Meal Planning Monday; 30th July 2012

Happy Monday everybody! How hot was it last week? Bubbah spent most of the week in vests or his nappy as anything else promoted extreme crying and fuss. As it was so hot last week most dinners were thrown out of the window and I ate jackets while OH had ratatouille/pasta bake or chilli sin carne from the freezer (hot weather makes me lazy)

However, I did make the chicken tikka masala; although I substituted the chicken with turkey as that was what we had in the freezer. It was absolutely lovely and is being added to our list of meals to be made again in the future.

Also we didn't have Wednesday dinners as OH visited his parents and I was at (drumroll please) Harry Potter Studio Tour, which was amazing. My mum brought me two gift tickets as a 21st birthday present and so off I went with a friend who I usually go to events with. I did have a lovely shredded pork and bbq sauce sub while I was there though...

This week I made the mistake of throwing away my meal plan list once I'd done the shopping (for shame!) so I'm doing this from memory...

OH

Ratatouille

Jackets

Quiche

Pigs in blankets

BIRTHDAY MEAL

Pesto pasta

Me

Minted lamb with pasta

Minted lamb with jacket

Quiche

Pigs in blankets

BIRTHDAY MEAL

Dinner at my dad's house

It's OH's birthday this Friday so we're doing something special for that (take away if we're feeling lazy or an actual date [we haven't been on one for a while] as my mum offered to babysit for a few hours) and I'm making a picnic complete with cake for Saturday lunchtime, hopefully I'll have time to bake the flapjack and cheese straws I'd planned on.

Bubbah is currently enjoying the fruits of my labour of love, food wise. He'll be having a variety of the following;

• Broccoli and cauliflower
• Sweet potato
• Apple and pear
• Apple and blackberry
• Toast strips (first try)
• Dairylea triangles (first try)
• Rusks
• Baby cereal
• Yoghurts

As you can see I've been busy with my blender! Below is the original tasting of broccoli and cauliflower (to which I added gravy) which went down very well. Bubbah has also developed a new habit of grabbing the bowl and moving it around while I'm trying to feed him...

He has, however, also developed a habit of stealing the baby wipe from when I'm trying to tidy up post-food and copy me, which I don't object to quite so much!

As always At Home With Mrs M! will have every one else's meal plans so feel free to go and have a look!

How to keep a baby amused in their high chair...

...buy a stick on high chair toy of course!

These little genius toys have a suction cup that sticks to most surfaces meaning you can whip together a culinary delight (aka food) for your baby while they play.


Just be warned, they may be a bit alarmed by the new toy's presence at first...

But they soon get used to it...

Recipe binder: lazy pasta

For the last few weeks now on my meal planning posts, I've mentioned what I've dubbed "lazy pasta" without actually expanding of what exactly it is. So here goes, possibly my quickest and laziest meal (hence the name) that I'm a little bit obsessed with...

What you need;

• Pasta of your choice 
• Philadelphia/cream cheese
• Tomato ketchup

How you make it;

• Cook pasta according to instructions
• Add about three/four tablespoons of cream cheese
• Add a good dollop of tomato ketchup
• Mix

And dig in! To get an idea of how it tastes, think creamy carbonara. There are no exact measurements as I play around with how much I use depending on my mood. You can add extras as you wish, I've added bacon and mushrooms before but obviously that takes a bit more effort!

Meal Planning Monday; 23 July 2012

Good morning everyone! Last week's plan went pretty well, although we replaced the rice dishes with lazy pasta (which I will get round to posting soon, I promise) and I had pigs in blankets rather than fajitas due to bubba's bed time routine taking over dinner time.

Speaking of bubba, I made apple and blueberry puree and it's definitely popular with him! We also sampled some baby yoghurts I spotted on offer during the weekly shop which went down a treat, as the below photo demonstrates...

I promise some went in his mouth!

This week I'm testing out a recipe I found online (which I shall be tweaking a little bit to our tastes) as well as some old favourites and one I haven't done for ages!

