Simple veggie rice for toddlers (and adults too)

This one is so so simple I'm not sure it counts as a recipe. This is a huge hit with my eldest who loves rice and it's an easy way to get a balanced meal into him. These quantities serve 2 toddlers but it's easy to make this for more or for adults (my husband likes this one for his work lunchbox and I frequently ate it as a poor student!).

In a saucepan of boiling water add a small handful of basmati or brown rice, and the same of red lentils. Add 1 carrot, sliced and 1/3 cup of broccoli florets (cauliflower is a nice change or any other veggies that you have in the fridge). Stir in 1/2 low sodium stock cube (chicken or veggie) and simmer until the rice is soft and the lentils and veg are cooked.

Nice on its own or with scrambled egg mixed through! 

Quick and easy soup

I've been in Devon visiting family which has meant lots of eating out followed by a long car journey home where we stuffed our faces with snacks to keep us going. This has left me craving vegetables! So I've whipped up a quick healthy soup to have for lunch. This recipe works really well with whatever veg is on offer or you might have lying about in your fridge. Just adjust the seasonings to suit the veggies. I went for a simple carrot and coriander this time.

Sauté 1 medium chopped red onion with 4-5 large carrots, roughly chopped until the onion is soft.
Add 1.5 pints of stock (veg or chicken) and bring to the boil.
This is where you add your herbs, swap these if you've used different vegetables to suit your flavours. I've used a handful of chopped fresh coriander but a teaspoon of dried works too.
Sinmer for 10 mins or until veg is soft and then purée and season to taste.
Easy. Healthy. Yummy!

Chicken and potato bake

Tonight's dinner was inspired by my love of Mediterranean style cooking and my desperate need for carbs after spending all night and day breastfeeding a very hungry baby. This little one is a big feeder who is piling on the weight (a whole lb in 5 days!) and as a result I find myself constantly hungry and thirsty. Lots of water being guzzled here as well as making sure I keep up my iron and energy levels with lots of fruit and veg and delicious filling meals.

This chicken and potato bake is easy to do even with two small bubas crying for your attention. Serves 4 with a side of spinach or salad.
Peel and chop potatoes into smallish chunks and boil in a pint of stock (veg or chicken).
Meanwhile grill or oven bake 2 chicken breasts.
In a frying pan soften 1 clove of garlic and 1 red onion in a little oil. Add a teaspoon of tomato purée, a generous squeeze of lemon juice. 2 tbs of white wine vinegar and some ground ginger. Stir until well combined and put all in an oven proof dish. Pour over a can of chopped tomatoes and stir through a teaspoon of paprika and a teaspoon of cumin (alternatively add cumin seeds to the frying pan with the onion).

Once the potatoes are soft and the chicken is cooked dice these and add to the oven dish with a few tablespoons of the veg stock leftover from the potato pan, season to taste and place in a preheated oven at 220 degrees for 15 minutes or until piping hot. Serve with a side salad or some spinach leaves.  Delicious.

Optional add in include any veg you have that needs using up. This time I added carrots and leftover butternut squash from yesterday's risotto and a green pepper that needed to be used. This meal works equally well and can be made less carb heavy by substituting sweet potatoes. Chicken can also be swapped for a white fish such as cod or sea bass for a tasty alternative.

Pasta sauce from scratch

I love pasta. It got my through my skint student days when the budget was tight and the food had to be quick, cheap and satisfying. But white pasta and sauce from a jar is not the healthiest meal. I switched to wholemeal pasta about 8 years ago and now I don't like white pasta and the bloated feeling it gives me after, and I've swapped jars of sauce for homemade. Much less sugar, much more veg! Here are my favourite 'red' sauces;

My go to;

Mince 2 cloves of garlic, 1 large onion, 3 carrots and 3 sticks of celery (I usually chuck it all in the food processor!). Soften the garlic and onion in a little oil (coconut is great, olive is good) and then add in the other veg. When it's all softened up add in some tomatoes- you can either blend up dine fresh ones or add in some passata. Simmer and season to taste.

And the one I made today;

Blanch and peel approx 1kg of tomatoes and then blend or mash to a pulp. Mince 2
cloves of garlic and 1 small onion and soften in a little oil. Add in your tomatoes and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and add 1 teaspoon of brown sugar, salt and pepper to taste,
A teaspoon of paprika, a generous amount of fresh or dried basil and the same of oregano. Turn the heat right down and stir frequently until the sauce has thickened. Depending on the time of year, if your tomatoes aren't very rich in flavour you add an optional blob of tomato purée.

