise to you that I love Easter.  Chocolate, hot cross buns, roast lamb and the promise of 4 days free of work?  What’s not to love!  I think my favourite Easter chocolate has to be Cadbury’s Mini Eggs.  The matte, pastel shell covered chocolate eggs are just so moreish.  Surprisingly, I have never added these delicious little gems to any of my recipes, so when I came across a recipe on Twitter for Mini Egg Blondies, I practically squealed.  Mini Eggs, encased in a scrumptious, chewy blondie…what was stopping me?!  If you’re wondering what a blondie is, the best way I can describe it would be to liken the taste to a bar version of a cookie, and the texture to that of a brownie – gooey and chewy.  In fact, you might think of a blondie as the brownie’s cousin.  What they’re most definitely not, are brownies made with white chocolate instead of dark or milk.  The only chocolate element to a blondie, are the chips you add in.  No melted chocolate here!

Obviously, I couldn’t just follow somebody else’s recipe, I had to tinker and fiddle until I’d made it my own, and here’s the result.

Ingredients

• 200g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing 
• 225g light brown sugar
• 1/4tsp of salt
• 1 1/2tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 250g plain flour
• 1/4tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1tsp baking powder
• 200g Mini Eggs (or more if you’re feeling generous!)

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas mark 4.  Butter an 8 or 9″ square cake tin and then line with greaseproof paper.
2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and whisk in the sugar and salt.  The more you whisk it, the lighter and fluffier your blondies will be.
3. Add in the vanilla extract and whisk again.  Take off the heat and leave to cool to room temperature.
4. Once the sugar/butter mixture has cooled, add the eggs and give a good whisk.
5. Into a large bowl sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder.  Then into the flour, whisk small amounts of the the egg and butter mixture until it’s all been combined. Don’t pour all the egg and butter mixture in at once, as you’ll end up with a lumpy mixture.
6. Fold in the Mini Eggs.
7. Pour the mixture into your prepared cake tin and spread out evenly.
8. Pop the tin in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the top is slightly cracking, the outer edges are firm and the middle still slightly gooey.
9. Leave to cool on a wire rack for at least 10 to 15 minutes (this bit is SO hard!), then cut into squares ready to serve.

Domestic Princess tips:

1. Make sure to let the melted butter and sugar mixture cool to room temperature before adding in the eggs, otherwise you’ll risk them scrambling.
2. By melting the butter with the sugar, instead of creaming them, you’ll end up with a chewier blondie.
3. Don’t worry if you can’t get your sticky mits on Mini Eggs, just substitute them for roughly chopped milk chocolate, or white or dark for that matter!
4. A metal pan tends to work better with blondies than silicone or glass.
5. These blondies lend themselves to many different things being added:  nuts, raspberries, fudge pieces, peanut butter, cranberries…the list is endless.
6. The “butterscotch” taste of blondies comes from the brown sugar and melted butter combo, so don’t be tempted to switch the brown sugar for white, as they’ll taste quite different.
7. Over-cooking the blondie mixture will give you a dry and hard bar.  As you near the end of the cooking time, check every 1 to 2 minutes until the skewer comes out with just a little bit of the mixture on it.  Remember, it’ll carry on cooking for awhile when it’s out of the oven.
8. If you’re watching your sugar intake, you can reduce the sugar in this recipe by a third. The texture will still be the same, but it’ll be slightly less sweet.

I can’t think of anything more perfect to have on Easter Sunday afternoon!  Please send me some pictures if you make a batch of these!

Happy Easter!

With much love

The Domestic Princess

xoxo

“What on earth is a Remoska?” I hear you say! If you’re guessing it’s a Russian song or dance you’d be wrong; if you’re thinking it’s something Eastern European, you’re on the right track. It is in fact, an electric cooker with a difference, and quite frankly an amazing piece of kit! What it’s not, is a slow cooker. I think once you’ve read this post you’ll be tempted to buy one. It’s certainly added a degree of magic to my very ordinary culinary skills!

The Remoska is available exclusively to Lakeland , in the UK, one of the most popular and respected brands in the country. Its website describes it like this:

“Cooking better than an oven, the Remoska is positively miserly with electricity – in fact, they’re so versatile your oven will hardly ever need to be switched on.

It’s the Czech Republic’s best-kept secret…

The Remoska has been around since before the Second World War, surviving 40 years of nationalisation until being rescued in 1990 by two Czechs, who scraped together all they had to buy the machinery.

Each Remoska is individually made and tested by skilled workers in a small Czech factory; there’s no production line. The stainless steel lid, which houses the element, does all the work, controlling the venting of steam developed during cooking. You can see what’s going on through the glass window and you’ll be impressed by how clean it is in use, with virtually no cooking smells either.

