Productive day batch cooking baby food

As I mentioned in my an earlier post today, I intended to do some batch cooking of baby food today in order to build up a stock of meals for the baby for evenings when I needed them.  I am trying to give my baby finger foods, as per Baby Led Weaning, but it is not always possible for me to offer the baby some of the food that we have each night so I wanted to have some standby meals in the freezer for these nights. 

From the Annabel Karmel website, I made four of the recipes listed for babies between 6 and 9 months.  We had salmon, broccoli and potatoes for dinner this evening, so I prepared some extra salmon and broccoli to use in some of the recipes for the baby food.  This saved me a bit of time and meant I could offer the baby what we were having for dinner, adding the cheese sauce from Annabel Karmel's recipe.

As I frequently offer my baby finger foods I didn't puree the recipes I made to a paste as my baby is used to chewing.  I left them with some chunks in them by blending them for a shorter length of time or mashing elements of them and mixing them into the rest of the food. 

TIP  When making the cheese sauce for the Salmon, broccoli and cheese sauce recipe, I made extra sauce for freezing.  I will use this sauce for mixing into vegetables, meat, potatoes and pasta that we have for dinner.  This cheese sauce is also good for using in lasagna.

I haven't worked out the cost of these meals, but I am confident that they are much cheaper than buying jars of baby food.  As well as this, I know for a fact that they taste nicer than the food that was in the jars I bought recently as I tasted each recipe and I tasted some of the food that was in the jars. 

Grocery shopping - meal planner 31/1/2012 to 3/2/2012

Short week for the meal plan this week as we were away for a few days.  So, the plan for this week is as follows:-

Tuesday dinner - Salmon, broccoli and potatoes
Wednesday dinner - Stir fry
Thursday dinner - Chicken stew (from freezer) and mash
Friday dinner - Fish, chips and peas (all from the freezer)

For lunches I will be making the black bean and chorizo soup I made last week (I have all of the ingredients in), salad and ham sandwiches.

As I'm off on Tuesday (today - better get a move on!) I bought ingredients to do a load of batch cooking for the baby.  I will be making a few recipes from the Annabel Karmel website:-

• Salmon, broccoli and cheese sauce
• Salmon puree
• Chicken puree with carrots and apple
• Carrot puree with lentils and cheese

I'll be freezing these in portions to give to the baby in the evenings when I get in from work.  As well as this, I will be giving him some finger foods over the next week including strips of chicken, plum and ripe pear.

 This week I spent € 60.44 in Dunnes and just under € 10 in Superquinn.  This shop was a bit more expensive as I was picking up specific ingredients for the baby food, including some free range chicken breasts.  When we were away I had to by some jars of food to give to the baby for practicality reasons so I know that spending a bit extra on cheese and free range chicken breasts is still cheaper than buying jars of food for him.

Mmmmm...Chorizo! I think I like it too much!

So, looking back at my blog to date I think it's more than a little bit obvious that I like chorizo!  In fairness, I did get a good bargain on dried chorizo it at the start of the year, so had quite a bit of it in.  It's a great ingredient as it adds so much flavour to any dish and the dried chorizo keeps for ages in the fridge, so it's a handy stand-by ingredient to have in.

Anyway, I feel I will have to make a point of planning some dishes that don't include chorizo in the next few weeks (though I love it!) just to shake things up a bit!

My baby turned 6 months in the past week, so I am now able to introduce him to meat.  Over the next week I am hoping to start preparing a few more interesting meals for him that just the vegetables from whatever dinner the rest of us happen to be having.  So I will be thinking a bit more about preparing food for the family that can be easily given to the baby with some small adjustments.  So far the weaning has been going well with him not turning down anything.  Unfortunately the banana didn't seem to agree with him as he was sick everytime after eating it, so I have abandoned banana for now.  I will try introducing it to him again sometime in the future. 

Black bean and chorizo soup

At the start of the week I made a black bean and chorizo recipe from the Olive magazine in November 2010.

I have to say I give it a ten out of ten for taste!  I was a bit dubious about it as I have never cooked with black beans before.  Before Christmas I had got some dried black beans in for a different recipe that I never got round to making.  So I used them for this recipe. 

There was no cumin in my kitchen when I went to make the soup, so I just left it out.  Also, I couldn't find hot smoked paprika anywhere so just used ordinary hot paprika instead.  I have come across a few recipes that call for smoked paprika but I have never come across it in a shop.  If anyone knows where I could get this (in Ireland), then please post and let me know!  My mum has been on the look out for it for ages as well.

