Go Exploring

I'm planning a big cooking and baking weekend to try out some of the recipes from Planeat.tv, and I also had a peek at some of the fab recipes on the Provamel website (www.provamel.com). I've found that when cooking fresh food the most important thing is to plan ahead, because if I don't know exactly what I'm going to need I always forget an important ingredient (like tomatoes for the bolognese sauce, and yes I actually did that once) and end up with lots of bits left over which are hard to use up for anything else. So I've been through the recipes that caught my eye, selected enough that I can feasibly eat in one weekend, and I've made my shopping list. I'm very lucky in that I live in a city and as well as having two excellent health food shops and a Saturday real food market virtually on my doorstep, I also pass a great farm shop on my drive home from work, and most of out local supermarkets have free-from and wholefood ranges. Understandably, depending on where you live, it can be difficult to get hold of fresh, whole food. However, it's worth searching online for farm shops and real food markets in your area because they quite often go unnoticed. Don't be shy to ask your local supermarkets to stock more options, either. I used to work in food retail, and any good manager will be happy to receive your requests. The Co-operative Food stores in particular are keen to provide healthier alternatives for the benefit of the community, and they also stock a great animal product-free range of toiletries and cleaning products.