Established in April 2003, Young Chefs Academy offers cooking classes to children in a safe environment that encourages discovery and creativity. While learning food preparation skills is the main ingredient at YCA, each class adds a heap of kitchen safety, a scoop of etiquette, a handful of table setting, a pinch of menu planning, and laughter to taste.

Young chefs will learn basics in:
• kitchen safety
• proper food handling
• food preparation
• cooking and baking techniques
• presentation
• table setting
• manners
• basic cognitive subject matter
• and so much more!

These courses are designed to help young chefs explore cuisines while building upon basic skills.

All what you need is:
take your apples
cut them in half, removing core to put instead a piece of butter, sprinkle with a little bit salt, sugar and cinnamon. Bake it on medium power 4 to 7 minutes.

that’s all!

There are many inexpensive trattorias and pizzerias in Rome and here is some of them:

Al Gran Sasso. A characteristic Roman trattoria that serves the typical dishes, all cooked by Mamma in her blue apron and slippers. A simple plate of pasta parpadelle with tomato or meat sauce and any of the second course specials are reasonable and satisfying. Leave room for the torta di mela, homemade apple cake. Closed Saturdays.

Grotte del Teatro Di Pompeo. Around the corner from Campo de” Fiori, built over the theatre where Julius Ceasar met his destiny. The antipasto plate and the linguine al radicchio make a fine meal. A great place to go for fish. Closed Mondays.
Via del Biscione, 73;

Il Nuovo Mondo. The piping-hot, thin crusted pizza could not be better, in this bustling pizzeria. Try the margherita with any of your favorite toppings, or the pizza bianca with rughetta, a fresh bitter green. If you want something to start with, order the Mexican-style spicy black beans. Closed Mondays.
Via Amerigo Vespucci, 9;

Piccolo Arancio. This small, charming trattoria near the Trevi Fountain has Rome written all over it. Say “Ciao” to Mara and try the pasta fusilli con melanzane (with eggplant) or the orechiette con broccoli. Closed Mondays.
Vicolo Scanderbeg, 112;

Trattoria della Stampa. This homey, unassuming spot serves savory, classic Roman dishes that Italian grandmothers made famous. The pasta fagioli (bean soup) and rigatoni amatriciana and meat dishes are house specialties. Frequented by locals and great for budget minded travelers. Lunch only, closed weekends.
Via dei Maroniti, 32;

From romantic Valentines cupcakes, to decadent muffins and homemade fudge why not try your hand at a few different recipes and create a tantalizing homemade hamper?

And if you’re worried that your baking attempts might look a bit amateurish, don’t fear – BakingMad.com is hereto help.

The place to go for thousands of inspirational recipe ideas, BakingMad.com also offers top tips and advice from their very own home baking experts. And because Baking Mad’s recipes use only the finest baking ingredients you can be assured of great result severy time.

When the occasion really matters, choose high-quality natural ingredients to ensure sure your results taste as good as they look. Billington’s has a full range of natural, unrefined sugars– from Golden Caster Sugar and Unrefined Molasses to Light or Dark Muscovado – perfect for a truly decadent cake or pudding. And Allinson flours are still milled to meet the same high standards set by Dr Thomas Allinson in 1892.

Finally, for that perfect finishing touch, why not choose from Silver Spoon Cake craft’s wide range of edible decorations. From chocolate letters and numbers, to sprinkles and be jewelledjelly drops, they have everything you need to lift your baking from the so-so to the seriously impressive.

Go on, see how many hearts you can win this Valentine’s Day!

Valentine’s Heart Cakes

Ingredients

Silver Spoon Cake Craft Coloured Choco Beans or Fairy Sprinkles

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, Fan oven 160°C /gas 4.

2. Butter and flour the sides of four 10 cm heart shaped tins and line the bases with greaseproof paper.

3. For the cake: Snap the chocolate into chunks and place in a bowl. Add the milk and sit the bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water and heat until the chocolate has melted. (Make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the surface of the water.) Set aside to cool slightly.

4. Beat the butter until very soft then add the caster sugar and continue to beat until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time,and then fold in the melted chocolate.

5. Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and the bicarbonate of soda,and fold in gently to mix. Divide the mixture between the tins and bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of each cake comes out clean.

6. Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to sit for five minutes before turning them out of their tins and placing them on a wire rack to cool. When cool slice the cake in half.

7. For the chocolate butter icing Melt the chocolate in the microwave on High for 1½ minute, stirring halfway. Leave to cool. Beat the butter and icing sugar in a large bowl until creamy. Beat in the chocolate until smooth.Spread the butter icing on the bottom half of the cake and sandwich with the other half.

