Recipes Mania News November 2005

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The site is updated with new content about 4 times each week and the update consist of recipes, cooking tips and interest articles.

I came across some very interesting information via the World Health Organization this month that affects each one of us regardless whether you live in the developed or developing world. It can be found under the heading Health Risk.

Your comments are always welcome and many of the new recipes we upload start with a request from one of you.

Enjoy your read.

Recipe of the Month

Time to roll up those sleeves and get busy with Marsala Pistachio Cake:

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cups red glace cherries, quartered.

1 cup sultanas.

¾ cup chopped raisins.

1 cup mixed peel.

1 ½ Tablespoons crushed fennel seeds.

1 Tablespoon of finely grated orange rind. (Just the orange not the white pith)

½ cup of Marsala – a sip for the chef is optional but recommended.

8 ounces (250 grams) of butter.

3/4 cup of castor sugar.

5 eggs.

1/3 cup of shelled pistachio nuts.

1 ½ cups of plain flour.

¼ cup of self raising flour.

Note: We could add ingredients to decorate the cake but this is such an individual thing it is better to decorate as you see best. For interest I use marzipan and frosting (icing).

Method:

Combine fruit, seeds, rinds and Marsala in a large (preferably non-metallic) bowl, cover and stand overnight.

Grease a deep 8 inch (20 cm) cake pan, line base and sides with Three layers of baking paper, extending side paper 2 inches (5 cm) above the sides.

Using a food blender, or processor, beat the butter and sugar in a medium bowl until it changes to a lighter color. Add eggs, one at a time beating it fully into the mixture before adding another. - Stir this into the fruit mixture, mix well and then stir in the nuts and flours.

Cook in a slow oven (Slow 300F 150C Gas Mark 2) for two hours. The cake is cooked when you can place a skewer in the center of the cake and it comes out clean.

Cover the cake with foil and allow to cool in the cake pan.

When the cake is totally cooled down you can slice the top off to allow a flat surface to decorate.

Microwave Individual Christmas Puddings:

This is a quick, easy to make Christmas pudding that isn’t quite traditional but is pretty close to it.

Ingredients:

2 ¾ cups (About 1 pound or 500 grams) of mixed dried fruit.

1/3 cup brandy. Again a sip for the chef is optional.

¼ pound (125 grams) of butter.

3/4 cup of firmly packed brown sugar.

2 Tablespoons of golden syrup (treacle)

2 eggs.

1 teaspoon Parisian essence (optional)

1 large (7 ounce 200 gram) Apple, peeled and grated coarsely.

¾ cup plain flour.

2 teaspoons of mixed spice.

½ teaspoon of bi-carbonate of soda.

Method:

Note: I used a 600 watt microwave for this recipe, you may need to cook longer or shorter depending on wattage of your microwave.

Grease 8 ¾ cup (180 ml) microwave safe dishes.

Combine fruit and brandy in another small microwave safe bowl. Cook covered on High (100%) for 1 minute.

Beat butter, sugar and golden syrup in a small bowl with electric mixer until combined. Add eggs, one at a time until each egg is just combined, beat in essence (if using). Transfer mixture to a large bowl; stir in fruit mixture, apple and sifted dry ingredients.

Divide mixture evenly among the 8 prepared dishes, smooth tops.

Arrange dishes around the outside of the microwave turntable. Cook, uncovered for 10 minutes on Medium (50%). Rotate dishes and cook for another 8 minutes on Medium (50%) until centers of puddings are almost set.

Stand puddings for 10 minutes, centers will firm in this standing time.

Turn puddings out onto serving dishes and select your sauce from either sauces or news blogs at http://www.recipesmania.com/

Set up your own RSS with Recipes Mania News

It's time to take back control of what you read? I spend the first ten minutes each day on my RSS Reader flipping through what I choose to read that day.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is the fastest growing sector on the world wide web today. As more people take it up SPAMMERS are finding it more difficult to make sales. - This has to be good news for all of us.

Health Risk

Our Iodine intake has a direct effect upon our IQ and people with the deficiency are showing a loss of up to 15 points. In Tibet where this deficiency is most prevalent few children have an IQ that exceeds 85 and this means that it is almost impossible to teach them beyond primary school curriculum. This situation is now happening in every nation of the world; yours included.

The other part of the body that depends upon adequate Iodine intake is the Thyroid Gland and often the first visible sign of the deficiency is a swelling of the neck area.

