Five of the five a day Bolognaise!

Tags

dinner, healthy, kids, recipe, Whole food

I do apologise for last post…yet another vent about the irresponsible approach of the media when it comes to endorsing ‘skinny’…it never ceases to irritate and alarm me!

For dinner tonight, I’m rustling up a direct anti-thesis of Helen Flanagan’s ‘crisp diet’; or at least, so Yahoo would have us believe, with a twist on the traditional spaghetti Bolognaise that actually contains 5 of the 5 a day!

For us, we’re having to only go for 4, as we’re lacking carrots, but I’ll do the full recipe, for those who want all their veg in one sitting, ho ho.

‘5 of the 5’ Spaghetti Bolognaise

You will need:

1) One packet of mince (either veggie or real is fine!)

2) One onion, large (or in my case, using up what’s in the fridge, a small red onion and a few spring onions!) Peeled and finely chopped.

3) One carrot, peeled and grated. (This I lack. Boo.)

4) One courgette and one pepper, chopped into 1cm cubes, or sliced. (Big enough for roasting, basically.)

5) One tin of tomatoes.

6) 3 tbsp tomato purée.

7) 2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped.

8) spaghetti.

9) Parmesan cheese to top.

10) olive oil.

11) A tsp dried basil.

How to make it:

1) Preheat the oven to 200c. In a roasting tin, toss the peppers and courgette with some olive oil, then roast for around 20 minutes.

2) Meanwhile In a large frying pan, heat some oil, and add the garlic, onion and carrot. Fry gently until soft and golden. (Apologies here for my lack of carrots…I used them last night!) Also, put some water on to boil for the spaghetti.

3) Add the mince to the onions, and cook until browned. Then add the tomatoes, basil and tomato purée. (A little hot tip- if you want added richness, a generous splash of red wine does wonders!) Once the water is boiling, add the spaghetti and cook as per packet instructions.

4) Leave the mince to simmer, uncovered, for five minutes or so, to reduce the liquid down. About two minutes before the end, add the courgettes and peppers, which should now be roasted and soft. Stir in well.

5) Serve with the drained pasta and sprinkle over with Parmesan cheese!

Total Cost: Thanks to Aldi, it was about £3.20 in total. (I love Aldi. End of.)

The Verdict? Highly positive all round! Though the boys did pick out their courgettes. I knew I wouldn’t be able to fool them…next time I’m grating it, ha ha!

Weight loss media rant…again!

Tags

healthy eating, helen flanagan, irresponsible, media, shocking, weight loss, yahoo

Sorry, I will just pre-warn you; this is another rant.

Some of you might have read my previous post, about how enraged I was becoming at the media’s continual obsession with the weight of celebrities. Or should I say, female celebrities, as, lets face it, 99.9% of the time, it focuses in on us chicks. Hmph.

Yet again, I spotted another article on Yahoo…A whole picture slide show, complete with commentary, on various celebs, and whether they’d…wait for it, wait for it, this is quality journalism this is…whether they’d gained weight, or lost weight! What a fascinating read, I thought! I must read this, as I really do need to know precicely what Yahoo think about Helen Flanagan’s weight loss! (Excuse me whilst I shoot myself. Seriously. Ugh.)

Here’s the link. I particularly loved the Helen Flanagan one actually, as I felt it really highlighted precisely what I was rallying against with my last rant. Yahoo put as a caption, and I quote:

“Helen Flanagan says her diet consists of crisps, which is apparently how she stays this thin. Copyright (of photo) [Helen Flanagan / Instagram / Stacey Clarke]”

Well now, this is responsible, isn’t it! There is no mention, anywhere in this statement, of the fact that surviving on crisps is unhealthy. In fact, we could probably go further…dare we say dangerous? In fact, potentially life-threatening?

Thousands of young, impressionable women are exposed to this. I really hope most of them have the good sense to realise that surviving solely on crisps is a seriously BAD idea.

However, I would wager that there are a few vulnerable women out there, women desperate to lose weight, who think to themselves; ‘hey, I like crisps…maybe I should give that a go, see if I look like Helen Flanagan in a few months’s time’.

If the media are going to make statements such as this, and expose a vast number of people to images of this nature, surely they should be under some sort of moral (if not legal) obligation to ensure that they do so responsibly? E.g. just making some sort of reference to the fact that this is really not a healthy way of living one’s life?

Seriously, I know you probably are all getting a bit tired of my ranting, but it makes me feel sick. How did our society get so completely f***ed up, that we think this is newsworthy and that we actively celebrate silly diets and unheathy fads? When did what we look like become so darned important, eh? It’s insanity and it makes me really very sad indeed.

