Meal Planning Monday

Harry turned one on Friday - no I have no idea how that happened either. We had a lovely party yesterday, with family, friends and a Hartbeeps session for the little ones which was amazing. We all enjoyed a dairy free feast, and this week's meal plan will largely be featuring the leftovers from that. Well aside from the bread, I ended up giving most of that away!

Breakfasts: I'm sticking with fruit or overnight oats at the moment. It's not thrilling, ,but I know Harry doesn't react to them and as he's reacted recently to egg through my milk and strawberries I'm erring on the side of caution.

Lunches: The warm weather means salad and leftover ham or roast chicken for me. Harry is having chicken or ham and slices of pepper, chopped up cherry tomatoes or cucumber sticks. Also houmous. All the houmous.

Suppers:

Monday - Leftover roast chicken with salad and baked potatoes

Tuesday - I'm doing Outdoor cooking with the Guides, but will leave M some stir fried chicken with mushrooms, brocolli and rice.

Wednesday - Ham (leftover from a ham in coca cola) and salad - possibly with sweet potato wedges

Thursday - Chilli crab linguine with salad

Friday - Salad and something fishy *vague*

Saturday - I think I might do a slow roast shoulder of lamb, portion it up and freeze it. Then I can have it with salad.

Sunday - leftover roast lamb

That's this week. M will be enjoying the culinary delights of a campsite at Le Mans - burgers and sausages will feature heavily I'm sure.

As always, don't forget to pop on over to At home with Mrs M to see what everyone else's menu looks like

Meal Planning Monday

I thought Spring had sprung last week - I divested myself of my winter coat, donned my sunnies and ballet flats, happily enjoying the sunshine. My thoughts turned to warmer days, lighter evenings and lots of time in the park with Harry. Then of course the weather caught up with me and it turned freezing again, and once again my attention was taken by baked potatoes, casserole and comfort food.

Harry and I are pretty much in our stride for our weeks, between Playgroup, Rhyme time, and Hartbeeps we have a busy time of it. Sometimes fitting in naps and meals mean things go slightly awry, but it's a learning curve. This week we have all of those things and Harry's weigh in at the Health Visitor clinic. It's a nervous time. Almost as nerve-wracking as mine, but for the opposite reason.

Breakfasts - porridge and fruit for me, Harry's having porridge or pancakes or toast at the moment as we're off eggs.

Lunches - I've got minestrone soup that I made at the weekend. Syn free and delicious. I really do like it.

Suppers -

Monday: Leftover ham and veggies with baked potatoes

Tuesday: Ham, egg and potato wedges

Wednesday: Ham, egg and mushroom omlettes

Thursday: Root veg dhaal (will blog this week) with rice

Friday: Leftover dhaal with roti

Saturday: Freezer surprise

Sunday: It's our first wedding anniversary and to celebrate, we're treating ourselves to a Dine in deal from M&S.

Baking wise I made Cherry and almond buns (post up next) at the weekend and those, plus some wonderful dairy free Welshcakes from Mark's mum will probably mean that I don't lose any weight this week!

Here's holding on for more sunshine next week - as always, don't forget to hop on over to At Home with Mrs M to see what everyone else is up to.

Meal Planning Monday: using what we have

It's a bit of a quiet one in the Pantry this week. Between one thing and another I realised I needed a quieter week cooking wise, so have hauled much of this week's meals, or the makings of those meals out of the freezer - the bonus of this being, most of our shop was veggies which made it lovely and cheap!

Harry's eating is going from strength to strength. He got to grips (quite literally) with pasta last week, eating fusili bolognaise from his tray with aplomb. We had our dietician appointment and his cows milk and soya allergy seems to have extended to eggs now. I'm hoping nothing else will come up, and the dietician was great, really helpful in terms of my calcium and iron levels. We've got a couple of suppliers for dairy and soya free yoghurts, cheese and cream to try, so I'll be reporting back on Harry's feelings about those. And mine.

I also baked bread this week - our normal bread now has soya flour in it and so M kindly hauled the breadmaker (I know, it's just easy) down from the loft for me, and a 50/50 wholemeal has already been made and heavily sampled.

I'm going to try and do an SP week as my weightloss needs a bit of a boost. My stumbling block will be the fruit I think, but the rest should be straightforward enough.

Breakfasts: Unsurprisingly mainly porridge for Harry and I - he's off eggs in their natural state, so the frittatas aren't going to be remade for now, but as he's OK with them in things I'll do a new lot of pancakes this week. There's always the new bread aswell.

Lunches: I made a split pea soup at the weekend, so that's me sorted. Harry likes it so we'll have it together (his favourite seems to be my Sweet potato and ginger soup) and he can have bread to dunk. Alternatively I've got some more tomato pasta in the freezer.

Suppers:

Monday - Meatballs in tomato sauce with pasta for M, and with Kale for me

Tuesday: Leftover pasta

Wednesday: Butternut squash dhaal with rice

Thursday: Leftover dhaal with roti if I can manage to make them

Friday: M's parents are visiting so a Shepherd's pie (with a swede topping for me) with veggies

Saturday: Sausages, baked potatoes and veggies

Sunday: Roast gammon with lots of veggies, roasties and cauliflower cheese.