Both sauces keep in the fridge for up to 3 days in a sealed container and freeze really well.

New addition! 😊

Well I've been on a 2 week cooking strike as I just had a baby boy, Jonathan! I was so glad that I stocked our freezer with delicious meals before I went into labour as its meant life with a newborn isn't quite as stressful as it could be! Although we have also had quite a few bbqs since the weather has been so warm. I ended my cooking strike yesterday with a healthier take on cauliflower cheese that I served up with a babyleaf salad and some French bread.

For this simple delicious meal chop cauliflower and broccoli into florets and boil or steam until tender. Meanwhile cook some red lentils and in a separate bowl combine 2 good sized eggs with 200ml of milk and season to taste. Add a little water from your pan of veg (1-2 tbs) to stop the egg from scrambling. Drain the veg and put it in an oven proof dish, pour oven your egg mixture and stir through the lentils. Top with your favourite cheese (grated) and bake in the oven for 15mins at 200 degrees or until the cheese is nicely browned. Great as a main with a salad or a healthy side with some fish or other grilled meat.

Portuguese inspired chicken tray bake!

I cannot resist a bargain, and walking through the market yesterday they had whole crates of peppers and tomatoes that were so cheap they were practically giving them away! I couldn't just leave them there for such a good price so I loaded up my buggy with bags of delicious produce and now I need to find lots of ways to use them up (and my freezer is already so full I can barely shut the door!).
Tonight's chicken tray bake was inspired by food I ate in Portugal last year and my need to use up some peppers! I used orange and yellow peppers as that's what I had the most of but red peppers would be equally delicious in this recipe.
It's a really simple one that's perfect for a weeknight as you can just throw everything in, set the timer and get on with something else (in my case it was bathing little man and getting him in bed!) knowing a delicious dinner awaits.
So here are the oh so simple instructions....

Chop peppers of your preference into chunky strips and place in the bottom of the tray or dish you are using (about 1 pepper per person is the right portion size), next peel and chop sweet potatoes into coins and add to the tray. Again, 1 per person should be enough depending on the size of your spuds. You will need about half a chorizo sausage for 2
People, chop this and add to the tray. Place chicken thighs on top of your veg and drizzle with a little olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and some oregano. Put it straight in the oven for an hour and do your thing- if I wasn't pregnant I would definitely be pouring a nice glass of red to go with this. Give it a shake half way through cooking and devour! :)

Sweet potato chorizo hash

This is yum in a bowl and takes minutes to prepare! I really don't know why we don't have it more often! Peel and chop 2 cups of sweet potato (this is about 3 good sized whole potatoes) and par boil them to soften. Meanwhile dice 1 smallish red onion, 1 glove of garlic and about half a medium chorizo sausage (1 cup diced) and 3 medium sized tomatoes.
Add the chorizo to a hot pan and heat until the oil comes out. Remove chorizo from the pan and out aside, using the oil to gently fry your onion and garlic. Add a pinch of cumin (and optional chilli flakes or some extra paprika to your taste) and add the sweet potato stirring until browned and softened. Add the tomatoes and 3 good handfuls of kale. Re add the chorizo and stir well until tomatoes are cooked and the kale is wilted.
Spoon in to bowls and eat as it is or topped with cheese.
I made double of this and put some in the freezer for when baby 2.0 makes an appearance so I'll let you know how well this one freezes!

Roast dinner pasties

These yummy pasties were made with the leftovers from our Sunday roast. 

First make your pastry. The usual rule is half fat to flour when making shortcrust. For these 4 large pasties I used 4oz butter (cold) and 8oz plain flour. Rub with fingertips to make bread crumbs, add a splash of cold water and combine to make a dough. Wrap your dough in cling film and pop in the fridge while you make the filling. 

For the filling simply get the leftovers from your roast(meat, potatoes, any veg and gravy). Pop everything except the potatoes in a food processor and combine. Dice the leftover potatoes and add to the mix. (Make a little extra gravy up if it looks too dry, I had to mix a quick half a jug up from granules to add to mine). Remove your dough from the and roll out on a floured surface. Cut out circle shapes, the larger the circle the larger your pasties will be. I used a soup bowl to cut around to make my circles big and neat. Spoon filling into the centre of each circle and fold over. Pinch together to make crimped edges and brush with egg or milk to help them brown. Pop in the oven at 200 degrees for 20mins and you're done! 

These freeze really well too. 