Our bodies require very little Iodine, in fact about 1 teaspoon throughout our entire life is enough. That doesn't mean you can take it one hit, that figure is spread over our lifespan. So how is it possible that intake was sufficient ten years ago but is insufficient today? The major reason is that most nations have stopped using Iodine solution to sterilize milk containers before bottling; today they use a Chlorine solution. The old system used to leave a beneficial contamination of Iodine that mixed with the milk when it was bottled. This amount was sufficient to fulfill the needs of our bodies. One of the major concerns today is deficiency in pregnant women that is leading to children with lowered IQ, low attention span (no substantial proof yet that it is connected to Attention Deficit Disorder, but it is being explored) and also a risk to the operation of their Thyroid Glands. In years gone by a child received this naturally from the mother whilst in the womb and from breast feeding and later when drinking milk. Most mothers today are so deficient themselves that they have none to pass on to their child and as we have already pointed out our milk no longer provides it. So what is the answer? Here I resist the urge to point you to some Iodine supplement and pick up a commission for sending you there because it is far simpler than that. The answer is to throw away the salt that you use to cook and season your food and replace it with Iodinised Salt. Yes it is truly as simple as that. You don't need to increase your intake of salt because it is still a cause of high blood pressure, you just need to continue using salt in the same safe manner that you use it now, just replace normal salt with Iodinised salt. End of problem. My local supermarket has 31 different packages of salt on display and only two are Iodinised, needless to say they are on the bottom shelf and out of sight to most shoppers. If your supermarket doesn't stock it then request that they do or make enquiries with your local Pharmacy. This health threat is far too serious to ignore.

This article is copyright David McCarthy 2005 and was first published under the articles section of www.recipesmania.com/newsblogs.html

Brain Power

We often distrust our sub-conscious brain so much that we start to doubt the output that it constantly feeds us. For instance;we a meet a person and mental alarm bells start to ring. Normally our first thought is: "Am I being fair to this person, after all I hardly know him/her." - The answer is that 90% of your brain has calculated a decision on this person based upon hundreds of thousands of previous experiences (inputs) and has come up with a mental warning. Some call this intuition and can never be sure how accurate it is. Trust me, it is normally accurate.

There is a school of thought that we all have equal mental ability (brain-power) and the academically brighter people are only in that position because they are able to draw on their sub-conscious (memory bank)more efficiently than others. So the question is how do I use my sub-conscious?

About 5 years ago I set out on a project to learn as much as I could about the way the human brain works.One of my first mentors explained the sub-conscious as I did above.

In reply to my question: "How do I hook into my sub-conscious?" She replied: "You start believing your intuitions and accepting that they are messages from your sub-conscious. As you become more accepting your sub-conscious will start coming through with whatever information you need when you need it." She added. "It stores everything you have ever seen, heard and learned and is able to make complex links instantly."

Yes, it sounded a bit 'over the top' to me too. But I persevered for a few years, improving the use of my sub-conscious each day until I decided to give it the ultimate test about two years back: I agreed to speak for 20 hours at a public seminar over 2 days on a subject that wasn't my profession or training. But just to make it more interesting I decided to have one sentence of notes for each hour of speaking and trust my sub-conscious to make it interesting for the audience.

Result: The seminar was a big success and led to countless invitations to speak publically on a whole range of subjects, plus dozens of requests for more of the same.

The other great thing I discovered at the seminar was that regardless what question I was asked, and there was around 80 - 100 questions, I was able to answer each question to the satisfaction of the questioner without hesitation.

Today I use my sub-conscious to recall things in fine detail that date back to my early childhood. I am almost 65 years old now and instead of my memory receding it has never been stronger. I used to read at 380 words per minute with a comprehension rating of 50%. Today I read at over 800 words per minute and my comprehension rating is 85%. I can actually read up to 1200 words but my comprehension is back to 50%, so I tend to use 800 words per minute. - No conscious mind can achieve that. Speed reading is the ultimate test of the sub-conscious and conscious working together.

So what's the moral? It is that nobody is brighter than the next person, we all have equal brain power it is just that some haven't yet learned to use our sub-conscious.

Remember you start by recognizing where your instincts are being fed from and when you do that regularly your sub-conscious brain will start responding to you. I guess its the ultimate in self confidence and belief.

Challenge yourself to do something new every year of your life and you'll be surprised at what you can achieve.

This article is copyright David McCarthy. 2005.