That's our week - a straightforward one, with lots of meals based on things I already have in. What are your go-to meals? That you always have ingredients for to hand and don't need to think about much. Let me know in the comments below

As always, don't forget to hop on over to At Home with Mrs M and see what everyone else is up to.

Meal Planning Monday: where is the Spring?

The sunshine this week had me fooled here and there - I expected it to be warmer, but no - Harry and I are as wrapped up as ever! We're in need of a change in the weather, I need it to be warmer. It's all systems go this week in the Pantry, as well as our normal baby groups, job hunting and Brownies, we've finally got Harry's allergy and dietician appointment and I'm hopeful for and looking forward to getting some support with his milk allergy.

 

Breakfasts - as always, porridge and fruit for me, and a selection from this post for Harry.

Lunches - in the absence of having any fresh soup made up, there's some split pea in the freezer which I'll pop out and retrieve tomorrow. Hopefully enough for a couple of days lunches at least and then the plan is to make a ham and pea soup with some of the leftovers from Tuesday night's supper.

Dinners -

Monday - I made a vegan vegetable lasagne - using the Deliciously Ella suggestion of pureed butternut squash instead of cheese. That worked beautifully, but her suggestion for the ragu seemed a little flat so I made my usual bolognaise, just with lots of lovely veggies instead of mince. We have the last portion for supper tomorrow.

Tuesday - Sainsburys have their ham joints on special so we're going to have roast gammon, roast potatoes and veggies

Wednesday - leftover ham, with eggs, baked potatoes and peas

Thursday - Ham and mushroom omlettes

Friday - Tomato pasta (I made double last week and have frozen the leftovers)

Saturday - I've got some chilli in the freezer so think I'm going to defrost and bake that in a butternut squash - much like this recipe.

Sunday - Leftovers

Nothing madly exciting this week - but lots of warming, keeping you going type dinners. As always, be sure to pop on over to At Home with Mrs M and join up with all the other planners to see what everyone else is up to.

I ham what I ham

And what I ham, needs no excuses (thank you Forbidden Broadway for the inspiration!)

Now I think I am quite possibly the last person in the country to try Nigella's Ham in Coca Cola. It's a Christmas staple for most of my 'foodie' friends, and almost everyone I know has either made it themselves or tried it courtesy of someone else. Well everyone apart from me that is. A combination of not having been in the mood for soup over the last week (mainly because of the good weather) and forgetting I had some bread in the freezer meant that I seemed to empty my purse remarkably quickly by buying sandwiches. I was keen for that not to happen this week, so decided to tackle Nigella's ham recipe.

For once I followed the recipe exactly and I have to say it's gorgeous. The ham itself is incredibly soft and tender, and the flavour is very slightly sweet with a hint of smokiness. To be truthful, I liked the taste as much after boiling as I did after adding the glaze, and I'm yet to try a glazed part so am reserving judgement on that - as so far, the treacle just seemed to burn and fill my kitchen with smoke.

My Bank Holiday Monday involves taking a group of Brownies on a steam train and as we'll be out from 10am to 8pm so this ham will form the filling of my sandwiches - and I can definitely see Ham, egg and chips for tea on Wednesday (well potato wedges really but that doesn't have the same ring to it). The recipe does take a fair while, but is completely worth it, and is an easy enough thing to do whilst pottering on a rainy Sunday.

INGREDIENTS

2kg mild-cure gammon (I could only find smoked gammon so soaked it first)
1 onion, peeled and cut in half
2-litre bottle of Coca-Cola
FOR THE GLAZE:
handful of cloves
1 heaped tablespoon black treacle
2 teaspoons English mustard powder
2 tablespoons demerara sugar

METHOD

1. I find now that mild-cure gammon doesn’t need soaking, but if you know that you’re dealing with a salty piece, then put it in a pan covered with cold water, bring to the boil, then tip into a colander in the sink and start from here; otherwise, put the gammon in a pan, skin-side down if it fits like that, add the onion, then pour over the Coke.

2. Bring to the boil, reduce to a good simmer, put the lid on, though not tightly, and cook for just under 2½ hours. If your joint is larger or smaller, work out timing by reckoning on an hour per kilo, remembering that it’s going to get a quick blast in the oven later. But do take into account that if the gammon’s been in the fridge right up to the moment you cook it, you will have to give it a good 15 minutes or so extra so that the interior is properly cooked.

3. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 240°C/gas mark 9.

4. When the ham’s had its time (and ham it is, now it’s cooked, though it’s true Americans call it ham from its uncooked state) take it out of the pan (but do NOT throw away the cooking liquid) and let cool a little for ease of handling. (Indeed, you can let it cool completely then finish off the cooking at some later stage if you want.) Then remove the skin, leaving a thin layer of fat. Score the fat with a sharp knife to make fairly large diamond shapes, and stud each diamond with a clove. Then carefully spread the treacle over the bark-budded skin, taking care not to dislodge the cloves. Gently pat the mustard and sugar onto the sticky fat. Cook in a foil-lined roasting tin for approximately 10 minutes or until the glaze is burnished and bubbly.