I doubled up the ingredients and managed to get 5 portions of soup for lunches out of the pot.  I think that this soup would also make a lovely hearty dinner.  Just serve with some bread.

TIP - Using dried beans instead of tins of beans can make the recipe a lot cheaper.  You need to remember to prepare them in advance though.  While off on maternity leave I say a brilliant tip from Rachel Ray for dried beans.  She suggested that you should rehydrate the beans, divide them into portions and then stick them freezer, ready for when you need them.  Then when a recipe calls for them, just take them out of the freezer and add them into the pot.  I haven't done this myself, but I think it's a brilliant idea and intend to do it in the future as it would be a real time saver.

Cost wise, I used 50 cent worth of chorizo, 2 peppers that cost 45 cent each, a red onion that cost 23 cent, a lime, which I think cost around 30 cent (my receipt has gone missing this week so I can not double check) and I will allow another 80 cent for the spices, vegetable stock cube, beans and 3 garlic cloves (this is just an estimate).  The total cost of the recipe was € 2.73.  That's 55 cent per portion.

Spicy sausage pasta

This is a quick and easy dinner that I used to make a while ago and had forgotten about.  I've adapted from WW recipe I got a few years ago.  This recipe serves 4, so I make it for dinner and we have the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Ingredients
fry lite cooking spray
1 red onion, sliced
1 red pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
1 green pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves
crush chilli (to your own taste - I use lots!)
150g chorizo, thinly sliced
punnet of mushrooms (chestnut mushrooms are lovely in this dish if you can get them)
400g can of chopped tomatoes


Method

1. Cook the pasta according to instructions, drain and keep warm.
2. While the pasta is cooking, spray a large pan with fry-lite and fry the onion over a low heat until it starts to soften.
3. Add the sausage, crushed chilli, garlic and peppers, turn up the heat and fry for a further 3 minutes.  Add the mushrooms, mix well and fry for a further 3 minutes.  Add the chopped tomatoes, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Add the pasta to the pan and mix.  Bring back to a simmer and serve.

The cost for this meal is quite low.  The chorizo was € 1.50, the two peppers were 90 cent for both, the red onion was 23 cent, 66 cent for the can of chopped tomatoes,  23 cent for 250g of pasta and 99 cent for the punnet of mushrooms.  I've added on an extra 30 cent for the fry lite, crushed chilli and garlic.  The total cost is € 4.81.

As this was adapted from a WW recipe it is low in fat.  In the old points system (pre-pro-points) it was 4.5 WW points per serving.

Irish coddled pork with cider

On Sunday I made the Irish coddled pork with cider recipe from the March 2008 issue of the Goodfood magazine.  This recipe is for 2, so I doubled it and served the leftovers on Monday night.  It went down a treat, especially with my daughter who has recently decided she does not like cabbage - obviously she likes the taste of cabbage that has been cooked in stock and cider.  It is a brilliant way of increasing your vegetable intake for the day and is a lovely filling dinner for cold winter nights.

To make it I used one of the packs of smoked bacon medallions that I recently got on offer in Lidl for €1.49.  I used half a white cabbage (65 cent), a whole swede (89 cent), 4 carrots (50 cent) and 6 potatoes (estimated at about 90 cent).  The four pork loins that I used came as part of a deal I got in the butchers last weekend, so I have allowed € 5 for them.  I used Bulmers cider that I had left over from Christmas which I bought for 87p for a pint bottle (it was in a case of 8 for sale for £7 before Christmas), so I have allowed 50 cent for the Bulmers I used.  In total the cost was € 9.93, making it less than € 5 per meal.

To be honest I am pleasantly surprised at how much this cost as I thought that it was a lot more than this. 

TIP to lower fat - to lower the fat in this dish the first thing I would do is to grill the pork loins instead of frying them in butter in the pot.  I wouldn't use the butter in the recipe at all and would use spray some fry lite in the pot before adding the bacon and vegetables.  To further lower the fat you could leave the cider out, or use a 'light' cider such as bulmers light.  You could also use less potatoes and more vegetables.

Cream of scallion (spring onion) soup

Spring onions were on offer in Dunnes this week for 45 cent per bunch.  I remembered seeing a recipe for Cream of Spring Onion soup in a recipe book at home, so bought 3 bunches to make it.  I then set about the somewhat mammoth task of trying to find the recipe (note to self - must write down the name of the cookbook I see recipes I'd like to make in so that I can find them easier!).  Anyway, I eventually found the recipe yesterday and set about making it to have for lunch today.

