December "Food" Favourites

Things I have been eating

Hot chocolate

This year we are as you know experiencing an extremely cold winter so a Hot beverage is a must to warm us up. This month apart for my honey, lemon and garlic teas (to 'duppy' my cold away) I have been indulging in hot chocolate whether homemade or from a sachet. My favourtie picks are seen in pictures below and some of my homemade hot chocolates can be found on my previous blog posts: Black Forest and Spiced white chocolate.

Mycookiedough

This month I visited Westfield Stratford with my BFF in an attempt to buy Christmas presents. We also had our sights in visiting the Mycookiedough stall to try some of their cookie dough. I'm not sure if I have shared this with you guys but my favourite flavour combination is sweet, salty and hot. So my natural choice for cookie dough was the chocolate chip with peanut butter and chocolate sauce. I was not disappointed it was soooooooooooooo delicious. I even tried to make my own cookie dough but it kinda flopped.

Soups and Broths

I like making soups and broths during the winter as they instantly give you a cosy feeling as well as killing to birds with one stone: dinner and hot beverage/liquid, hunger and instant warming. Mostly through this month I have been drinking mainly broths and did a "faux" version of a Ramen in remembrance of that salty, umami Ramen I had at Hyper Japan last month.

My "Advent Calendar"

So this year, I really wanted a nice, luxury chocolate advent calendar but when I worked out the cost per chocolate I was paying more for the packaging than the chocolate. So I decided to by a bag of Terry's chocolate orange party pack that I could stick my hand in without looking and randomly pick out a different chocolate orange flavour each day and, if I felt like having more than one I just place my hand in again LOOOL. I AM SOOO GREEDY but I don't care I deserve it.

Home remedies

Have I mentioned I am currently sick (twice in this month) and have lost my voice, which is not what I need especially being a teacher where talking is a must. So I have been using natural ingredients and homemade food to help my body heal itself. Garlic, ginger, honey and lemon juice have been key ingredients, with their known anti-bacterial properties, in helping my recover.

What I have been watching

Shokugeki

Shokugeki which translates as "Food Wars" is an anime I have actually been watching since the summer. I randomly came across the show on YouTube and was watching it with my aunt while I was helping her do her hair. The anime is about a boy name Soma Joichiro whose father enrols him into Totsuki Teahouse Culinary Academy where he will learn to perfect his cooking so he can one day beat his father in a "Shokugeki". Now Soma does something on his first day of enrolling which kicks off a number of events which are funny to watch and takes you on a journey which brings you in for the ride. The anime has an ecchi (playfully sexual) side in terms of the way the characters experience new dishes which can be a bit much but I guess its a way of showing that the food is "orgasmic" a term that is used quite a lot in but no one really exactly means. Well in Shokugeki that's what it means mate. Although some may feel the "ecchiness" is a bit much it actually goes in hand with the expertise the characters use in their cooking and the detailing of the flavours in the food the characters cook. It actually makes you want to eat the food. There is even a YouTube channel that cooks some of the food on the show. If you love food and love anime then you are going to love Shokugeki which is now currently on its third season.

Kantaro: The Sweet tooth Salaryman

Now Kantaro is another show about food that uses some forms of ecchi but it centred by a "Salaryman" or sales man named Kantaro who is employed at a company that sells/distributes books to book stores who has a secret. His secret: he is a blogger named "Sweet Knight" who blogs about "sweets" (desserts) he can eat during work which he in turn blogs about. Kantaro has a cool demeanour around his work colleagues but when he is eating various Japanese and Western "sweets" he literally becomes a different person, will have an orgasm when he eats the food (yeah its a bit much smh, and I love desserts but yeah......) and he is whisked to an imaginary world centred around the desserts he is eating. The show is actually really good (I would say that though I love Japanese culture and food so it's a perfect combo). I am currently rewatching it on Netflix, its easy watching. Check it out if like me you love watching the enjoyment of food and can get past the "ecchi-ness".