ABOUT BAKINGMAD.COM

Bakingmad.com is a free mouth-wateringly helpful website that offers everything you want to know about home baking.The site is packed full of hundreds of inspiring recipes including everything from biscuits, breads and cupcakes to muffins, pies and pizzas. All the recipes are tried and tested by the home-baking experts in the Baking Mad kitchen and come with top tips, ‘how to’ videos and easy to follow step-by-step instructions.

NOTES TO EDITORS

· All in son Nature Friendly flours are milled from Conservation Grade™ wheat, from farms that demonstrate their dedication to helping wildlife flourish. This provides a more balanced and sustainable environment allowing crops to be pollinated naturally and helps to provide a sustainable environment for the future. There is regularly five times more wildlife on Nature Friendly Farms™ *

· Did you know that not all brown sugars are the same; many are white sugar simply dyed brown. The secret of natural, unrefined sugar is that it locks in,rather than refines out, the natural molasses of the sugar cane, resulting in superior taste, texture, color and aroma to your home cooking.

To ensure that you are buying the finest unrefined sugars simply look for UNREFINED on the packet. Or just look for the name ‘Billington’s’ and you can’t go wrong. You can buy Billington’s unrefined sugars in all major supermarkets.

· Create is the new range of edible cake decorations and baking ingredients from Silver Spoon, available nationwide across major retailers. Silver Spoon Create delivers quality and reliability for all your baking needs, from a name you can trust.

· Mich Turner is the founder of London’s Little Venice Cake company – the leading designers of celebration cakes. Internationally renowned, she has created cakes for royalty and celebrities and is now delighted to be able to offer a great range of professional quality ingredients.

First of all this is vitamin D of course, which is able to to prevent multiple sclerosis, as say researchers. They also say that vitamin D can play an important role in reducing depression. Vitamin D vitamin that is naturally present in very few foods, such as sardines, salmon, mushrooms, eggs, fortified milk, fortified cereals, herring, liver, tuna, cod liver oil, margarine.

Calcium (Mineral) presents in milk, cheese, yogurt (all dairy products except butter), peas and beans, canned salmon, collards, beat, broccoli, turnip, spinach (most dark, leafy greens), mackerel, ocean perch, salmon, tofu, almonds, blackstrap molasses, Chinese cabbage, green cabbage, cauliflower, figs, oranges, soy milk, sesame seeds, raisins, chick peas, kelp, rhubarb, carrots

Vitamin C – in red and green peppers, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, oranges, cauliflower, pink grapefruit, strawberries, mustard greens, kiwi fruit, orange juice, broccoli, cantaloupe, asparagus, avocados, collards, dandelion greens, kale, lemons, mangoes, onions, radishes, watercress.

Vitamin E – in vegetables & nut oils, including soybean, corn, safflower, spinach, whole grains, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, almonds

Vitamin K (Fat Soluble) in a green leafy vegetables including spinach, kale, cauliflower, broccoli.

Vitamin B12 (Cyanocobalamin) (Water soluble) is found only in organ meats, clams, ham, cooked oysters, king crab, salmon, tuna, lean beef, liver, blue cheese, milk, shellfish, meat, cheese

Zinc (Mineral) is in cooked oysters, dark meat turkey, beef, lamb, eggs, whole grains, nuts, yogurt, fish legumes, lima beans, liver, mushrooms, pecans, pumpkin & sunflower seeds, sardines, soybeans, poultry, lentils, pumpkin seeds

Iron (Mineral) is found in white beans, spinach (Good Sources) – beef, baked potatoes, clams, eggs, fish, pumpkin seeds, all types of liver; green leafy vegetables, whole grains, nuts, avocados, beets, brewer’s yeast, dates, peaches, pears, sunflower, sesame and squash seeds; soybeans, oysters. garbanzo beans, lentils, lima beans, dried prunes, raisins, pink beans, winged beans

A few years ago my husband and I had a delicious crab pasta recipes dish in Italy. I have experimented at home trying to recreate it several times. Most things of course always taste better on holiday in the sunshine, drinking in the beautiful Italian scenery and this is no exception. However, it is nevertheless tasty and best of all quick and easy to prepare.

I like to use linguine but you could use penne, spaghetti, fusilli or just about any other pasta. Depending on your appetite, you will need for two people a large dressed crab or two medium ones. Chop a red chilli (de-seeded if you don’t like your food too fiery), a couple of cloves of garlic, a spring onion of two, a small bunch of parsley, and two or three vine ripened tomatoes (skinned). Fry them gently in some olive oil (spray fat is fine if you are being truly virtuous) add a glass of white wine and the crab meat and simmer while you cook the pasta. Serve with a dash of lemon juice.

