Unexpected hiatus; my return

Oops, naughty me for disappearing for so long! I can honestly say there's no reason other than being busy with life/summer! Bubbah and I have been taking great advantage of the gorgeous weather and spending as much time as possible out and about.

 Things have been a bit more difficult recently so we've had to do some belt tightening. Thankfully our children's centre has had a lovely summer programme of free play sessions which Bubbah has loved as it meant he's been able to squidge his hands in paint and smear it all over the paper, which was a new experience for him!

 Belt tightening has meant I've made a few new found friends in charity shops and bargain shops (think home bargains, b&m bargains etc) resulting in me being super organised and having all of Bubbah's Christmas and birthday presents, as well as all of my nieces and nephew's Christmas presents, my nephew's birthday present and numerous friend/family Christmas presents sorted. My little present stash area is overflowing but I feel a lot less stressed knowing most of it is sorted.

 It's been lovely thinking back to last summer and just how much Bubbah has changed. He's now walking, talking (loads) and making animal noises to his hearts content. He's also developed a kissy face which looks like he's sucking a lemon and that is what I'm greeted with every morning when he wakes up - any time from half 5 to half 7 - and I go in to his bedroom.

I've got myself more organised (for once) so I should be on here more often and plan to be joining in with Mrs M's meal planning Monday's once more. I've also got a few new recipes up my sleeve so keep your eyes peeled!

Meal Planning Monday; 27th May 2013

Happy bank holiday! I have loved the day or so of sun we've had this weekend. It's been so nice after a week of rain to actually be able to get out of the house, even if it's just into the back garden. I'm generally walking around in a bit of a half asleep daze at the moment as Bubbah is teething awfully and waking up anywhere between half 5 and 6am and being crabby the majority of the day. However I did come across an old picture from the start of the year which was a lovely one of us which cheered me up a bit...

My make up course has finished now and I used my new found skills on a date night to see the Great Gatsby with hubby on Saturday night. Thoroughly enjoyed it. As expected, Baz Luhrmann's version is visually amazing and, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio was wonderful in it.

But enough of that! I've been absent meal planning wise due to teething issues as previously mentioned and because our meal plans have been a bit boring/spontaneous. However I've got back into the swing of things and we have a nice, if somewhat split, meal plan for this week.

• Pie (steak and kidney for me, chicken and mushroom for hubby), potato croquettes, stuffing, yorkshire puddings and veg
• fish pie for me and bubbah
• cheesy meat pasta bake (bacon and sausages)
• jerk chicken
• chicken tikka masala/veg masala for hubby
• veg pasta bake for hubby
• stuffed peppers for hubby and bolognaise bake for me
• soup for hubby and leftover fish pie/pasta bake for me

I told you things were a bit split! As it's half term this week and not much is planned beyond returning Bubbah's library books and visiting my mum I'll quite possibly do some baking. Probably cake knowing me!

As usual I've linked up to Mrs M so mosey on over there to see what everyone else is cooking this week. Hope everyone has a lovely week!

Jerk chicken with rice and peas

This dish was the last week of my Cooking Around the World course. I've always loved Caribbean food's smell (I used to babysit for a family whose dad would cook said food before going to work for the kids' tea, just walking into the house made me hungry!) but have never known/been brave enough to try it. I thought it would be really hard. This dish is simple enough to brave a new meal but complex enough (courtesy of the jerk marinade) to amaze people. This was requested numerous times in the weeks after I brought it home and will probably make its way onto a meal plan in the near future.

·         1 chicken thigh (although other pieces of chicken such as breast can be used)

Jerk marinade;

·         Small amount of spring onions, roughly chopped

·         Small, finger sized piece of ginger, roughly chopped

·         1 garlic clove

·         ¼ small onion

·         ½ chilli (deseeded if you want less heat)

·         ¼ teaspoon dried thyme

·         Juice ¼ lime

·         2 tbsp soy sauce

·         ½ tablespoon vegetable oil

·         1tbsp brown sugar

·         ¼ tbsp ground allspice

Rice and peas

·         50g basmati rice

·         100g can coconut milk

·         Small bunch of spring onions, slices

·         ½ tspn dried thyme

·         1 garlic glove finely chopped

·         ¼ tsp ground allspice

·         ¼ can kidney beans, drained.

To make the jerk marinade, blend or dice all ingredients very finely and mix together. Taste the mixture – it should taste pretty salty but not unpleasantly so. To make it spicier add more chillies, the make it less salty and sour add more brown sugar. Make a few slashes in the chicken and pour the marinade over the meat, rubbing it into all the crevices. Cover and marinate overnight.

