Playing Silly Burgers 15: Blue Cheese Burger

Ooh, I can't wait to try this one. I love blue cheese burgers. This recipe has blue cheese inside the burger as well as on top. Yum!

Ingredients:

1 onion
2 garlic cloves
1lb minced beef
1 pear
1 tablespoon mustard
7oz blue cheese
Salt and pepper

Make up the burger using these ingredients chopped up small and mixed with the minced beef. Save a couple of ounces of blue cheese for the top of the burger. Cook the burgers in a pan as usual to your preferred done-ness.

Serve on some salad leaves of your choice in a burger bun and top with the rest of the blue cheese.

Of course, I loved these burgers. The combination of meaty burger with sharp blue cheese melting on top is heaven for me. The best blue cheese burger I ever had was in Scotland using Aberdeen Angus beef, it was delicious! JD on the other hand wasn't so keen, he enjoyed the burger but it was too much having the cheese inside the burger and the generous wedge I'd put on top.

Ratings: JD - 3, Emma - 5

Emma's Exercise Experiments - Aquafit

Swimming is one of my favourite exercises, I love being in the water. I've tried Aquafit before too. Years ago, my friend Jane and I would throw ourselves into vigorous aqua aerobics and then go for pizza. Good times!

No pizza this time but I'm still looking forward to it. I signed up for 4 weeks of Aquafit at my local pool. £6.40 for 45 minutes.

We did the Aquafit in the diving pool. They raise the floor so the water is only shoulder height. The pool noodles and foam weights were at the ready and Louise, our instructor, was busy sorting out the music. It's a popular exercise with about 20 participants each session.

The exercise was perfect for someone with delicate knees such as myself. Non weight bearing but still quite hard work. After a short warm up Louise led us through various exercises under the water. Some focusing on legs, some on twisting and some on arms. She always gave harder alternatives for those wanting to push themselves more. It was great to be moving in the water to music (synchronised swimming next maybe?!) and it felt really good to be exercising properly again after my knee injury.

My favourite part was always the foam weights. It's really difficult to move fast holding them and you can feel how hard you have to work your arms. Louise instructed us in lots of moves each using different arm muscles. I could hardly move my arms after the sessions. It was great!

Each session went really quickly. Warm up followed by general exercises. Then foam weight exercises and pool noodle work. A few stretches at the end to finish off and it was time to hit the showers. The 4 times I went varied some in what exercises we did but were similar enough that there weren't too many new moves to learn. I liked how the music (faster dance versions of old disco hits mostly) made you want to speed up as you moved and kept you going. Trying to do aquafit whilst also trying to sing along to a pumped up version of I Will Survive was one of the best exercise moments I've had. I loved it.

Aquafit is a great exercise to do if you want to improve your mobility, get fit and exercise in hot weather without getting sweaty! I really enjoyed it.


Previously on Emma's Exercise Experiments:

Gym 

Yoga

Bootcamp

Boxing 

Pilates

Tai Chi 

Pokemon Go 

Breadmaker Breadmaker Make Us Some Bread

I've fancied having a go with a bread maker for a while now, so when we saw one in our local charity shop for £10 we snapped it up.

It's a Kenwood BM260 Breadmaker. Me being me I had to check how much they sell for on Amazon when I got home. £90, what a bargain!

Our first attempt at bread turned out great. Just a plain white loaf. You put all the ingredients in the bread pan, liquids first then dry next and set it going.

2 hours later we had fresh bread. The kids loved it and it was soon consumed.

Next I made a gingerbread loaf. Also delicious and rapidly eaten.

We made pizza dough too.

Chocolate bread with chunks of chocolate inside.

Wholemeal cheddar loaf which was disappointingly not that cheesy but still great with baked beans.

Marmalade bread which we ate with a cream cheese icing.

My favourite has to be the regular white bread sliced thickly with butter and jam. Perfect!

There are more recipes I want to try. Apparently you can even make jam in the breadmaker. I got all the recipes from the Kenwood website. Definitely worth a tenner!