The pan is coated with Teflon® Classic for easy release. Being so compact, it is frequently packed up and taken anywhere there’s a 240V electricity supply, which makes it just the thing when cooking away from home. Pans are dishwasher safe. Recipes included.”

Versatility

The claim that it’s compactness enables it to be taken anywhere is absolutely true. On a walking holiday in the Lake District last September with a couple of friends, we stayed at Underscar Manor, a luxury self-catering complex in the shadow of Skiddaw. The Remoska did us proud and it traveled extremely well! Grilled sausages, caramelised onions and jacket potatoes was a particularly memorable dinner devoured at the end of a strenuous walk up Grisedale Pike! You can increase its versatility by plugging an electric timer into the power socket and setting the Remoska’s start and end cooking times. Great if you’re out at work all day and would like to come home to a meal ready to eat. And of course, the range of meals you can cook is endless; everything you can cook in an oven, the Remoska can handle with ease. I don’t know of any other cooking device that is as useful and versatile as the Remoska!

Healthy eating

I mostly eat a low carb, low sugar foods (Domestic Princess:  look out for a future post about this) following the excellent advice and guidance of Dr Briffa, a qualified doctor and nutritionist. In this respect, the Remoska is an unrivalled asset in helping me to cook meals that fit my eating regime.

Accessories

There are some accessories that the dedicated Remoska cook will want to acquire.

• A stainless steel rack, which raises food closer to the lid’s heat source for faster cooking.
• A pan separator that fits inside the Remoska allowing different foods to be cooked separately.
• Shallow pans are available to replace the deep pan that comes with the Remoska enabling the cook to warm up foods and snacks very quickly.
• An essential buy for me was the cookbook, “Remoska Cooking”, which has 200 recipes, tips on using the Remoska, and suggested cooking times. After trying some of the recipes my confidence grew as a home cook. And the great thing about the Remoska is that you don’t have to watch it slavishly in the way that one has to when using a conventional oven or stovetop cooking. Just pop on the lid and relax!

Miserliness

According to Lakeland, the standard Remoska uses 80% less energy than an average electric oven. When you consider that many people use the oven simply to heat up supermarket ready-made meals, or grill three or four rashers of bacon, or bake a couple of jacket potatoes, they are using excessive quantities of electricity compared to that consumed by a Remoska. Lakeland says that an average oven uses around 2500W of energy versus the Remoska’s 470W of energy.

Here is one of my favourite recipes when using the Remoska.

Country Lamb Casserole – adapted from “Remoska Cooking”

The lamb in this dish is absolutely delicious and so tender, resulting in a tasty, filling and full flavoured casserole!

Ingredients

Serves 4 using a standard Remoska

• 500g boneless lamb chops
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 500g potato, cut into cubes
• 8 small onions, finely chopped
• 175g French beans, chopped
• 1tsp ground cloves, or to taste
• 1 x 320g tin of condensed mushroom soup
• 150ml lamb stock
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Sweet paprika to serve  

Method

1. Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan, add the garlic and onions, and fry until golden brown and then put in the Remoska.
2. In the same pan, seal the lamb on both sides and pop in the Remoska.
3. Add the cubed potatoes, beans, cloves, mushroom soup, stock and seasoning.
4. Cook for approximately 1 hr and 15 minutes in the Standard Remoska, or 1hr 45 minutes in the Grand, until the lamb is tender. Sprinkle with a little paprika before serving.

Domestic Princess:  If you’re not lucky enough to own a Remoska, use a casserole dish instead, double the quantity of stock and pop in the oven for 2 to 2 1/2 hours on 150C.  This can also be made in a slow-cooker as well.  

Final word ….

I can confirm I’ve also grilled incredible sausages with mouthwatering caramelised onions, roasted succulent whole chicken, roasted Mediterranean vegetables, baked sweet potatoes to perfection, and roasted belly pork to die for! At the end of the process, washing up is not a big chore because the non-stick surfaces are extremely effective. The pan is dishwasher friendly for anyone preferring this cleaning option, and the lid only requires to be wiped down with a damp cloth. Anyone keen on pursuing a healthy eating regime based on fresh ingredients and wishing to do so as effortlessly and economically as possible, should invest in a little Czech magic and get yourself the Prodigious Remoska from Lakeland!

Thanks Pappy!  And if you’re carb conscious too, then swap the potato for a sweet potato, or leave out completely.

I’ll be back on Friday with a new recipe.

With much love
The Domestic Princess
xoxo