 

Creamy carrot and coriander soup

Tags

budget, healthy, kids, recipe, Soup, vegetarian, Whole food

I bought the most enormous bag of carrots a while back. I’m not quite sure why, it’s unlike me to buy things unless I have a specific recipe in mind for them, but anyway, buy them I did. Thus, they’ve been sat in the fridge, looking a wee bit sad, for a while now.

So I’m going to liberate them, and make a yummy creamy soup. Mmm!

Creamy carrot and coriander soup

You will need:

1) A quantity of carrots. I’m using 7 medium sized ones for two adults and two kids.

2) 1 onion, peeled and chopped.

3) If using the same number of carrots as me, around 650ml or so of vegetable stock (this is a bit of a judgement call)

4) A tsp of dried coriander.

5) Some single cream to drizzle over.

6) A knob of butter.

How to make it:

1) Heat the butter in a large saucepan, then gently fry the onion for five minutes.

2) Chop the carrots into large chunks, and add to the saucepan. Cook gently for a few minutes, stirring frequently and making sure they don’t go brown.

3) Add the stock until it covers the carrots. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover.

4) Simmer on a low heat for around 20 – 25minutes, or until the carrots are soft. During the cooking, add the coriander and stir in.

5) Take off the heat and blend until its smooth. Add more boiling water if it is too thick.

6) Serve immediately with a drizzle of single cream and bread.

Total Cost: £1.20. Which works out as 30p per person!

The Verdict? I must admit, I found it a little too thick, it definitely needed more stock. OH agreed, though we all thought the flavour was nice. The boys were quite happy to eat it though; they like carrots a lot!

Fusion Cooking at its most ‘fusion-y!’ Aubergine chilli Shepherds Pie!

Tags

aldi, budget, fusion cooking, kids, recipe, shopping, Whole food

Firstly, apologies for this not being an official ‘recipe’ post today.

I must confess, we got in late from spending a great afternoon with some friends, and I was just desperate to cook the food fast, before the boys actually went mental through hunger (not to mention tiredness!)

However, I did just want to share the recipe, as it was a total hodge-podge of ideas and flavours, but ended up working really nicely! My OH scoffed openly at the combination, but then woofed down the lot, so I presume along with all that food, he’s now also eaten his words. Mwah ha ha!

Aubergine Chilli Shepherds Pie

You will need:

1) 4 large potatoes, peeled and chopped into large segments.

2) 1 onion, peeled and chopped.

3) One small bag of quorn mince.

4) One tin of kidney beans, drained.

5) A tsp of mild chilli powder.

6) One aubergine, chopped into 1 inch cubes.

7) One green pepper, chopped into 1 inch cubes.

8) Milk for mashing the potatoes.

9) Cheese to top (I used cheddar and gruyere!)

How to make it:

1) Preheat the oven to 200. Place the aubergine and pepper in a roasting tray, drizzle over with olive oil, and roast for 20 minutes or so, tossing them halfway to ensure they don’t get burnt.

2) Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, place the potatoes, cover with water and cook until soft enough to mash.

3) Meanwhile meanwhile, fry the onion gently in a large frying pan, in some oil, until soft. Add the mince and cook until brown.

4) Add the kidney beans and chilli powder to the mince and fry gently for another five minutes or so.

5) Take off the heat. Remove the aubergines and peppers from the oven, add to the mince, and stir in. Place the mince mix into a deep oven proof dish.

6) When the potatoes are cooked, drain them well, add a splash of milk, and mash.

7) Evenly spread the mash on top of them mince mix, and then sprinkle your grated cheese on top. Pop in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the topping has gone golden.

8) Remove and serve!

Total Cost: This was basically me using up lots of leftover bits and bobs in my fridge, but roughly £3.75 I think! (The aubergine was part of a bargain 3 pack, hence I had one spare!)

The Verdict? I was pleasantly surprised by how this mad mish-mash turned out. Here’s a revalation, aubergine works really nicely in a chilli! He heh! The boys were a little non-plussed, DB2 put away a fair old bit, but DB1 was a bit freaked by the presence of the dreaded aubergine… OH gobbled all his down, so I presume he was fairly pleased with it, despite his dislike of aubergines too (seriously, what is wrong with these people?)

Oooh – I also did my first weekly shop at Aldi today! I’m still on a quest to get our weekly spend right down, and this was my latest plan of action. So, how did we fare?