Rocky road is awesome

I mentioned in my previous post that Joseph and I had made rocky road fridge cake. Well it tasted just so good that we've eaten it all already and we are going to have to make some more. So here's how we did it:

Large handful of mixed nuts

Large handful of raisins/sultanas/dried fruit of your choice

3 rich tea or digestive biscuits 

Small handful marshmallows

Put all of the above ingredients in a food processor, meanwhile melt 2 bars of dark chocolate (the really cheap supermarket brand stuff is fine!) in a glass bowl over a pan of water (or in the microwave!) with a knob of butter. When the chocolate and butter are melted stir in the dry ingredients and mix well. Pour into a greased tin lined with baking paper and put in the fridge for several hours until set. Remove from the tin, chop into slices and devour greedily! 

One roast, lots of meals!

Saturday I felt awful so spent much of the day lying on the sofa feeling sorry for myself. As such no cooking happened! I decided to make up for that yesterday with a mammoth cooking session to prepare me for the week. I thought it best to make the most of having a little bit of energy so that if this week I don't feel like cooking, I know that we will be well fed anyway. After an indulgent breakfast of bacon and eggs (it's the weekend, why not!) I got started on the lunch time roast, peeling and chopping twice as much veg and potatoes as I needed and put a whole chicken in to roast.
I then chopped some sweet red peppers and put them in the bottom of the oven to roast away too. I had loads of broccoli and so used the trimmings (stalks and all) with a slightly sorry looking leftover courgette I found in the fridge to whip up some homemade pesto in the blender whilst steaming some green beans to go in a salad with the spare potatoes and the roasted peppers . I also got out some stock and threw some veg in to make a soup.
After our roast was eaten I stripped and portioned out the rest of the chicken and any veg/spuds that didn't get eaten and set them aside to make a pie and a curry with (I'll add some tinned peaches and chickpeas with some curry powder to make tonight's dinner, and I whipped up a quick sauce and some pastry for my pie). The very last bits of leftovers have all gone in the food processor to make pasties which I will freeze for packed lunches.
So out of the ingredients I bought for my roast and some things I found lurking in the fridge I managed to get:

A roast for 3 with leftovers for the little one for later
A soup for our lunches today
Curry for tonight
Pasties for later in the week
A pie for Tuesday night
Potato salad for Wednesday lunch
Pesto to have with pasta one night this week

Not a bad haul.

I then grabbed bubs for a 'toddler baking' session and we whipped up some rocky road for dessert. Successful day in the kitchen! :)

Cajun prawn wraps

After another long day out we needed yet another quick and simple lunch. So these speedy wraps were ideal. I had defrosted some prawns in advance planning to make a curry or something but on finding that it would be just me and Joseph for dinner I scrapped that plan, picked up a packet of tortilla wraps and used up some leftovers from my fridge. Quite simply this is prawns, crumbled feta, some tinned beans cooked to packet instructions (I used pinto as they were leftover from another dinner but any beans would work here), diced cucumber and some Cajun marinade.
Chuck the marinade over the prawns while you get everything else ready, warm your wraps, chuck everything in, roll up and serve with a tasty salad. Hey presto, dinner in seconds. You're welcome.

Quick veggie curry

My maternity leave has started! Hurrah!! And in true me style instead of resting like I had planned I've been out on day trips with Jojo, trying to maximise the last weeks of 'jojo and mummy' time before the new baby comes along.
Today was a lovely but very tiring day trip to Hampton court on the boat from
Kingston with a tasty picnic in the gardens (humous, crudités, cheese sandwiches and fruit! Yum!) as a result dinner needed to be quick and easy. I also haven't been shopping this week (too lazy!) so it was a bit of an 'if it's night'. This quick, cheap veggie curry served with brown rice ticked all the boxes....

Boil the kettle and put on some rice.
Fry and onion and some garlic in a little oil. Add a couple spoons of curry paste of your choice (or curry powder works just as well), throw in a tin of chickpeas (drained), a tin of chopped tomatoes, and whatever leftover veg you might have hanging around in the fridge (today we had spring greens, some suspect looking carrots, a potato and some courgettes but spinach and broccoli are my faves for this one!). Simmer for 10mins or until veg is softened and chickpeas are cooked. Adding a spoonful of natural yoghurt or creme fraiche will make it creamier, or a spoon of chilli flakes and a bit of tomato purée will up the spice for more tomatoey curry.

Butternut mad

I had a butternut squash sitting in my fridge that was desperate to be used up so I've gone a little butternut mad this week. First I popped it in a quiche and then used the leftovers to make soup. Delicious! I have to say that the butternut squash is definitely my favourite vegetable without a doubt. You can do so much with it and it spruces up some otherwise boring meals!