To cook, heat the oven to 180c/160c fan/gas mark 4. Put in a roasting tin with lime halves and cook for 45 minutes until tender and cooked through.

Prepare the rice and peas while the chicken is cooking. Rinse the rice in plenty of cold water, then tip into a large saucepan with the remaining ingredients except the kidney beans. Season as required, add 75ml cold water and set over a high heat. Once the rice begins to boil, turn it down to a medium heat, cover and cook for a further 10 minutes. Add the beans to the rice then cover with a lid. Leave off the heat for 5 minutes until all the liquid is absorbed.

Thai prawn curry with fragrant rice, cucumber salad and peachy dessert

As promised quite a while ago now, here is one of the recipes from my Cooking Around the World course. This was, obviously, Thai week and went down well, even with my fish hating hubby! There's a lot of ingredients but don't let that put you off by any means as it's actually fairly simple, just a tiny bit time consuming with all the chopping (any helpers you can draft in for prep will only be to your benefit) but it's definitely worth it!

Curry

·         1 stalk of lemongrass

·         ½ fresh red chilli

·         1 clove of garlic

·         A bunch of fresh coriander

·         1 jarred red pepper in oil

·         ½ heaped teaspoon tomato puree

·         ½ tablespoon fish sauce

·         1 tablespoon soy sauce

·         ½ teaspoon sesame oil

·         1cm piece of fresh ginger

·         Handful of sugar snap peas

·         3-4 oz small cooked prawns

·         1.3 400g tin of coconut milk

Rice

·         ½ mug of basmati rice

·         Olive oil

·         1 mug boiling water

Cucumber salad

·         1cm fresh ginger

·         ½ tablespoon soy sauce

·         ½ tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

·         1 teaspoon sesame oil

·         Juice of ½ lime

·         Cucumber

·         Coriander

·         1/3 a chilli

Peachy dessert

·         Peaches

·         Greek yoghurt

·         Lime zest mint leaves

·         Macaroons

Cucumber salad:

Peel and grate the ginger on a serving platter and add soy sauce, olive oil and sesame oil. Squeeze in the lime juice. Peel the cucumber in long ribbons and discard the watery core. Take a small handful of coriander and finely chop the stalks. Sprinkle the stalks over the cucumber. Chop the chilli and sprinkle over. Put to one side (toss and dress when ready to eat)

Jasmine rice

Put a medium saucepan on medium heat. Add the rice, salt, a splash of olive oil and the boiling water. Cover and cook for 7 minutes, then take off the heat and leave to steam with the lid on for 7 minutes. Fluff up the rice with a fork when cooked and serve with the prawns.

Red curry

Put a frying pan on medium heat. Trim the ends and tough outer leaves on the lemongrass stalks, cut into chunks then put into a food processor with the red chilli, garlic, coriander, red peppers, tomato puree, fish sauce, soy sauce and sesame oil. (To blend better, add some of the coconut milk – approximately 3 tablespoons) Peel and add the ginger. Blitz to a paste. Drizzle some olive oil into the hot frying pan and then the curry pasta and fry for 1-2 minutes. Then add in the coconut milk and gently simmer (if not included it in the blending process). Gently simmer and add seasoning if required. Add sugar snap peas and prawns. Cook for a couple of minutes. To serve, scatter with coriander leaves.

Peachy dessert

Add some peach slices to a bowl. Add Greek yoghurt and grate over some lime zest. Tear a few mint leaves and serve with almond macaroons.

Meal Planning Monday; 13th May 2013

Happy meal planning Monday everyone! I was absent last week partially due to the bank holiday but also because the entire household got struck down with one of those vile 24 hour bugs, starting with Bubbah and ending with the in-laws. Safe to say, logging onto a laptop and thinking, let alone typing, was the last thing I felt like!

We managed to enjoy a nice weekend where nobody was ill. I took Bubbah to visit my mum as my brother was over with his family. We took advantage of the sun and spent some time in the garden where the sand pit and water table were thoroughly enjoyed by Bubbah, my niece and my nephew.

It was also an early celebration of my niece's birthday (next weekend) as we won't be seeing her until a good two/three weeks after her actual birthday. She picked a cake and opened presents from us all including good ol' Elefun!

This week we've got some pretty basic meals as I'm fairly busy this week with my make up course on Thursday and my mum's birthday on Wednesday. My plan seems to have predicted the weather as most of my food is not that summery...