Two words. Majorly impressed.

We didn’t really stint on much, the only thing Aldi didn’t have was halloumi, which I can live without, and it came to just over £40.00. I would estimate that the same shop, in Sainsburys, would have been closer to £60-£70. This weekly shop included two bottles of wine, four packs of quorn products, loads of fruit and veg and yoghurts etc, so lots of items that aren’t necessarily very cheap normally.

Will I be going back next week…yes, you bet! And business partner of mine, if you are reading this, stop being smug about knowing about Aldi for far longer than me! Naughty business partner should have let me into this secret a long time ago!!!

 

Gruyere and sausage risotto

Tags

healthy, kids, recipe, Whole food

If you read the earlier post, you may have some inkling of the fact that I’ve got some gruyere sitting in the fridge. So, I’m going to completely invent a recipe from scratch, based on a few that I’ve used in the past…and let’s see how it pans out!

Gruyere and Sausage Risotto

You will need:

1) 3-4tbsp olive oil.

2) 2 red onions, chopped.

3) 300g risotto rice.

4) Half a glass of white wine.

5) 6 veggie sausages.

6) 150g gruyere, grated.

7) 2 tbsp creme fraiche.

8) 850ml vegetable stock.

9) Parmesan to sprinkle on top.

10) Also, I’m rustling up some bacon on the side, as DB1 was really grumpy that I made bacon for lunch today and he was at pre-school and missed it. Bad mummy. Ahem.

How to make it:

1) Cook the sausages as per packet instructions. If you haven’t already, chop the onions and prepare the stock.

2) In your biggest saucepan, start heating the oil, and add the onions. Cook gently for five minutes, then add the rice, cook for a minute then add the wine.

3) Let the rice absorb the wine, then start adding the stock gradually. Whenever the rice starts to run out of fluid, add more stock, cooking until the risotto rice is cooked (nibble a bit to check!) Add extra water if it gets too dry.

4) In the meantime, grate the cheese. If you are also doing bacon (like sucker here) then also cook this, timing it so it doesn’t sit for ages and get cold. When the risotto is cooked, add the cheese and creme fraiche. Then slice the sausages and add them too!

5) Serve, with or without bacon, as appropriate!

Total Cost: £4.00 roughly. So a pound a head.

The Verdict Ticked all the boxes for three of us. DB1 retained his loathing of risotto though. Hmm. One day ill teach him to appreciate fine Italian style cuisine!

Clothes on a shoestring

Tags

bargain, budget, cheap, Clothes, homemade, present

Heheh. Finally found a top in the charity shop that is ripe for customisation!

This cost 99p, so not too pricey at all.

I’m going to let you in to a big secret now. EBay. And iron on transfer paper.

I managed to buy five sheets for £1.50. Simply select an image you want on your top, and print it out on your iron on paper. Like so!

Yes, I know, I’m childish. And ignore the red dots, our printer is dodgy. So for me, it’s, ahem, part of the effect.

Then, warm the iron so it’s nice and hot and don’t add water. This baby needs to be bone dry.

Trim your design and keep any surplus for further use. Make sure it’s clean and the top is clean.

Place the transfer paper design-down on your top, making sure it’s positioned correctly. Then get your iron and press firmly on it, moving around in slow circles and paying lots of attention to the edges.

Immediately peel off for a matt finish. If you want a shiny finish, leave for a minute or so.

And admire your own customised top!

Note that I forgot to trim it. Whoops. But it still looks cool. And at this price, I can make lots! It worked out as roughly £1.35 in total.

Just a bit of fun really, but it’s a great, fun way to spruce up the wardrobe without forking out a fortune! My two boys have been duly updated, with dinosaur tops galore!

Saucy bacon toast with caramelised onions

Tags

bacon, budget, kids, lunch, meat, recipe

Nobody can say I don’t spoil my boys. Meat twice in a week, eh! Luxurious living! My vegetarian sensibilities prickle at the mere thought, but I’ll overlook it, just this once. Especially as they’ll be back to Linda McCartney sausages tonight. He heh.

Saucy Bacon Toast with Caramelised Onions

You will need:

1) A few slices of bacon, depending on how many you are serving for and how meaty you want it. I recommend allowing one slice per two bits of bread.

2) 2 red onions, sliced thinly.

3) Half a tsp sugar.

4) 2 tbsp vegetable oil.

5) 2 eggs.

6) 3 tbsp single cream.

7) 4 slices of bread. White and homemade is best here.

8) 1 tbsp butter.