So first of all the quiche...

Butternut squash, spinach and feta quiche

You can use a shop bought short crust pastry (the roll out ones are so handy!) or make your own from flour and butter. Blind bake your pastry case and in the meantime make your filling. Chuck the butternut into the oven at the bottom on a baking tray whole and let it roast for about an hour or until soft enough to slide it up without risking taking half a finger off!! In a frying pan, brown off an onion (red or brown, whichever you prefer) in a little oil and wilt some spinach.

When your casing is ready layer up with your spinach and onion and some tasty crumbled feta cheese  and arrange your diced squash evenly throughout. In a jug or bowl mix 1 egg with approx 200ml of Creme fraiche and 200ml milk and whisk well. Pour your milky mix over your filling and bake in the oven for 25-30mins or until filling is firm and cheese browned. Yum!


Now for the soup....

Throw your leftover squash into a large sauce pan with 4 good sized carrot, chopped and peeled and an onion, add in stock of your choice and bring to the boil, simmer until carrots are soft and then blitz in a blender. Add Creme fraiche to serve. Delicious for a speedy healthy lunch! :)

Mango salad

Today's lunch is a firm favourite in our house and has several varieties that I try to rotate whenever mangos are in season. Today's variety is served with prawns and a peanut butter dressing which I cannot take credit for ( I found it on Pinterest years ago but cannot remember who original credit goes to, sorry!).

Simple and quick to prepare this comes together in a few minutes.

Cook some quinoa to packet instructions and drain well. Arrange on plates. Dice a large mango, arrange your favourite salad leaves on plates (I like baby leaf spinach and rocket)  . Arrange mango on top. Add sliced pepper (I like red but yellow or green work equally well). Add cooked, peeled prawns and any other salad items of your choice (cucumber, spring onions etc).

In a saucepan stir together 1 tbsp peanut butter, 2 tsp sweet chilli sauce, 1 tsp olive oil, 2 tsps soy sauce. Optional addition of chilli flakes. If it's looking a bit thick/sticky add some water to deglaze the pan and thin it out.

Pour dressing over your salad. Serve and enjoy a tasty healthy meal mmmm.

Non seafood waters could swap the prawns for macadamia nuts and chopped avocado.
For those with nut allergies this salad is equally nice without the peanut sauce, sometimes if I'm in a hurry I will just drizzle over some olive oil and add a sprinkling of chilli yum.

I forgot to take a photo!!!!

I forgot to take a photo of our food this evening! And when I've just started this blog too! What a prized idiot hey? In my defence (or does this make it worse?) I had just got in from work and it wasn't a very exciting tea, more of a quick weeknight meal. Spring greens, mushrooms, lentils and wholewheat pasta covered with passata with a sprinkling of oregano and chilli flakes, topped with crumbled feta and baked in the oven for 20 mins. It's a personal favourite of mine, quick and easy to throw in when you're hungry and a pretty balanced meal. I'll take a picture next time. 

Joseph and I did some baking this afternoon. Mr Tumble was baking when he woke up from his nap so of course that meant that we had to bake too. Mr Tumble made biscuits but since I was short on time as I had to get ready for work we opted for a quick crumble instead. Joseph enjoyed himself and we got a yummy pudding out of it, so I count that as a success! Not a bad effort for an almost-two year old. 

 

Breakfast

Sometimes cereal just won't do but you're in a rush so no time for anything fancy. Enter eggs! Quick, filling, tasty and simple. For perfect poached eggs-boil a pan of water (my husband swears by adding a drop of white vinegar to the pan, I often skip this step) turn down to a simmer, crack eggs into individual bowls and pour in as quickly as possible. Put the lid on and turn the heat off. Cook off the heat in the water for approx 4 mins or to desired firmness. Serve on hot buttered toast for a yummy breakfast. Great additions to this include a crushed avocado spread onto the toast, smoked salmon on the side or some baby leaf spinach. Mmmm.

Can't you eat anything without photographing it?

My husband despairs of me. Almost everything I eat I have to photograph, it drives him crazy! "Can't you just eat one meal without putting it on Instagram first?" Is a phrase that is frequently heard in our house!

I love cooking! I'm no chef but making something from scratch that tastes delicious and feeds my family is a great pleasure for me. My Instagram posts often get requests for the recipes so I thought this would be a good place to document them, and more importantly find them again when I want them (My recipe binder is a mess, a long overdue project to sort it out is constantly being postponed for more urgent jobs!).

So here goes! But first I had better decide what we are having for tea today!