It tastes quite similar to leek and potato soup, so if you like it you should like this.  The recipe is from 'The Soup Bible' published by Hermes House.  The recipe is as below.  I've added any alterations I made in brackets.  The recipe serves 4-6 people and can be served hot or cold.

Ingredients
25 g/1 oz/2 tbsp butter
1 small onion
150 g/5 oz/1.75 cups spring onions, chopped  (I used a bunch and half of the spring onions I bought in Dunnes)
225 g/8 oz potatoes, peeled and chopped
600 ml/1 pint/2.5 cups vegetable stock
350 ml/12 fl oz/1.5 cups single cream  (I didn't use this, so my soup was really just spring onion soup, not cream of spring onion soup!)
30 ml/2 tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to season

Step 1

 Method

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add all the onions.  Cover and cook over a very low heat for about 10 minutes or until soft.
2. Add the potatoes and the stock.  Bring to the boil, then cover again and simmer over a moderately low heat for about 30 minutes.  Cool slightly.
3. Puree the soup in a blender or food processor.  (I used my hand blender so didn't need to do the first part of step 4)
4. If serving the soup hot, pour it back into the pan.  Add the cream and season with salt and pepper.  Reheat gently, stirring occasionally.  Add the lemon juice.  (I don't add seasoning.  I put salt and pepper on the table and let each person season their own instead)
5. If serving the soup cold, pour it into a bowl.  Stir in the cream and lemon juice and season with salt and pepper.  Cover the bowl and chill for at least 1 hour.
6. Sprinkle with the chopped spring onion greens or chives before serving.  (I didn't bother with this)

TIP  To lower the fat of this recipe I didn't add the cream.  It was still tasty.  The fat content could be lowered even further by using fry lite instead of the butter.

Cost - Again, this is another recipe that was quite cheap to make as a result of the scallions being on offer in Dunnes.  I used a bunch and half in this recipe, so that's 68 cent.  The potatoes I had left over from a bag I had from a previous week, estimated cost 50 cent.  I had a lemon in already as I had bought a tray of 4 for €1 two weeks ago.  I used half of a lemon, so that is 12 cent.  The onion was leftover from a bag I got for 49 cent, so 6.5cent for it.  I've allowed 50 cent for the remaining ingredients, making the total recipe cost €1.86!

Obviously if I had added the cream this would have added quite a bit to the overall cost of the recipe, so omitting it kept the recipe under € 2 as well as lowering the fat.

Oven baked chicken, tomatoes and baby potatoes

This is one of my favourite meals to make on a Saturday where I just do the prep work and through the dish in the oven, checking on it every now and then.  It takes a while for the potatoes to cook in the oven, so you are best to leave it until a night are able to start dinner a bit earlier.  I have often adjusted the amount of this dinner I make and served it to anything from 2 to 7 people.

Ingredients
Chicken breasts - 1 per person
Baby potatoes - allow 250g per person
Cherry tomatoes - at least 250g (I always put in as many as I have)
Red onion - 1 or 2
Dried basil - as much as you like
Garlic cloves - I like garlic so usually have at least 3 cloves
Olive oil

Method

1. Turn on the oven - I use gas mark 7 for this
2. Wash the baby potatoes and cut them in half, or quarters (the smaller they are the quicker they cook).  Put them in a large roasting tin.  Drizzle with olive oil and put in the oven for 10 minutes to start them cooking.
3. Wash the cherry tomatoes.  Lift out the roasting tin and add the tomatoes to the potatoes.  Mix well and put back in the oven for a further 10 minutes.
4. Prepare the red onion(s) by cutting into large chunks.  Slice or crush the garlic.  (NB. Crushing the garlic can sometimes result in it burning)  Remove the roasting tin from the oven and add the onion and garlic.  Sprinkle the dried basil (as much as you want) and give a good mix.  Add a bit more olive oil if needed.  Put back in the oven until the potatoes are almost soft.
5. Place the chicken breasts on top of the mixture and put the roasting tin back in the oven.  After 10 minutes, remove from the oven and turn the chicken breasts.  Mix the potatoes, tomatoes and onions under each chicken breast as you turn them.  Put back in the oven until the chicken is cooked.  Remove and serve.

This dinner is delicious hot or cold.  I sometimes serve with green beans or a side salad.  If I make it at the weekend I often leave a few of the potatoes, tomatoes and onions in a bowl and mix them through some scrambled eggs the next day for lunch.