• While I stretch out some lamb mince across two nights, OH is having ratatouille and chilli sin carne from the freezer
• Veggie crumble for OH while I have fish fingers
• Jacket potatoes with spaghetti hoops
• Toad in the hole
• Chicken tikka masala; I love this dish and have been determined to make it myself. Now bubba is weaning I can have things that I couldn't before (he couldn't tolerate this so when I fed him after eating it, let's just say it was unpleasant!)

Bubba will be having the usual purees, porridge, cereal and such forth. Hoping to make some sweet potato puree this week and a strawberry one.

I'll be lunching on lazy pasta and crumpets again this week. OH will have a rotation of cheese & pickle rolls, quiche and pizza pittas with various fruit.

As always, I'll be linked up to At Home With Mrs M! so feel free to go and have a nose at what everyone else is doing this week.

Meal Planning Monday; 16 July 2012

Happy Monday every one! Weaning, week two has been a success, although bubba has taken to leaning to one side in his high chair...something that will hopefully be rectified as he gets bigger. Last week's meal plan went pretty well. I couldn't be bothered to make fish pie and had minted lamb instead of burgers/meatballs on spaghetti two nights in a row instead (so worth it though; minted lamb is the best). OH didn't have lasagne  and I didn't have a jacket either as we had pasta with pesto instead for a quick and lazy dinner.

This week incorporates a bit of last week's leftover meal plans, some old favourites and my personal new favourite henceforth known as lazy pasta...

Before we kick off with the plan though, here is a certain someone enjoying their food;

Messy but happy!

Alright, on with the plan:

OH;
Pasta with pesto (left over pesto from the other day)
PKU Lasagna
Quiche
Fajitas
Rice with bbq sausages
Home made pizza

Myself;
Lazy pasta
Either lasagne (if I can be bothered to make one) or simply minted lamb with rice/pasta/jacket
Quiche
Fajitas (I'll be using some turkey fillets with mine as opposed to OH's veggie ones)
Rice with lamb koftas
Home made pizza


I'll also be scoffing crumpets/bagels/mac 'n' cheese for lunches while OH has salad, yoghurt and various fruit.

For those interested, as I received quite a few comments about him last week, I've decided to include bubba's meal plan as well;

Baby rice
Baby first yoghurt
Baby cereal
Baby porridge

I've got several fruit pots now so he usually has one of those after one of the above. I've also made the following purées myself so will be using some of them;

Pear
Carrot
Sweet potato
Parsnip

I'm also hoping to make apple, apple and blueberry, pea and peach at some point in the week.

If I pop out we've got a chicken casserole purée pot and a chocolate and banana dessert which will be easier to have if I'm not home in time for lunch/tea. He's on three meals a day as of this week so it's going to be quite hectic making sure we have enough of everything prepared!


As usual, this will be linked to At Home With Mrs M so have a nose at what everyone else is cooking up.

Meal Planning Monday; 9 July 2012

I'm back! OH had last week off so I was barely online as we had a lovely family week which also included the beginning of weaning (!) for our lovely bubba. Apparently he wants to skip the puréed stage and go straight to our food as he nearly dived onto my spaghetti on toast at lunchtime!

As such, meal planning was a bit less rigid. I had a basic idea of what we were having but OH had two days in London for PKU appointments so dinners were a bit more go with the flow than usual.

This week though, I'm back with a vengeance. Even bubba has a meal plan of sorts thanks to the numerous vouchers you get sent around the weaning stage. He's got cereal, porridge, Sunday lunch, cottage pie, rice and fruit pots all stacked up and waiting to be smushed all over his face and high chair...

Adorable, if somewhat sticky!

