I've had my suspicions for a while that Master C has been rather hungry. Firstly he went from sleeping 6 or 7 hours at night through to at worst waking every 90 minutes for a feed. And it was only a feed he needed in the night as he would go back to sleep as soon as he'd had some and general comforting wouldn't have any effect at all. His feeds were also starting to last longer and longer and this was accompanied by chewing on his own hands and anything else that he managed to get into his mouth. When I took him along to my weekly knitting group he'd sit there completely ... read more
Toddler friendly hidden vegetable bolognese
I'd put money on Little Miss C not being the only toddler out there who isn't particularly keen on fruit and veg. After a Christmas season in which she went to several parties that presented her with the opportunity to eat her own body weight in crisps we thought it about time to try to reverse this unhelthy eating trend. LMC has always been a fan of meat dishes and would quite happily snack on sausages or similar in the same way that other (healthier) children might eat a banana or an apple. Over the last couple of years I've therefore become quite good at trying to squeeze as ... read more
The Raymond Blanc Lunch at Brasserie Blanc
One thing I really miss since having children is being able to go out for dinner or a weekend lunch on a whim with Mr C. We were very lucky in that we could just phone each other in the afternoon and decide where to meet for dinner that night - a big luxury indeed. I was thrilled therefore when a weekday lunch for local bloggers was organised on a date that I could actually do and on a day of the week when Little Miss C was in nursery. The venue was the newly opened St Albans branch of Brasserie Blanc and we were all invited to try the November version of their seasonal fixed price menu - The ... read more
Three hours
I'm sure I can't be the only person who gets to the end of the day and wonders what I've actually acheived that day. When you're at home with little ones it can be quite easy to just concentrate on "surviving" and it can be easy to lose track of what has kept you busy all day. Realistically though, stay at home parents usually acheive loads, but they simply don't have the time to step back and take stock of just what they have done. This morning Mr C went out to a first aid course so I thought I'd keep track of just what I got up to in that time - admitedly, ... read more
Baked couscous with chicken and spices
As I'm now into "due date territory" this week's menu planning revolved around things that were pretty easy to make, specifically so that they could be done either whilst heavily pregnant or with a newborn in the house. I picked up my copy of Nigel Slater's Real Cooking to look up a particular pasta recipe that we've done a few times now and whilst I had it out I managed to find a few others that looked simple enough - one being baked couscous with chicken and spices. What appealed about this recipe is that while there is a little bit of preparation ... read more
Leftovers Lunch
In my eyes a good experimental recipe is one that gets eaten so quickly that you don't have chance to photograph it for a blog post first. That's exactly what happened to the lovely lunch that Mr C made us all earlier today. One thing that I am awful at is keeping food leftovers and then doing nothing at all with them. There is far too much food waste in this house and if I'm honest I'm to blame for most of it. There are some dinners (mainly pasta dishes) where I plan carefully and ensure that we have enough left over for LMC and I to have it for lunch the next day too. Where ... read more
Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash Gratin
Pulling meals together from what's in the fridge isn't my speciality. It shouldn't be difficult, but somehow I always struggle and sadly end up throwing away far more food than we should. I'm making a real effort at the moment to change that and reduce what goes into the council compost bin and I'm delighted to say that this last week I've succeeded and come up with a great new simple meal as a result. Based on the Waitrose Baked Pumpkin Gratin recipe that I picked up on one of their cards a while back I managed to concoct a delicious sweet potato and ... read more
Tea Smoked Trout (and yoghurt sauce)
I'm still amazed at just how much inspiration I took away from my day at Yeo Valley earlier in the month. One thing that I really wasn't expecting was quite so much kitchen based inspiration. I know that they make yoghurts and other dairy products, but as I've said before them I hadn't thought much about cooking with yoghurt before. Their site in Blagdon is right next to Blagdon Lake and in their efforts to ensure that food miles were kept to an absolute minimum our lunch that day was trout from the lake. But, just bunging some trout in the oven is far too boring for those people at Yeo ... read more
Yeo Cheesecake
Did you know that you can make cheese from yoghurt? When you think about it it's actually quite obvious, but until my recent trip to Yeo Valley I have to admit that I hadn't realised you could. It's incredibly simple to do. Just line a seive with a clean tea towel or other cloth, spoon in the yoghurt (mixed with a pinch of salt) and leave it over a bowl in the fridge for 24 hours. Twenty-four hours later you end up with cheese in your cloth (otherwise known as the curds) and a bowl full of whey. In our case we just discarded the whey, but a lovely little tip from Yeo Valley's ... read more
FoodCycle
Have you ever thought about what happens to food that's still on the shelves of your local supermarket when it reaches its "display until" date? Much of it is still perfectly edible, but as it can no longer be sold it instead often ends up just going in a shop's general rubbish. Wasted food - not nice, but sadly a fact of life in many shops. There are an estimated 400,000 tonnes of surplus food that can reclaimed each year from food retailers here in the UK, but all this food can be turned into healthy and nutritious meals. Food poverty is another huge problem facing us here in the UK ... read more