Silly, Bridget

Bridget and her diary

Me and my diary

One of my favorite films to date is Bridget Jones’s Diary. Renee Zellweger perfected the role of the cheeky, less-than-proper, but undeniably adorable Bridget Jones. With her quirky mannerisms (public unjumbling of granny panties at book launch party); NSFW IMs and see-through blouses to seduce scoundral of a boss, Daniel Cleaver; and vulgar quips (more NSFW phone convos with BFF overheard by said boss: “He’s just a big knobhead with no knob!”) make her so relatable.

Who can forget the infamous dinner party scene with Bridget (turning 33) who throws herself a small dinner party to celebrate her birthday and career win (an exclusive interview with the defendants in a worldly groundbreaking case! Hello!)! Only problem here is that Bridget is a bit challenged in the kitchen, and every course on the dinner menu goes (as Bridge would say) to shit. Enter a surprise visit from the debonaire Mark Darcy who comes and saves the day (well, sorta).

What better way to celebrate this movie than moderately modify the menu? With a few tweaks, you can have your own Bridget Jones’s Diary dinner party. Just like the movie, all recipes are scaled to serve 5 people.

Click on the following links for full recipes

COURSE 1
Bridget’s Blue Soup

COURSE 2
Mark’s Emergency Omelet

COURSE 3
“Tastes Like Marmalade” Pudding Cakes

Blue Gene, Baby

Posted 8 May 2014

Filed under Dining In, How-to

Avoid those harmful chemicals with store-bought food dyes and make your own!

Once upon a time, I used to buy store-bought food coloring. SMH. Not the proudest moment in my life. But I really had no idea what harmful chemicals were used in these dyes. After educating myself, I did a little research and found that you could make your own food dye. At home. And it’s super simple. Here’s how:

Homemade (and all-natural!) Blue Food Coloring
Recipe adapted from Whole New Mom
Yields about 1 cup

INGREDIENTS
Half head of red cabbage
Water to cover
1 tablespoon baking soda

METHOD
Rinse the cabbage and cut out the core.

Chop into large dice. (Chopping them into relatively the same sizes will cook them evenly.)

Place the chopped cabbage into a small- to medium-sized pot and add water just to cover the cabbage.

Turn heat to medium-high and simmer for about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat after fully cooked down and then let sit for another 5 minutes.

Once slightly cooled, drain cabbage “juice” into a bowl. The resulting juice will be deep purple in color–that’s what you want!

Once drained, your drained red cabbage juice will look like this.

Once drained, your red cabbage juice will look like this.

In the bowl, add the baking soda and stir. Your purple “juice” is now blue!

After adding the baking soda, it’ll now look like this!

(Cook’s note: If you’re using this food coloring into something that you’ll be eating, be cautious of how much baking soda you’re adding, as it is the alkaline agent that actually changes the color of the liquid to blue.)

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