We all have friends with specific dietary requirements, or know of kids who are just plain picky. So when you’re planning an event at home, take the stress out of hosting with these simple tips, covering everything from recipes for kids to what to cook when you have a vegan coming to tea. Taking up the challenge could be a great opportunity to incorporate new ideas into your culinary repertoire!

Serving for Special Diets

First up, when you send round the invitations, make sure to ask whether your guests have any special dietary requirements, so you know well ahead of time and can plan menu adjustments. Once you know which diets you’re catering for, here are some ideas on how to cook for each:

1. Gluten Intolerant: cakes and sauces can often be made gluten-free very easily – just substitute gluten free flour for your usual flour. Dough-based dishes, however, such as bread and pizza, can lose their elasticity if made with gluten-free flour. Try a seafood or meat-based main with lots of vegetables and potatoes or sweet potatoes on the side – you might even be able to avoid having to track down any special ingredients entirely this way.
2. Vegan: most people have a few vegetarian dishes in their repertoire, but cutting out cheese and eggs can prove tricky. Indian cuisine is a great option, as many dishes in this style are naturally vegan (as long as it doesn’t include paneer, a type of cheese). For dessert, shop-bought puff pastry is almost always vegan and makes an impressive base for a tart.
3. Lactose Intolerant: almond, soy or hemp milk all work well as substitutes for cow’s milk, depending on the recipe you’re using. Coconut cream can add richness to dishes, while for buttermilk try substituting one tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar per 250mls milk substitute. Also bear in mind that lots of pre-prepared foods like bread and sauces contain lactose, so check the labels carefully.
4. Nut Allergy: this can be tricky to cater for, as nuts are hidden in lots of common foods, so again be sure to read labels carefully before you buy. Soy and satay sauce will also often contain nuts, as can pesto and many salad dressings. But cutting out nuts still leaves plenty of options, from Mediterranean-style dishes to hearty Baltic stews.

On the other hand, if you’re planning your event at a restaurant, check reviews carefully and ring up beforehand to ask whether they’ll cater for the special dietary requirements of your guests.

Cooking for Kids

Kids will often find richer, dinner-party style food overwhelming, so if you’re hosting kids at your event, you may want to think up a different menu for them. Recipes for kids tend to be simple: think pasta, soups or schnitzel. Something a little more interactive that will encourage them to try new things is giving them the opportunity to prepare the food themselves: try making fajitas with bowls of different ingredients they can add in the centre of the table. If you have a theme for your event, kids can enjoy it too, whether that’s autumnal seasonal ingredients like apples and squash, or even unicorn-style rainbow recipes for kids.

Of course, the type of event will play a big part in deciding which dishes you prepare, and if in doubt, you can always ask friends to contribute something, making your job as a host considerably simpler!

If you’ve ever been to a spa or a luxury hotel, you know that it’s hard to beat the feeling of wrapping a luxurious, soft, thick towel around your body after a hot shower – so get down and comfy with it with some high-grade pampering fit for only the best spa experiences.

Luxury towels, made from only the highest quality cotton, is a sign of high standards, an excess of money and extravagance; but what if I told you that you can experience the same thing in your home? The best in quality doesn’t come cheap, but likewise, luxury towels are made to last and you really can feel the difference:

Qualities of a luxury towel

While any towel can pat you dry after a bath or shower, a luxury towel will make the experience so much more enjoyable. A thick and soft bath sheet, made from 100% Egyptian cotton, will keep you warm and dry. Towels are measured in GSM (Grams per square meter) and range from 600 to 900 for luxury brands, where the higher the number the thicker the towel.

For that extra level of class, it’s recommended to aim for 750 GSM with Egyptian cotton.

Colour

While white bath sheets go with almost anything, you may wish to more closely match the towels with your bathroom decor. The linens of a bathroom are often the only spot of colour, and can give a truly complete feel to the design. Beware that coloured towels may shed a lot of lint in the beginning, but this shouldn’t last beyond the first or second wash.

Caretaking

Make sure that your lovely new towels last as long as possible by taking great care of them.

The number one mistake that most of us commit with towels is to use fabric softener when washing them. Makes sense right? Soft towels require softener? The complete opposite is actually true; most softeners contain chemicals which will make the towel feel harsher and is detrimental to the absorbency of the fabric. If you have already made this classic error, rinse the towels with a cup of diluted vinegar to remove the softener residue.