You can use large tomatoes, but I have found that cherry tomatoes left whole are the tastiest way to make this recipe as they explode in your mouth when you put them in whole.  Yummy!  I always use the baby potatoes as I used large potatoes one day and I found that they went really mushy in the juice from the tomatoes and the olive oil.  While still tasty, it wasn't as mice as it is when made with baby potatoes.

TIP  If you want to make this mid-week you can speed up the time it takes to make by par boiling the potatoes before cutting them for 10 or 15 minutes.  Drain and then cut them before putting them on the roasting tray.  Dry them out in the oven for a minute before adding all of the rest of the ingredients, except the chicken breasts.  Put in the oven for 10 minutes before adding the chicken breasts to the top of the dish.

TIP  To lower the fat content in this meal, you can spray fry lite on the ingredients instead of using olive oil.  I have done this in the past and it has been fine, but you need to stir it more often to make sure the ingredients don't catch on the bottom.  I'd do a few sprays each time you remove the dish from the oven.  You might find it better to cut the tomatoes in half if you are using fry lite as more juice from them will go to the bottom of the roasting tin, helping to prevent the mix from sticking.

Cost - This dinner was quite cheap for me to make.  I used 3 chicken breasts at €1 each, 1 kg potatoes at 45 cent, 250g of cherry tomatoes 89 cent and red onion 23 cent.  I'll allow a further 30 cent for the basil, olive oil and garlic cloves, making the total for this meal €4.87.  It served 3

Grocery shopping - meal planner 21/1/2012 - 27/1/2012

Meal plan for Saturday 21st to Friday 27th January is as follows:-

Saturday dinner - Oven baked chicken with tomatoes and baby potatoes
Sunday dinner - Coddle
Monday dinner - Coddle
Tuesday dinner - Chorizo and peppers with pasta
Wednesday dinner - Ham, white cabbage and baby potatoes
Thursday dinner - Chicken stew (from freezer) and baby potatoes
Friday dinner - Chicken fajitas

For lunches I will be making black bean and chorizo soup, cream of spring onion soup, ham sandwiches and scrambled eggs.

My shopping for this week cost me €29.22 which I was extremely pleased about!  I need to pick up some white cabbage and single cream, so my spend will be just over €30 for the week.  I was able to do this by planning my meals around the offers in the shops this week and by using meat from my freezer.  The pork chops that I'll use in the coddle and chicken I'll be using in the other recipes is meat that I bought last week from the butchers and froze.  The chorizo was bought a while ago when it was on offer in Dunnes.

For €29.22 I bought the following:
2 litres full fat milk
2 x 1litre of slimlne milk
bunch of scallions x 3 (on offer for 45cent per bunch)
philadelphia x 2 (on offer 2 for €2.50)
Ham - slices for sandwiches
Mini babybel cheese
Peppers x 9 (on offer for 45cent each)
Radish
Lime
Apples
Baby potatoes 1kg x 2 (on offer for 45 cent each)
Mushrooms
Cherry tomatoes
Swede
Bananas
Buttermilk soda (half price - 79 cent)
Carrots
Free range eggs (9 for the price of 6)
Wholegrain pan loaf

Salmon, green beans and baby potatoes

Tonight we had a dinner mostly from the freezer.  It went down really well and cleared a bit of space in our freezer.  It also allowed me to use up the last of the green beans I had grown in the garden and frozen last year.  To be honest, the beans were not at their best as they were frozen in the middle of September.

The baby potatoes were on offer in Dunnes and bought for 49 cent, the Salmon was bought when it was on offer and around €4.  As the green beans were homegrown this dinner was quite cheap.

Pizza night!

So, tonight we had a frozen pizza for dinner.  Although cheap and cheerful (it cost just two euro), we do not have pizza very often.  It was a special treat for me and my eldest as my husband was away at a night class.  He does not like cheese and wont eat pizza, so this is an ideal treat for nights when he will not be joining us for dinner. 

Other than the cost, and my daughters delight at getting a treat, the other good things about having a frozen pizza for dinner is that there is no cooking involved and it is ready very quickly.

Now I'm off to dig out an exercise dvd to burn it off!!

TIP  Make your pizza healthier by adding some chopped vegetables to the top before putting it in the oven.  Peppers and mushrooms are ideal.

Creamy chicken soup

On Saturday night we had a roast chicken dinner (and it was good!!).  Anyway, on Sunday I made a chicken soup with the leg meat from the chicken.  This is another cheap soup to make and makes good use of the chicken by using the bones for stock.