This week, we have lined up (for us, I'm still working up to making my own purée foods for Mr Messy)

OH;

• Chilli sin carne
• Ratatouille
• Veggie crumble
• PKU lasagne
• Tomato, mushroom and sweetcorn pasta bake
• Home made pizza with chips

Me;

• Fish pie
• Sausages, home made chips and spaghetti
• Lamb burgers/meatballs with home made chips and spaghetti
• Cheesy pasta and bacon with mushrooms
• Home made pizza with chips
• Jacket potato with Philadelphia and spaghetti

OH's lunches will be salad with a honey and mustard dressing. Mine will be some variation of bread muffins/bagels/jacket potato/extra fish pie/ extra cheesy pasta.

I've also squeezed in some baking and made some gingerbread (yummy!) and I'm hoping to make a cake later in the week as I appear to have bought too many eggs this week, whoops!

As usual, this will be linked up to At Home With Mrs M! and her meal planning Monday post so have a pop over there and see what everyone else is cooking up.

Recipe binder: gingerbread

Today in a mass kitchen session I decided to finally try out the gingerbread recipe I've had lurking in my recipe binder for ages. I've always liked gingerbread as a quick sweet fix and I like having something in the house to nibble on during the week when I want something yummy.

What you need:

• 250g self raising flour
• 1 egg
• 90g butter
• 2tbsp hot water
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 150g golden syrup

How you make it:

• Melt butter and syrup together
• Sift flour, ginger and cinnamon together into a bowl
• Hollow the centre
• Pour syrup mixture into the hollow, stirring in the flour from the sides
• Add the egg and water
• Mix, adding more water if needed
• Pour into a lined cake tin
• Bake in the centre of the oven, gas mark 3/170 degrees Celsius, for one hour
• Cool for 15 minutes
• Turn onto cooling rack
• Cut into chunks and store

Recipe binder: Ratatouille

No, I don't mean the little rat from the Disney film! This is another PKU meal I make for the OH that is also great for batch cooking and freezing. It's also quite simple to make, if you don't mind doing it in stages.

Serves 3


What you need:

• 1 aubergine
• 1 courgette
• 1 pepper
• 4 tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 1 red onion
• Basil

How to make it:

• Chunk aubergine and courgette
• Quarter tomatoes and scoop out seeds (using a spoon makes this easy)
• Brown aubergine until soft
• Remove from pan and fry courgette until golden
• Repeat with peppers
• Cook onion for five minutes/until soft
• Add the tomatoes and rest of the veg back in
• Season with basil
• Cook until done

Sometimes, if I'm feeling lazy with the stages I just whack everything in together and season it towards the end. Also, don't be afraid to experiment with seasoning; I added thyme with the basil as well today because it said it was good with roasted veg. If you want to bulk this out you can serve it with warm bread but it works just as well on its own.

Recipe binder: Chilli sin Carne

For those of you who quite often read my meal plans, you may have noticed me mention OH having something called PKU (google it, it's much easier to read than explain). Basically, it means he has to have less protein in his diet as he doesn't digest it properly, so I often make him different meals to mine (I like meat too much to give it up) which are mostly veg. This is a PKU recipe that I garnered from the mother in law, but we're purchasing a PKU recipe book soon so I can have a play around with the food myself - hurrah!

I love how simple this recipe is and how little mess it makes (because hand washing a million different things gets tiring) however it does take a while to cook - between 20 to 40 minutes depending on your oven strength - so be prepared to be chained to the oven top!

Serves 2


You will need:

• 1 onion
• 1 red onion
• 150g carrots
• 150g mushrooms
• 1 large pepper/2 small peppers
• 400ml tomato passata
• 100ml water
• 4 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 3 tsp ground cumin
• 2 bay leaves

How to make it:

• Cut up all the veg
• Cook in a big pan/wok (you will need a lid for it) until the veg begins to soften
• Add spices and bay leaves, stir in and cover for a few minutes
• Add passata and water, add pepper now if you wish
• Stir well and bring to boil
• Cover and leave to cook on a low heat until the veg is tender

See, how simple is that?! Once cooked you can serve it up for dinner but it freezes well too so I usually batch cook it and store some in the freezer for a lazy/panicked meal plan week.