Hi all!

I always try to cook the children's dinner for between 4-5pm & i eat with my husband at about 8 ish which sometimes means i end up cooking the same thing twice ( as we all eat the same meals) If its a one pot meal i will reheat a portion for us in the evening and i always try to freeze a few portions so if if i'm having a lazy day i can just grab a bag of unlabeled yummy food out of the freezer & hope its not got too much chilli in it :)

Today was one of those lazy days! I did intend to cook a lovely healthy bowl of Briam which is a Greek recipe of basically baked veg & crumbled feta. When i spend too much time in the house i get bored and often rearrange the furniture & toys (lol) today i let time run away with me & before i knew it, it was 5 o clock. Panic set in & i reached for the emergency drawer in the freezer. The children ended up with Moussaka which i made last week, they were very happy as Euan had already clocked the small mountain of veg waiting to be cooked and was already thinking of a way out of eating it!

I did get around to making it for our supper & it was blumming lovely & minus the feta would be very low fat! Preparation was less that 10 mins & cook time took 35 mins on 180

1 large aubergine, sliced
1 large onion, thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, sliced
800g new potatoes
6 medium tomatoes, thinly sliced
4 courgettes, sliced
300g tomato passata
1 tbsp dried oregano
2 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
pack of crumbled feta

Fry the aubergine to cook out the slight bitterness that comes with it, transfer to a large bowl & gently fry the onion & garlic. Add the rest to the bowl & add passta & herbs. Transfer to a baking dish & add lots of black pepper








Once cooked i like to crumble the feta on & demolish it but you could add the feta before cooking but i like the cheese uncooked.

There was loads left over for the husbands lunch & i have put 2 portions in the fridge for the children to eat for tomorrows dinner. It may not be the prettiest of meals but its delicious! The total cost of this meal is around £4.50. All of the veg cost me just over £3 from the market & the feta was from a supermarket.

What a wet and cold day today has been, it almost makes me want to scrap the summery dinner for a spag bol or chicken soup!!  Now i have finally tackled dinner times i want to come up with different breakfasts s & snacks that will keep the children interested! On the subject of snacks, can i highly recommend Graze - http://www.graze.com/. We have been getting a weekly box for nearly 3 years & its a perfect way of getting different foods in to their diet! This weeks was a mix of nuts, fruit & chocolate drops & Japanese rice crackers, Tuesday has been renamed 'graze day' by Euan.

Breakfast is always a tough one especially now the nursery run consumes a large chunk of my morning, i want to give them some thing healthy & filling that they also eat quickly. I do occasionally buy cereal but i try and avoid it really, its full of nasty refined sugar which only makes for a hyper 3 year old. We have porridge regularly with a variety of things  in it such as jam, honey, fruit etc & if i'm being a naughty mummy maybe a spoonful of Nutella. We have croissants, toast & crumpets the other days & i try at least once a week to make boiled egg & soldiers too which they love! At the weekend my husband will sometimes make pancakes too!

Dinner today was wolfed down in 5 minutes which always makes me very happy ( and the children as they get to have pudding if they eat it all)!!

Coriander & lemon Pollock with a warm potato salad with rocket & capers. 

I simply marinated the Pollock fillets for a few hours in a mix of olive oil, lemon, coriander from the greenhouse & lots of black pepper & roasted it for 20 minutes. Whilst the fish is cooking just boil some halved new potatoes & when cooked cover in butter, a squeeze of lemon, capers & rocket (also from the greenhouse) I served it with some mangetout for the kiddies as they will eat bowls of them if given the chance.

Again this is a cheap but very tasty meal with the main cost being the fish, i always keep a jar of capers in the cupboard for emergencies ( and for eating out the jar :) ) & a bag of new potatoes are always kicking about in the cupboard.

24th April 2012

I just had to share this picture!!! For all those with a love of peanut butter & Kitkats you will know how amazing these are! After months of searching shops my husband has just come home from work with 2. A very happy wife :)

24th April 2012

Well today i decided to try my much anticipated Jamie Oliver recipe 'Caldo Verde' which is basically a Portuguese soup from my recipe folder. The main ingredients are

1 Onion
2 Garlic Cloves
700g Potatoes
300g Kale
150g Chorizo
Paprika

All you do is sweat the onions & garlic until softened & then add potatoes, add 1.5lts of water & simmer for 20 mins. Once the potatoes are cooked blitz with a hand blender until you have a potatoey base. Add the kale & cook for 5 mins & finally fry the chorizo & add to the soup.

Sounds like it should be lovely and tasty & a relatively cheap meal coming in at £4.29 (ish) and easily serving 4-6.

However, i was disappointed with the blandness of it all! The children will not eat bland food.... so i had to improvise. My fridge is always stocked with veg & hidden in the deepest corner of my cupboard i found a jar of Passata. Problem solved! I added a leek & the jar of tomato goodness & it turned in to a Mediterranean style bowl of yum!! Served with chunky bread!!!

As i speak Isla is full up & Euan has decided that he wants pudding before dinner this evening & as a result hasn't eaten any yet!! The joys of a independent 3 year old!

As i mentioned in my 1st post i have a tight budget to keep to each week and I used to think this would mean i would have to use lower cost therefore lower quality items but this is not true at all! It just requires a little extra work! I live in a market town so every Friday i stock up on veg & fruit for the week & 2 big bags will be around £6. I meal plan 7 days of meals in advance & buy only what i need give or take a carrot or 2! I do have to top up mid week with a few bits of fruit & a loaf of bread & always go to to the greengrocer, its cheap but i find the quality varies so i keep that to minimum. I have also started to make my own bread although its not at sandwich quality yet i hope that one day it will be good enough to use as i hate reading the long list of ingredients that go in to shop bought bread when i'm sure it should only have 4! I am also a keen gardener ( again, i'm not great at it) but i have all the herbs growing in a little greenhouse which is just a life saver.

Hi all & welcome to my blog. I am a 24 year old stay at home mum to my 2 young children Isla (20 months) & Euan (3 years) . I have always wanted for them to eat healthily & to taste new & exciting food. I am lucky that so far they are very good eaters & will at least try everything even if they wont always finish it, although Euan is becoming increasingly more difficult with getting him to have that first mouthful - I put it down to being 3!! From day 1 it was important for me to feed them good nutritious foods from the moment they were on solids, i remember standing in the butchers buying the smallest piece of steak for my 7 month old and pretty much eating it all when cooking it!

I did baby led weaning with Isla & i am a firm believer that this set up the foundations for a fab relationship with food, she will eat anything!!! sushi, gerkins, kale, olives... ANYTHING!


Now they are slightly older the difficulty is thinking of new meals on a budget of around £80 a week, which can be tricky.

I decided to set up this blog to share with you what i cook on a daily basis, if its tasty & if my children enjoy what i put on the table. Hopefully it will inspire you to try some of the meals for yourself :)