5. Should you want to do the braising stage in advance and then let the ham cool,

6. Clove and glaze it and give it 30–40 minutes, from room temperature, at 180°C/gas mark 4, turning up the heat towards the end if you think it needs it.

A quiet night at home

So last night heralded just that (thank you Bare: A Pop Opera) and at one point I was juggling 3 pans on the stove, all cooking different things. The big project of the night was a Malay Lamb curry, which I know I had promised for this post, but that'll be the next one as I've been bribed with roast chicken courtesy of my flatmate tonight. I've seen the amount of roast potatoes being cooked and I'm the nearest to gleeful I've been in ages.

I was specifically after comfort food last night. Mum had suggested mashed potato, or something I could just throw in the oven - come on down M&S chicken tikka masala, the stage is yours. But no longer having a local M&S and being by nature distrustful of ready meals I'm not familiar with. Walking around Sainsburys (hellish on a Saturday, so why I inflicted that on my slightly fragile self, I don't know) nothing caught my eye until a sudden decision that caulifower cheese was the way forwards.

Now, regular readers will be aware that I am loathful/ loathsome of cheese sauce in anyform other that in a lasagne. I refuse to go near it, after a traumatic incident involving a tummy bug and a plateful of macaroni cheese as a child. Not good. In fact it's up there with aubergines on the most hated list. However, I've mainly been eating hot cross buns this week, and can't honestly say I've gone near my veggie tray so the inclusion of cauliflower alone was a step forward.

After the success of my much loved (yes I have realised that I blogged it twice in three months. My bad) Waitrose chilli, and not finding any inspiration in my cookbooks, I turned to the Waitrose recipe database for some inspiration. I knew I wouldn't be able to stomach a runny cheese sauce so originally intended to go with what I use for a lasagne. As it was, this recipe (which I halved quantities of and have half of that still in the fridge) was on the mark.

Waitrose Cauliflower Cheese



Serves: 3 to 4
Ingredients
1 large, creamy-white cauliflower, trimmed and broken into florets
25g butter
25g plain flour
568ml carton Waitrose Whole Milk
150g Keen's West Country Farmhouse Unpasteurised Cheddar, grated
2 tbsp crème fraîche or double cream (optional, but a mighty improvement)
1 tbsp Dijon mustard, or a little less of English mustard
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
25g fine fresh white breadcrumbs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper


Method
1.Preheat the oven to 200°C, gas mark 6. Cook the cauliflower in boiling salted water until just tender - 5-6 minutes but no more. (Don't underdo it either - crunchy, al dente cauliflower is not right for this dish.) Drain thoroughly. Grease the sides and edges of an ovenproof dish that is large enough to take the cauliflower in a closely-packed single layer, then tip the cauliflower in.
2.To make the sauce, melt the butter in a medium-sized pan. Spoon in the flour and stir for about 1 minute, without allowing it to brown. Remove from the heat and gradually beat in the milk, a few spoonfuls at a time at first, then increasing the flow as the sauce thins.
3.Return to the heat and simmer gently for about 10 minutes, or until the sauce is thickened and creamy. Stir frequently to prevent the sauce from catching on the base of the pan.
4.Remove from the heat and stir in three-quarters of the Cheddar with the crème fraîche or cream, and the mustard. Season with nutmeg, a little salt and lots of pepper. Taste and adjust the seasoning, making sure that it is fairly punchy. Pour the sauce over the cauliflower.
5.Mix together the breadcrumbs and the remaining Cheddar, then sprinkle evenly over the cauliflower and sauce. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until browned and bubbling. Serve immediately.

My Notes:

I ommitted the creme fraiche/ double cream. I also used skimmed milk as I never have whole milk in the house.
I also just used uber strong cheddar, which was a case of whatever Sainsburys had on offer yesterday morning.
Mustard: I didn't have any mustard in the house, but had Colman's mustard powder (for salad dressing) in, so made up a dessert spoonful of that with water. Perfect
I tend to be quite heavy handed with pepper, I think this was a bonus.
Ham, I knew that just cauliflower and cheese wouldn't do it for me, so at the deli counter today had asked for a thick slice of the boiled ham they did, I folded this over and put the par-boiled cauliflower on top and then covered the lot in the cheese sauce and more grated cheese. This improved it massively in my opinion. I could eat plain cauliflower cheese as an accompaniment to roast beef I think or even roast chicken, but not just on it's own. One of my aims for this year is to learn how to cook my own ham, it's just so much nicer although this really was a good peice.

I cannot enthuse enough about how soothing and comforting this dish is. Eaten from my lap with a cat curled up next to me, it really did hit the spot. Not fussy or demanding much of me (which cannot be said of the curry) it kept me occupied while making the cheese sauce, and then gave me half an hour for a hot bubble bath while it baked.

Slightly melancholy, but an apt exerpt from the song title of the post.

Ships and Princes all gone home
Alone again. Again alone
A quiet night at home
With thoughts of wine
A quiet night at home
Spent getting by

And next time I promise. Malay Lamb curry. Guides honour.