9) 30g grated gruyere.

How to make it:

1) Preheat the oven to 200c. Chop the onions, if you haven’t already, and gently cook the bacon until browned.

2) Whilst the bacon is cooking, in another pan, add the oil and then pour in the onions and sugar. Fry gently for ten minutes or so, to let them caramelise. Don’t do what I did and accidentally tip out the entire sugar bowl.

Whoops!

3) Make sure to remove the bacon from the heat when cooked and leave to one side. Then, in a bowl,mix the eggs with the cream, beating well.

4) Toast the bread lightly, butter very sparingly, then put in an ovenproof dish.

5) Mix the onions, bacon and egg mix together and pour over the bread. (Mine will be bacon free!) Grate the gruyere over the top and pop in the oven for fifteen minutes.

6) Serve with some rocket for a tasty lunch!

Total Cost? We only used two slices of bacon, and the bread was home-made, so in total, this was about £1.50. So, between three of us (DB1 is in pre-school today) it’s 50p a person. And plenty of gruyere left over for tonight’s tasty meal!

The Verdict? Myself and OH very much enjoyed it; it had a lovely rich flavour, but not too overpowering. DB2 however, dismissed it entirely. I put this down to him frantically teething at the moment…not much food is going in, full stop!

Traditional Chicken and Mushroom Pie!

Tags

chicken, kids, meat, pie, recipe, Whole food

Whenever I’m doing a fast day, I tend to feel a bit of a responsibility to dose my husband and offspring up on somemeat.

They are generally ever so good, and tend to go veggie most of the week, but as they aren’t actually vegetarian, I feel a bit unfair denying them of meat all the time!

So tonight’s meal, in accordance with the changing weather and season, is a nice hearty Chicken and Mushroom pie!

Chicken and Mushroom Pie

You will need:

1) 4 chicken breasts, or some mini fillets (doesn’t matter too much)

2) 350g puff pastry, preferably ready rolled.

3) 25g butter.

4) 200g button mushrooms, chopped in half.

5) 250g cream cheese or mascarpone (I’m using mascarpone)

6) 150ml milk.

7) 1/2 tsp mustard.

How to make it.

1) Begin by cooking the chicken. Gently cook in a little oil in a griddle or frying pan until cooked through. Whilst it is cooking, chop the mushrooms if you haven’t already.

2) Put the cooked chicken to one side and preheat the oven to 200c. In a large frying pan, melt the butter and cook the mushrooms over a gentle heat until soft.

3) In a large bowl, beat the cheese with a fork until soft. Add most of the milk (save a little for brushing the pastry with!) and the mustard, and mix into a thick sauce.

4) Chop the chicken into bite size amounts, and add to the cheese sauce, along with the mushrooms. Stir in, then pour into your pie dish. (Or casserole dish, if, like me, you don’t have a pie dish!)

5) Roll the pastry out (if not ready rolled) on a lightly floured surface, and then cut it so it fits on top of your pie, with enough for a rolled edge. If you have any excess, make some pretty leaves (or…er…animals. My kids requested a pig and an elephant. Ahem. Not going to happen guys.)

Feel free to snigger openly at my flower/ heap of rabbits droppings decoration.

6) Brush the remaining milk over the pastry, then pop in the oven for around 25 minutes.

and after 25 minutes

And…a bit of spillage!

7) Leave to cool, then serve, with gravy and mash, or on its own; however you like! I’m serving with a few peas for a bit of greenery.

Total Cost? About £7.00. A very pricey one this one! Mind you, without the meat, substituted for more mushrooms and Quorn pieces, it would have been £5.00. However, in fairness to the pie, there is plenty left over for tomorrow’s lunch as well.

The verdict? Very well received! DB1 polished off loads, DB2 was a bit slower off the mark but got there in the end, and OH declared that it was delicious. Hooray!

Getting the weekly spend down…Budgeting!

Tags

budget, budgeting, cheap, Christmas, food, money, wholesale

Ok, I’ll admit it…last week, our grocery bill was a bit huge.

I felt a bit ashamed of myself as I glumly surveyed the total, and vowed that I would work extra hard this week to make sure it wasn’t quite so whoppingly scarily mahoosive this time round. It’s strange, because normally I am the budget master extra-ordinaire, with highly refined nostrils specificially developed for whiskering out bargains.

I have thus made a solemn oath to head over to Aldi this afternoon with DB2 (oh, he’ll love that!) and realign my nose to the cosmic powers of cheap produce.

