VIC LIC

Hello, Ok, so you that read my blog might be a little confused. Let me tell you what have been happening lately. I started the modern housewives blog, which was mainly about food, last year. By that time, I had plenty of free time in my hands and i was learning and loving to cook and experiment in the kitchen. Altough the new passion hasnt fade, and I still love to cook, by starting working full time PLUS Ben and I going on a much needed diet, the cooking fun mainly stopped and the blog got a little bit abandoned. Something else that happened is that I started to learn how to sew, went back to be really tuned at work and all so today, I decided to migrate all the post from my old blog to this one, change the "theme" a little bit and make it more broad. I will talk about food (a little bit still) crafts, fabulous finds that I make in the World Wide Web, my personal life and more. I hope you all enjoy. See you soon, Love, Viclic

We’re Running Out Of Chocolate - Are we? At the rate we’re going, chocolate is going to be a rare – and extremely pricey – commodity within the next 20 years. Somebody needs to light a fire under those Oompa-Loompas, stat. The problem’s easy to explain, and much harder to fix. According to the Cocoa Research Association, we’re consuming more chocolate than we’re producing cocoa. Which means, eventually, we’re going to run out. Cocoa’s notoriously difficult to harvest, meaning more and more small-scale West African growers – who make an average of 80 cents per day – have little incentive not to turn to more lucrative crops, likrubber, or give up farming altogether in favour of more stable opportunities in cities. What will the shortage mean? $10 Snickers bars, sooner than you think. Pretzels given out for Halloween. Or more lollies made from carob, a poor substitute for the sweet and sticky real deal. And a tectonic shift in how we view our mochas, according the Nature Conservation Rese...

Here are 5 simple health checks that you can do it at home and could actually alert to more serious things: You will need:  - A PAIR OF TWEEZERS - increased facial hair could mean one of the symptoms of PCOS  (Polycystic ovary syndrome). Apart from increased body hair, specifically around the chin, stomach and nipples, other symptoms could be disordered periods, weight gain and acne.   - NAIL CLIPPERS The way your nails look sometimes can reflect health issues. If your nails are pale, it may indicate an iron deficiency. Flanky and brittle nails can sometimes indicate that your thyroid is imbalanced and yellowfish nails can mean either a fungal infection or poor circulation.   - A MIRROR  Stick your tongue out and say: AAAHHHH. a healthy tongue should look pink, smooth and fairly moist. However, the tongue could become swollen, discouloured, white, painful...those are symptoms of stress, too much alcohol. vitamin deficiencies or even more seri...

I got that from a magazine (women's health) but I thought was worth it sharing cause not always we can make everything from scratch right? So what are the best packaged food that we can buy? here are some ideas for dinner: Pasta Pasta sauce Leggo’s Sugo di Pomodoro Premium Cooking Sauce – Italian Herbs with Basil   Dried pasta Vetta High Fibre Added oat fibre doubles the fibre content. Gluten-free pasta  San Remo Gluten Free Penne This holds together well – unlike others...  Side dish Sun Rice Roasted Vegetable Brown Rice Low in saturated fat and has some fibre.  Rice Sun Rice Brown Whole Grain Rice The whole grain makes it highest fibre.  Noodles  Chang’s Whole Wheat Noodles Add thick or thin noodles to your stir-fry. Couscous Ainsley Harriott Plain Couscous Low in fat, sodium and kilojoules. Sold.  Stir-fry sauce  Kan Tong Sweet & Sour Lite No MSG, 99 per cent fat free, lowest sodium.  Fish  Birds Eye Steamed Fish Fillets, Lemon an...

Aluminium foil is made shiny on one side and dull on the other by heavy rollers used to roll out the foil in the manufacturing process. The side that comes in contact with the rollers becomes shiny and the side that does not is dull. As for the difference it makes when we use foil in cooking, testing has discovered that there is a very minimal difference. Although one would expect the shiny side to reflect heat more than the dull side, there really is very little difference. When freezing, baking or storing food, the effect on the food is the same, no matter whether you use the foil with the shiny side facing in or out. One thing to watch out for however, is the use of foil in the storage of acidic foods. A chemical reaction takes place when foil comes into contact with foods with an acidic element in them. This reaction leaves holes in the foil and black specks on the food. It is mostly harmless, but should be avoided if possible. So no more concerning about the correct side!  Sou...

We see all this options of pastry available in the supermarket. So what is what? what to use for what? Image source:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/pastry At its most basic, pastry is a mixture of flour and fat bound with water to form a paste. Historically it was used as a case for baking other items, but people eventually realised the pastry was worth eating too. The wide range of pastries made today vary in texture and taste according to the proportion of fats used, the way in which it is incorporated with the flour, and the method used to shape the dough Puff pastry can generally be described as flaky, light and buttery, good for pies and pastries; while shortcrust pastry has a more crumbly, biscuit-like texture which is good for tart or quiche cases. Sweet puff pastry is literally puff pastry with sugar added to it, while sweet shortcrust pastry is not commercially available. When making a pie, many cooks use shortcrust on the bottom and puff pastry for the lid. Puff pastry  ...

Ok, several times we decide to cook a recipe, and don't quite check properly if we have all the ingredients (Well, I DONT, as you might imagine). So what to do? SUBSTITUTIONS. A lot of the times, the ingredients can be substituted. So here is a basic substitution table. Arrowroot - substitute with  cornstarch, potato starch or rice starch OR even all purpose flour, altought you will need to double the amount 1 measure of arrowroot - 2 measures of flour Dry breadcrumbs  - substitute with  crushed cracker crumbs,  matzo meal,  crushed cornflakes Cream of Tartar - substitute with white vinegar or lemon juice  Sour cream - substitute with plain yogurth,  Bread Flour - for every 160g of bread flour, use 140g of all purpose flour I will come back with more substitutions...soon! Love, Vic

Since I bought my Bread machine I've been researching recipes and some of them ask for baking soda, other bicarbonate. So what's the story here?  Baking soda and bicarbonate of soda are no more that different names for the same thing; in Australia, we mostly refer to it as bicarbonate of soda, but overseas, especially in America, it is referred to as baking soda. They aren’t interchangeable, but bicarbonate of soda and baking powder are both leavening agents. When included in a batter, the leavening agent causes air bubbles (produced by stirring, whipping or beating) to expand when cooked – causing it to ‘rise’. Bicarbonate of soda is a pure leavening agent. It needs to be mixed with moisture and an acidic ingredient for the necessary chemical reaction to take place to make food rise. Because it needs an acid to create the rising quality, it is often used in recipes where there is already an acidic ingredient present, such as lemon juice, chocolate, buttermilk or honey. Baking ...

So, what is Dulce de Leche? I was born in South America, so for me it's so clear, but so hard to explain what it is. But I found this sweet explanation from  Baking Bites  Blog. Here it goes: Dulce de leche is a thick, milk-based caramel sauce. It is probably most popular in South American Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries, but variations exist in other countries and cultures as well. The most simple caramel sauce starts with sugar, and depending on the variation you have in mind, ingredients like cream and butter are added to the hot sugar to form caramel. With dulce de leche, milk and sugar are cooked together to make a caramel, a process that takes quite a long time but results in an incredibly rich-tasting sauce with a strong milky flavor behind its sweetness. It is similar to sweetened condensed milk (and can be made from it, too), although dulce de leche is thicker and much more caramelized (darker in color and flavor) than sweetened condensed milk...