My other favourite crab recipe comes from Greece and, as with many Greek recipes , packs quite a punch with its green chillies. You make a mixture of crab meat, chopped onions, garlic, skinned and chopped tomatoes, chillies, and chopped coriander, all fried in some olive oil. Add some lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Put the mixture into small ramekin dishes and top with bread crumbs. Drizzle some olive oil on top and bake for about 15 minutes. This is a great dish to serve as a starter or can be served as a main course with some naan or a salad.

If your child is heading off to university this autumn, now is the time to teach them a few basic recipes. A levels are over, so drag them kicking and screaming into the kitchen; they’ll thank you for it in the long run.

Being able to cook a batch of mince is a good idea for students. It can then be turned into a spaghetti bolognese, a cottage pie, a chilli or a lasagne. If they have access to a freezer, get them to cook double and freeze in suitable sized portions for future use. They don’t need to cook everything from scratch. A shop bought jar of ragu sauce or white sauce granules are nothing to be ashamed of!

Chicken is another versatile ingredient for your son or daughter to get to grips with. Good in stir fries, curries or roasted, the possibilities are endless. Introduce them to recipes from companies such as Schwartz so they can just pop online to find a new recipe or two to spice up their chicken without too much effort or expense.

Do, however, make sure they are aware of the salmonella risk and instil in them some basic hygiene rules such as washing their hands thoroughly after touching raw chicken, not allowing work tops to become contaminated with chicken blood, and not storing raw poultry near cooked meats in the fridge. These are things which we take for granted but which the average teenager is probably unaware of. Likewise, make sure they know that whilst eating a rare steak is fine, chicken (and for that matter pork) needs to be thoroughly cooked.

All of these are difficult situations but a little creative flair here and there and a healthy dose of international thinking can easily solve these conundrums.

The English are not renowned for their healthy or vegetarian-friendly food, so we must travel to Latin America for an inspiring Mexican influence.

Bean Enchiladas is a great recipe because it is extremely customisable; the following recipe is just a rough guideline, so you should feel free to add your own personal touches. Let’s start off with what you will need (or what you may decide to substitute):

- 1 Teaspoon of olive oil
- 2 onions (chopped)
- 2 green bell peppers (sliced or chopped)
- 2 teaspoons of chilli powder
- 2 cans of chopped tomatoes
- 2 cans of black beans
- 6 tortillas
- 200g low-fat yoghurt
- 50g cheese (grated or shredded)
- Handful of romaine lettuce (chopped)

If you’re thinking “this is a lot, I’m not quite that hungry” then I don’t blame you. This recipe is meant to be very substantial and provides enough to feed four to six people. Alternatively, you could hide the leftovers in the fridge and save it for yourself for another day; it depends solely upon how generous you’re feeling.

Going through this list, all of the ingredients can be taken out or substituted for something else, so if the look of anything doesn’t appeal to you, fear not.

To begin with, we are going to prepare the vegetables. Or not. It’s completely up to you. If you don’t want to put any vegetables in, that’s fine. Believe it or not, the beans and yoghurt in a cheese covered tortilla can stand up on its own but I highly recommend enhancing the experience with some vegetables. Put the oil in a frying pan and cook the onions and peppers for between five and eight minutes. Again, use whatever vegetables you want. Carrots also work well here, it’s just up to you and your preferences.

Then, add a little chili powder to make the dish a little more exciting. If you don’t like spice, then you may want to skip the chili powder, but it really adds an interesting twist. Cook with the chilli powder for one more minute. Next, bring the pan down to a simmer and add the tomatoes (if you want) and stir for 10 more minutes.

Once removed from the heat, add the beans to the mixture. I’ve listed black beans but pinto beans also work well. You can use both if you’re feeling a little crazy. Lay the tortillas on a board and distribute the bean mixture between them all, sprinkling a little salt in (perhaps a little paprika), wrap them up and line them in an ovenproof dish. At this stage, you could just finish and enjoy them as burritos, perfect for the time-pressed and on-the-go. You could even skip the tortillas completely and eat the mixture with tortilla chips, which are great for sharing.

Continuing on with this recipe, sprinkle the cheese of your choice on top and a light dashing of yoghurt or sour cream. Heating your grill to high, put the enchiladas in until the top is melted and bubbling. Now it is ready to serve. I recommend putting lettuce, sour cream, yoghurt, guacamole and/or salsa on the side to heighten the experience. But, most importantly, remember it is all up to you.

By the way there is wonderful website with various diff Japanese recipes I use every time I want to prepare something from Japanese cook – http://www.bento.com/tf-recp.html,