In the meantime; here are a few little things that I normally do to keep the budget from flying out the window…

1) Never under-estimate the power of Poundland.

We all know Poundland, the 99p store and all the rest of those places. I think most high streets have them these days (In Exeter, we have about 7 I think…we are officially the Poundland kings down here!).

Most people will nip in occasionally for the odd thing; but there are actually a huge amount of bargains to be had in there, if you take the time to properly mooch round.

E.G: Recent purchases by moi:

 – Argan oil (normally well over a fiver in Boots; this cheaper brand is just as good and costs a quid)

– Diet coke (3 for a pound, far cheaper than the super markets sell them)

– Robinsons Summer Fruits Squash (£1.00 per bottle, normally £1.60 in Sainsburys)

– Photo paper for printing photos.

– Weedkiller (normally around £3-£4 in other shops)

I could go on. There are often quite surprising things in stock and the shelves change regularly, so I would recommend doing a weekly pop-in before your supermarket shop, just in case!

2) Got a business, or know someone who has? Get a cash and carry/ wholesale card.

I have a Makro card for my business. We use Makro for a few bits and bobs for http://www.pipsgarden.co.uk, including mail bags, paper and stationery. But I also admit I use it for personal use too – a recent bargain was 64 toilet rolls for £9 (around £12 including VAT) – when even for a ‘Basics’ 4 pack in the supermarket, you’d normally pay £2. Ahem. You do the maths…

Other bargainous finds have been huge vats of dishwasher tablets for a fraction of the cost, enormous bottles of washing liquid, lots and lots of toilet duck; basically, if you can store it, it pays to buy in bulk from a wholesale supplier.

3) Check out Approved Food!

Now, I just want to emphasise here, I am not paid by Approved Food to promote them, ha ha! It is a genuine love of the company and what they do. Basically, they buy in bulk from suppliers who have lots of food going out of date, and they sell it on to us for dirt cheap.

If you are open minded and savvy enough to realise that ‘out of date’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘gone bad’, then check it out. Recent bargains we’ve enjoyed have been 3 kilos of white bread flour for £1.00 (normally around £4.50 in the shops), 10 packs of nan breads for £1.00 (normally about a pound each, so this was a great saving!), 10 packs of korma curry paste for a pound (normally a pound each…£9 saving…nice!) and 3 packs of pasta for £1, normally £1 each, so basically, buying three and getting two free.

Hunt in charity shops:

A bit of an obvious one; but it seriously can save a fortune. I recently found some lovely kids books in one, for 75p each; in fantastic condition; normally at least £6 each in the shops. I’m also a total bookworm, so charity shops are a godsend for me too; the rate I get through them. I’ve also found some great clothes from charity shops, including ironically, the wooly jumper and jeans (Topshop no less) that I am wearing today! Do they look ok? Yes! And more importantly, in total, they cost £6.00. A lot cheaper than the £50 they would have cost if I’d have purchased them new.

Birthdays and Christmas, do homemade!

Ok, I’ll admit, I did a home-made Christmas last year and it nearly killed me. It seriously took AGES. But I’d do it again. Allow me to explain…

Even though I sweated blood and tears over it all to produce suitably nice home gifts, it was so totally worth it, because people were really touched that I’d bothered. It meant way more, which made it way more meaningful for me too, rather than just heading to the shops and grabbing any old thing off the shelves. The below piccie isn’t great, but this is the sort of thing I was rustling up; customised tops for people; appliqued cushions (despite not being able to sew, won’t be doing that one again…) and massage oils, which are very easy to make!

Its quite fun budgeting really…who needs loads of money, eh?!

The world’s most divine (and simple) sandwich!

Tags

avocado, healthy, lunch, Peruvian, recipe, sandwich, Whole food

We owe this fabulous recipe to our good Peruvian friend, Sonja. She taught us it when we were visiting her in Chile (many years ago) and we’ve been merrily using it ever since!

Peruvian Avocado and Tomato Sandwich

You will need:

1) Two avocados.

2) Some cherry tomatoes.

3) Lime juice.

4) Salt.

5) Home-made bread.

How to make it:

1) Mash the avocado flesh on to the bread, and add sliced tomato. Squirt liberally with lime juice and sprinkle salt over the top. Done!

Yum yum!

Total Cost: The avocados were on offer, so this was a grand total of £2.00; 50p per person.

The Verdict? As per usual, OH and I wolfed it down in about three gulps. Yum! You can’t beat it! Best. Sandwich. Ever. Obviously,use less salt when preparing for kids, or better still, none at all.