• bolognaise bake (recipe to be blogged later)
• sausage casserole/pasta bake
• nandos or bbq chicken with home made potato slices
• mac n cheese
• cottage pie
• possibly dinner at my dad's

And that's the meal plan. Simple as possible. I'm linked up to Mrs M's meal plan linky so have a nosey over there for further inspiration.

Meal Planning Monday; 29th April 2013

Happy Monday everyone! I've been enjoying a very social week with two courses (with Bubbah in crèche  albiet somewhat reluctantly on his part thanks to a spout of separation anxiety) at the local children's centre, a gorgeous sunny afternoon in the park (which resulted in me having sunburn on my back, ouch!) and a visit to a stay and play group where Bubbah walked up to a little girl his age and kissed her on the cheek! As such I've been so busy that not many pictures have been taken so apologies for the text heavy post!

Last week went pretty well although the next two weeks of meal planning will be pretty simple as we're on a strict budget courtesy of hubby switching from agency worker to proper employee, meaning we're on a monthly pay rather than a weekly one. Thankfully we have a lot of stock cupboard supplies including lots of rice, pasta and lasagne sheets.

We've also had our sideboard delivered and put together (the joys of flat pack) and Bubbah is thoroughly enjoying going through the cupboards and drawers on it as well as trying to colour in anything possible with the crayons he's finally taken an interest in.

Last week's cooking lesson was cod in white wine with linguine and fresh basil. I've also started a skincare and make up course (how amazing are children centres!) where I learnt that...I knew nothing! I invested in some new skincare and make up stuff from Benefit and have managed to stick to it for...oh two days now! I'll let you know how good I am in keeping it up as the course is on for a few more weeks.


Anyway, all that aside, let's get on with this week's meal plan...

• lasagne
• toad in the hole (probably mini ones rather than a big one)
• vegetable soup, or throw in some sausages and turn it into casserole
• fish pie
• macaroni cheese with bacon and three veg
• risotto
• Nando's lemon and herb chicken (they've released a seasoning kit to do your own and I had to try it)

I just hope there's room in the freezer as most of these get batch cooked! That or I'll have some hearty leftover lunches in the week!

The lovely Mrs M is hosting the meal planning week as usual this week so check it out for more ideas.

Meal Planning Monday: 22nd April 2013

And it's another week, another meal plan! I'm absolutely loving being back on my cooking around the world course. We ended up doing Greek and made moussaka with spinach and feta cheese filo parcels. Hubby was the tester (as I'm not keen on either dish) and declared it "too Greek" for him due to the amount of cinnamon they use!

This week's lesson is Italian, although the dish is to be revealed as the teacher recognised me and vowed to change the meal from last time to keep it interesting for me (which was a shame as I loved the salmon linguine we did previously) so that shall be interesting. Hopefully I'll be able to get online this week and post both the Greek and Italian recipes for anyone who wants them.

We had a lovely weekend and took full advantage of the sunshine with the local farmer's market (fresh bread and free samples of various sausages including Moroccan lamb!)  and saved about £15 on our normal supermarket shop as a result. I snapped up some scrummy looking cupcakes and took them with us when we went to my dad's where my brother and his brood were also visiting. We took Bubbah to the park where aside from one minor incident with a too big for his boots 12 year old who said the wrong thing in ear shot of me (Twitter for those who want to know in detail) we all had a lovely time and the kids promptly tired themselves out!

Bubbah and my niece

Bubbah has entered a new stage I've dubbed "the destruction phase" It pretty much goes something like this: Bubbah enters room, sees toys/books/clothes cupboard all nice and tidy and pulls it all apart, throwing it around him until within the space of literally a few minutes you end up with this:

Lovely!


Anyway, this week's meal plan is a bit up in the air as I've been feeling somewhat uninspired. I hope to bake some biscuits and a batch of chocolate fudge honeycomb cupcakes (which are as amazing as they sound and not sickly at all) but meal wise I know the following for definite...

• spaghetti carbonara using up leftover sauce from Sunday night's where I made too much sauce when we had a friend over for dinner
• something with sausages in, possibly toad in the hole as I didn't make it last week
• gammon (from the market) and home made chips
• my mystery Italian dish from cooking class
• Pizza with home made chips
• Risotto or a pasta bake depending on how lazy I feel come Saturday!

And that's my rough, quickly put together meal plan! For some more organised meal plans, pop on over to Mrs M to see what everyone else has planned this week. Have a good week!