Parsnip!

It’s root vegetable season! Hurah!

After shopping Monday I assessed the previous weeks left over veggies and found I had a bag of rather sweaty parsnips loitering in the back of the fridge. I do love a Parsnip soup. So this is what I did with them – my personal recipes are a bit hit and miss on amounts so sorry if its a big vague for those of you that follow instructions to the max, cooking is a creative activity in my house, usually just creating a mess!

Spicy Parsnip Soup

1 portion

5 or 6 Parsnip (mine were medium sized young ones)
2 carrots
1 onion
Oil for roasting
½ stock cube (of your choice, I used a Kallo Vegetable low salt)
Cumin )
Coriander ) or spices to your taste
Ginger )
Ground pepper
Water to your desired consistency

Method

Top, Tail and Peel Vegetables, remove all squishy bits. Cut into chunks and lightly oil, roast in a roasting tray at 200 degrees C until starting to soften and brown.
Heat about ¼ pint of water in a thick bottomed pan and dissolve stock cube, add spices to taste and a little pepper. Put roasted veggies in the water and add boiling water until they are covered. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes then blend with a hand blender, adding water until you are happy with the consistency. Allow to warm through until bubbling whilst stirring.
Serve and enjoy.

I do find stock cubes are over salty, even the kallo low salt are to salty for me, this is personal choice however so adjust the amount of stock cube to your taste too.

No Crisps, No Chocolate? Ermm.. HELP!

No crisps, No chocolate or sweets in the school packed lunch.

It shouldn’t be so hard should it? I strongly advocate healthy eating and although once or twice a week I give in to the sausages/fish fingers and oven chips thing just so I can have a dinner where I’m not fighting my son to eat his meal and it is eaten quicker than one and a half hours!  They eat loads of fruit and vegetables and such a variety I’ve always been lucky on that score…  On a recent visit to Morrisons cafe with just my daughter, I gave her free reign to choose what she liked from the counter. She asked “Can I have two things?” I said “It depends what they are!” She was thoughtful while I told her the name of all the cakes and we negotiated the fact I didn’t want her to have crisps. She chose “The fruit salad AND the Strawberries please?” How could I refuse that?

I’ve put chocolate in the small’s lunch box once out of sheer desperation, it was tight month there was no money left and very little in the cupboard so I have them what I had.  Crisps they always had though…

From Monday, the little Lady will be in school full time, school dinners can be provided, bought in from another local school but as a family we eat a cooked dinner in the evening with Daddy.  His working hours usually see him home before 4pm.  Once upon a time I might have been raring to rise to the challenge of the packed lunch, now it just makes me scratch my head…

Head scratching out of the way I have come to the following conclusion,

A sandwich,

A small pot containing cherry tomatoes, cucumber and pepper strips.

A piece of fruit/fruit salad

A Babybel stylie piece of cheese

A carton of juice

Sometimes a yogurt

Sometimes a home made cake

 

We have other things lurking around in the cupboard like Humzingers – they love those and small pots can always be filled with raisins or sultanas.  I have toyed with the idea of a Bento Box, not every day just now and then, there is a great looking book on Amazon which I have added to my Secret Post Club wish list, although I might not be able to wait. It looks like a really fun idea.

Bento

I suppose what I really need is inspiration. What do you do that really works well in your children’s pack lunch? Do you go for simple off the shelf stuff or make things yourself? If so recipes please!!

As from next Monday I’m going to be making 13 packed lunches a week! It’s time to crank up the #notadomesticgoddess mode into #tryingtobeadomesticgoddess and not burn anything…

Help?!

Summer Diary W5 D3 – Pizza Diversion!!

Wednesday.

So we are back from out hols, the washing mountain is leering at me from the bathroom (camping washing is always so smelly!) and the cupboards are stark with their deep scary hollow emptiness…

*sigh* Domestic servitude bliss is once again the theme of the day. (I’m writing this Friday after getting caught up on a submission with a deadline and the washing is still not all done and the car is not fully unpacked #fail) So I pootle off to the supermarket because starving children are frowned apon and hungry husbands whinge too much, with one eye open for entertainment for the little lady. (The little man was deprived of telly for 5 days and was stuck to Nick Jr. with his eyes on sticks)

There were no peas for podding, no little colouring books, the bubble wands were reduced to 28p but it was raining…

and then I found this…

Those fabulous people at Jus-rol do a pizza in a box!!! Perfect!

Yes, I know how to make pizza dough *rolls eyes* and yes, pasata would be cheaper but This Comes Ready In A Fabulous Popping Tube!!!! With the cutest little pot of sauce!!!! Squeeee!!

Honestly, it’s time for them to go back to school I’m going insane 😉

Look what she made!

Nom nom nom…

N.B this is NOT a sponsored post, just a very happy find 😀

Silent Sunday

Gluttony and the Desire for Spicy Food…

This is not a sponsored post – but it should be!

Gluttony is not a new experience to me but it has been some time since I indulged myself with it, after reaching my target weight a week or so ago I was quite ready to throw caution to the wind and stuff my face unceremoniously!  So I have been looking forward to my friend Jane’s 40th Birthday night out and a visit to Jimmy Spices a new restaurant in Bath. Jane is a total foodie, (obsessive much – I know she will agree with me about that, I expect to see a comment from her on this post too…) so any restaurant she chose was going to be fabulous.

I did have a quick surf over their mouth watering website just to check that himself would find something to eat on the night but with such variety on offer I need not have worried….

The picture above is one of the chefs stations,yes, just one… It’s a free for all eat as much as you like buffet, you grab a plate and go for it and for £16 each I can’t help feeling we got a bargain, of course in my non-spicey food home life I crave for Indian and Thai food and would have probably paid much more!

This was my second plate full, I started with Sweet and Sour Chicken and another chinese dish so I could have a pile of rice to soak up the glass of wine I had enjoyed a bit too much on an empty stomach at All Bar One (I love that place…) so rather than go for the curry next I went for the dim sum, the flavours being so much more delicate.  The steamed fish was incredible! I also had Thai curry and Indian curry a selection of samosas and and and….

Pudding.  I’m not a pudding fan really, I can usually leave it but there was a chocolate fountain with marshmallows that had a rather loud siren call to my stomach…  This cheffy chap spend all evening pulverizing sweets into ice cream, so I took pleasure in watching him smash some malteasers into some chocolate ice cream for me.

This is my friend Ellie and I, the fingers belong to my husband… Hmmm they never grow up do they?

If someone asks me to go to Jimmy Spices again I will be grabbing the car keys and heading out the door before they can change their mind, I might even indulge myself on a trip to the city one day!

 

The highlight of my evening was being dragged into the Men’s toilet (by my husband) to see this picture, if you need to ask me why you have obviously not read enough of my blog… Go to it!