Keep the temperature of the wash low, around 40C should be enough. For lower quality towels the temperature can be higher, but stick to the lower range when dealing with those thick luxury towels that we love so much.

If you are interested in fixing up your bathroom, to give it a nice fresh look and feel, you might be dismayed at how much it could cost to carry out that kind of work.  However, if your actual bathroom is structurally sound and doesn’t need to be fully upgraded and renovated, there are many things you could do that won’t break the bank so much.

Improved Lighting

In the majority of bathrooms, lighting is normally overhead which can cause shadows and make everyone look like raccoons around the eyes.  If this is the case in your bathroom, just by adding either wall lighting fixtures or a mirror with little lights around it, you could make the whole room look and feel brighter without spending too much.

Large Bathroom Floor Tiles

Although you may feel that smaller tiles would make a small bathroom feel larger, it is the opposite that is actually true.  Porcelain or ceramic tiles are the perfect choice, especially the larger sized ones, as they look good and do not require much maintenance.  It obviously takes a tiler a lot less time to tile a floor using larger tiles than smaller tiles and because less grout is required you will have less cleaning to do between them.

Replace The Taps And Faucets

Another great way to breathe a fresh breath of life into a bathroom that just needs some attention, is by replacing the taps and faucets you currently have in the sink and bath.  If you look at the website for a company like PlumbTile you will find lots of different options and types of taps whether you are looking for individual hots and colds or looking for more sophisticated mixer taps.

There are many other things you can do to your bathroom, but the above has hopefully giving you some great ideas to start with.

So you are a big Formula One fan, staying at home and know more than just the basics about how the race weekend works. Before you start betting on your favourite sport, there are some things you should know.  In the following article we will discuss some of the most important considerations you should make when betting through a Sports betting website like http://sports.williamhill.com/.

The Car Performance

It is probably common sense to a lot of people reading, but if a F1 racing driver does not have a car that compete with the other favourites in a race, he is not going to have a chance of winning.  The best example of this is the difference between Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso.  They have won 47 races and 3 world championships between them but when they race in an unreliable and under-powered Honda engine they only managed to secure one Top 10 finish.

As you would also consider common sense, a car that is just as unreliable as it is fast, is useless.  Reliability is a more important aspect of the cars and teams when placing bets.

The Driver’s Performance

Just as in life, some people are better doing certain tasks than others – some drivers fair better on particular tracks than others.  When you take a look at the career records of drivers, taking into consideration the record of their team mate’s, you can usually figure out the drivers who are most likely to do well on a particular track.

The Characteristics Of A Track

During each race weekend, the engineers and drivers look through and analyse vast amounts of data in order to fine-tune the set-up of their car to meet the unique demands of each track.  When speeding round Monza, how a car handles corners matters less than driving at top speed as much as possible; whereas with the Monaco GP things are very different – cars are generally configured to take corners at low speeds and have optimised traction.  Although these two tracks are at either end of the spectrum, most tracks on the circuit sit somewhere between the two, meaning that cars have to be set-up in a very compromised and balanced manner.

It is important to remember though that drivers will always be limited by whatever they have at their disposal.

Randomness

During Singapore last year Ricciardo knew the strength of his car depended on how well and how long he could make his tyres last between each pit stop.  Additionally though, it was known that the Safety Car being on the track would reduce completely his advantage because it would limit the number of laps he could drive at full speed.  When it comes to the Singapore GP though, it was unfortunate that it is the type of circuit where there are commonly regular Safety Car periods during a race.  This is because there are many points along that track where it is tricky to recover stricken cars during a race.

Ricciardo was thus confined to 2^nd place because of the 2 points in the race when the Safety Car was on the course.

The 2015 report by the National Association of Realtors on home values was good news for home owners. The report showed that home prices had increased by 8.2% in the second quarter of 2015 as compared to figures in 2014.

If you’d purchased a home with the hope of selling it later, you ought to be doing all that you can to further increase its value and capitalize on the current improvements in the real estate market. One way of doing this is by installing high-speed fiber internet.

According to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Colorado, high speed internet has become a must-have in home shopper lists. Simply installing high-speed fiber optic internet can result in an increase in the value of your home by anything between $5000 and $175,000.

