Easter sales have never been so appetising, especially as high street retail shops are continually having to knock down prices to improve their appeal to the ever increasing cost saving audience.

Some of the biggest saving appliances that have been seen are mainly involved in and around state of the art TV’s. There are plenty of great savings to be had on state-of-the-art TV’s that are present in today’s marketplace with the added bonus and including including the new Samsung Curve, laptops and kitchen accessories such as the popular Nutribullet and Russell Hobbs kettles all which fall into a price range that appeals to the cost savvy buyer.

Alongside this they are offering vouchers in allowing people to have money off specific chef and cooking applications that are available on both iphone and android, making it a highly appealing purchase for many UK catering companies to find new tactics and techniques.

Over the last few months we have been collating our research together to provide you with a few suggestions to good healthy substitutions whilst cooking. If you end up reaching for a biscuit, or two (or three for the ones out there) then this list will definitely apply to you.

Considering that National Spinach Day has recently been and gone (which no-one would ever know about – I mean, really?) we included some fun things to do with a variety of food groups below.

The first item to begin with is the delicious black beans for flour

If you end up making brownies then you won’t be doing yourself any favours when it comes to weight loss. However if you swap out 1 cup of flour for 1 cup of black bean puree (about a 15 oz can). It will cut down on carbs and fit in an extra dose of gluten. Plus, they taste amazing!

For people our their who like Rice (and lots of it) then this hack below may be the of great interest to you.

It sounds too good to be true (and it probably is because nothing yet has been proven yet) but a simple change to the way rice is cooked could reduce its calorie content by up to 60 per cent meaning that you will now in-take considerably less calorific intake per rice based meal.

Scientists in Sri Lanka, a country which typically hasn’t be renowned for food science have recently discovered that cooking rice with a teaspoon of coconut oil then refrigerating it for around 12 hours has shown to halve the number of calories absorbed by the body. The change remains even if it is reheated.

The researchers from the College of Chemical Sciences in Colombo, Sri Lanka have also researched that simply changing the cooking method and the way the rice is cooked could help tackle the significant obesity epidemic.

Nothing says British summer time quite like a freshly cooked piece of fish with crispy, golden chips. There are plenty of local takeaways who will serve this classic dish, but have you thought of making it yourself?

The first step in creating this dish is to work on the chips. Peel your potatoes and rinse under water to remove some of the starch. Then, cut into thick (or thin!) chips as you prefer. Next, bring a large pan of salted water to boil, and add the chipped potatoes. They need to be cooked for around 3-4 minutes, depending on the thickness. Once parboiled, drain the potatoes and leave to dry off. You can do this on a paper towel. By drying them off, you will make them extra crispy in the oven.

While the chips are drying off, prepare your fish. It is a good idea to use either cod or haddock, although other white fish will be just as good. You can either coat your fish in breadcrumbs (to oven cook), or dip in batter to fry.

Cook the chips in the oven, on a tray with a splash of oil. They will need turning over after around 10 minutes, with a total cook time of 17-20 minutes at 200 Celsius.

The creation of food for corporate events of small company presentations can be a difficult task, especially if you are running your catering company close to the red line.

This happens in many instances because catering companies want to deliver a truly cost effective service, in hope of receiving repeat business whereby they can raise the price of the next quote in the next instance. This is a common practice in many areas of the marketplace, but specifically the strategy behind it is to ensure that the catering company drive out smaller competitors quickly and more effectively, to stop them from becoming an ultimate competitor in the long run.

In light of this however, the quality of food that the catering company presents is still, typically a much better standard than what you expect at a country fair, because they go to great length in preparing fresh food for businesses men to consume.

The catering world can be a difficult and challenging market, especially when many couples and organisations are tending to cut back on the luxuries of food when it comes to large corporate events.

Specifically the commercial sector has been hit much harder by the recession seen in 2008 than the wedding / hospitality scene which continues to shown stabilisation in many areas of size and competitiveness.

Wedding Venues typically see a much higher class of food prepared by the food catering company to that of the commercial side which typically see’s more pre-packaged and bundle offers for corporate presentations, events and small bits and pieces. This could be one of the factors to why this particular area has seen the most hit because people aren’t willing to pay the extra price seen in the preparation of the food because such consumers are typically expecting to pay what you would normally in a supermarket.

Halogen Hobs are the latest technology used in cooking technology. Typically from the late 50’s, gas hobs were used to cook and boil particular food products. The pots and pans used on gas hobs tended to made of stainless steel and/or hardened metal with a smooth aluminium coating to stop them from being damaged by the naked flame of the gas hob.

However with these new fancy halogen hobs, which uses a specific type of pot / pan to be able to transfer heat through a safe and effective manner, reduces the amount of accidents that are causing by minor burns and scars from an exposed heat / flame. Specifically this type of technology will tend to appeal to young families with children who are slightly more inquisitive than they should be.

Along with this additional safety, the price comparison between the two options is very similar and therefore a tempting buy for many.

Shrove Tuesday, which is more commonly known as Pancake Day is a day in February or March which precedes Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent if you did not realise this. The reason why Shrove Tuesday is celebrated in many countries by consuming pancakes is due to celebrating giving up something for lent.

It is very easy to prepare pancakes, specifically making the mixture. Pancake mixture is made from flour, milk and one egg, stirring together to create essentially a batter mix. This batter mix is then normally poured in small amounts onto a hot fry pan with a small amount of butter. This will stop the mixture sticking to the pan whilst the pancake cooks. Then the fun part, flipping the pancake to generate an even cook on each side. Either use a flipping action with the frying pan or flip it with a spatula. Serve, sugar and lemon juice – perfect pancakes!

When it comes to enjoying Salmon, you have a variety of options to chose from. For example you can buy the pre cut fillets from supermarkets that are nicely packaged which will cost around £4 for 500g. This is fairly expensive and you will see why later on in this article.

However if you go to the supermarkets fish monger, you will notice that there is a whole abundance on fish on offer, especially whole salmon’s that have been gutted (removal of all internal organs). You will notice that the price will be significantly cheaper especially when there is an offer on (£5 per kg for example). If you buy the whole salmon the trick is it to ask for it filleted as this will cost you no extra money and many people don’t realise that they’ll do this free of charge. Therefore don’t spend large amounts of the pre-packaged stuff, go down to the supermarkets fish monger and buy heaps of it!

3d printing has become a real trend setter for many in a variety of industries. Particularly prototyping and concept designs has been most prominent as design consultants are now able to manufacturer and product fast and effective prototypes in as short as a 1-2 days, making the whole process almost 20x times faster.

In terms of the food industry, 3d printing has really made a technology push as the process of printing food is now been made available. In a food technology conferences spanning up and down the UK, 3d printers are now able to print cakes, potatoes and many other food items. This means that making the perfect cake each time is now possible and the artwork displayed on these cakes in the form of patterns and sugar icing truly is very beneficial. This will hopefully be coming to the domestic market shortly where we could print our own faces on a flat cake.