Installing high speed internet will not only benefit you by providing you with high speed access to information, but will also provide you with greater return upon selling your home.

How to get fiber optic internet

Fiber optic internet offers you high speed internet at affordable prices.

Check availability

Check for the availability of fiber optic internet service providers in your area. Although the availability of Fiber optic internet is growing rapidly, it is not yet available to all parts of the US. Check to see what internet service providers are available in your area e.g. CenturyLink in Perkin IL.

Compare different service providers

If you have more than one choice for internet service providers in your area, compare the services providers on a price comparison website. These websites give you a breakdown of the features of the different services and allows you to compare them side by side. This allows quick comparison.

You may also want to read reviews by customers to find out what others have to say about the service providers you’re considering.

You will also need to visit the websites of the individual internet service providers to get more details about the specific packages they offer. Compare features such as upload and download speeds, terms of service, cost, contract length and special features or add-ons.

Study the contract

Study the contract before signing up for the service. How long is the contract for? What will happen in case you fail to make a payment? What are the terms and conditions for terminating services mid-contract? Are there fees and fines to be paid?

Be sure to study the fine print of the contract. Many people often find themselves paying dearly for having not paid attention to one or two details outlined in their contracts.

Book an installation appointment

If you’ve found a service provider that suits your needs, contact them and set up a date for the installation. Ensure that you have discussed your needs for access and devices with the service provider for better installation.

Be sure to include the fact that your house has high speed fiber optic internet when advertising for a buyer. This could mean the difference between the buyer going for another similar home to  yours.

So you have given a considerable amount of thought to how you are going to decorate the floors of your home.  It is now time to choose whether you will use carpet, laminate, wood or tile flooring.  Perhaps you are very much on the fence about tile flooring, but in the following article we hope to show you some of the best reasons for browsing GoHaus and investing in it.

It Will Last a Long Time

As it can cost a lot to redecorate your home’s flooring, you will want to choose a material and product that will last a long time.  Tile flooring, particularly porcelain and ceramic are robust and have a long shelf life.  When you follow the correct instructions for having it installed and maintaining it, it not fail on you for many, many years.

Various Options Available

Versatility is another great benefit of tiling.  There are now tiles in various sizes, styles and colours.  Even if you love the look of wood, you can’t have that material in a high moisture area.  However, there is a solution as there are now tiles that have a look.

Hygienic And Healthy

While you may have already been aware of the benefits and reasons for having tile flooring we have already covered, you may not have realised it is hygienic and healthy.  Tiling flooring can actually help to preserve the air quality of your home.  As tiles are fired inside kilns at very high temperatures, they carry either very little or no VOCs which are responsible for various health issues.

Less Maintenance

Tiling, as you may be aware, is very waterproof and is therefore protected against all manner of spills from shower, bath and sink water to drinks and even pet accidents.  Not only will soap and water be enough to clean dirty tiles, but many grouts available nowadays are almost completely stain-resistant.

There are numerous companies out there that can design and install a bespoke kitchen in your home, but is this the right choice for you to make? Many people question whether the additional cost is truly worth it, but the benefits can easily make it worth your while.

Uniqueness

Firstly, if you have a bespoke kitchen then that space is completely and utterly yours. Homeowners all across the country strive for a unique look, but that’s only a truly attainable goal if you go bespoke. With the kitchen being one of the most public rooms in the majority of homes, it makes a good choice if you’re thinking of going bespoke.

Functionality

No kitchen will ever be quite the same as the next, so it doesn’t really make much sense to buy off the rack from a practical point of view. With a bespoke kitchen, you will be able to take measurements and then make sure that everything is properly fitted. No gaps where food crumbs and cutlery can get trapped; no awkward places where cupboards fail to meet the ceiling.

Additionally, you can make space for things that aren’t normally accounted for. Have a special coffee maker that you’d like kept out of the way? Just build a cabinet with its dimensions in mind.

Investment

There’s no getting around the fact that going bespoke will cost you more money, though it usually isn’t quite as expensive as people expect it to be, especially since you’re tailoring it around your exact specifications.

No matter the added cost, you’ll end up with a better looking finished product, and one that boasts a superior standard of workmanship. When you finally come to sell the property, those details will stand out to potential buyers.

A bespoke kitchen looks better, lasts longer, and adds value. If you haven’t thought about opting for one, you might want to reconsider.