To make the soup you will need some chicken, chicken stock, an onion, 2 carrots, 2 leeks, 2/3 medium sized potatoes, butter, plain flour and thyme (I use dried).

First of all I boiled the bones of the chicken to make a stock for the soup.  Sometimes I will add onion, carrot, celery and maybe a few peppercorns to the water for a bit more flavour, but on Sunday I just boiled the bones.  After about half an hour, I strained the contents of the pot and set the stock to the side for use in my soup.  I usually have about 1.5 litres of stock for this recipe.  A chicken stock cube can be used instead, but I prefer this soup made with stock I've made myself.

To make the soup I begin cooking the vegetables in a frying pan.  I try and cut all the vegetables into small chunks of a similar size.  First, I chop the onion and fried it in fry lite (usually I will fry it in butter), then add chopped carrot and potato.  I put a lid over the frying pan and cook the vegetables for a few mins before adding chopped leeks and some thyme (I put about a teaspoon of dried thyme in).  I give the vegetables a good stir, before putting the lid back on the pan and cooking for a further 5-10 minutes, taking care to not let the vegetables burn.

Meanwhile, I get the stock ready for adding the vegetables.  I melt a knob butter in the bottom of a non-stick soup pot.  I then add 2 tablespoons of plain flour and whisk.  The stock that was set aside earlier is then added to this mixture a little at a time, whisking each time stock is added, until it is all in the pot.  I bring this to the boil and then add the vegetables to the pot.  I then simmer the soup until the vegetables are soft. 

As soon as the vegetables are soft I add the chicken that was leftover from the roast dinner to the pot.  Once the chicken is heated through the soup is ready to serve.  It is very filling and makes a brilliant dinner on a winters night, but this week we will be eating it for lunch.

TIP  To lower the fat content of the soup, omit the butter and flour and simply heat the stock in the soup pot and add the vegetables.

Squash and chorizo stew

This squash and chorizo stew is really quick and easy to make.  It has only five ingredients in it, so there is little preparation work involved.


I served the stew with some baby boiled potatoes which were on offer in Dunnes this week for 48 cent per pack.  I only used half the pack for the 3 of us.  I omitted the parsley as I didn't have any in.  As it was to garnish for serving I do not think that the stew really needed it so I may leave it out if I make this recipe again as it will save a bit of money.  However, if I had some in I would add it at the end as per the method.

The stew is quite inexpensive.  I paid €1.49 for the butternut squash, €0.75 for the Chorizo, 6.5 cent for the onion and €1 for the passata.  Together with the potatoes I paid €3.54 for this meal. 

While I was preparing this dinner I also cooked and pureed a little of the butternut squash to give to my baby as a first taste.  I often try to do this with other vegetables, freezing the puree for future use if I do not need it straight away.

Creamy avocado jackets

Last Saturday I bought 2 avocados that were on offer in Dunnes for 48 cent each.  There were ripe when I checked them yesterday before doing my shopping list, so I decided that we would have creamy avocado jackets for dinner tonight.

Ingredients
5 medium size potatoes
2 avocados
pack of bacon medallions
1/2 tub of light sour cream

Method
To make them, I put potatoes in the oven and roast them until they are cooked.  When they are ready, I take them out, cut them in half and scoop out the potato, cut it into small pieces and put it into a bowl.  I cut up the bacon into small pieces and fry in a non-stick pan.  While the bacon is cooking I prepare the avocado, cutting it into small pieces and adding it to the bowl.  When the bacon is cooked it is also added to the bowl.  I then spoon in the sour cream and mix the ingredients together.  When they are well mixed I spoon the mixture back in the skins of the potatoes and put them back in the oven.  Once the top of the mixture is starting to turn golden I take them out and serve. 

Sometimes I serve them with salad, but tonight we had them on their own.  They are really tasty and filling.  I dont make them often as the avocados can be quite expensive, but with the avocados on offer they cost me € 4.21 to make.

Grocery shopping - meal planner 14/1/2012 to 20/1/2012

Meal plan for Saturday 14th to Friday 20th January is as follows:-

Saturday dinner - Roast chicken dinner
Sunday dinner - Creamy avocado jackets
Monday dinner - Squash and chorizo stew
Tuesday dinner - Pizza
Wednesday dinner - Chicken fajitas
Thursday dinner - Chicken stew (from freezer) and baby potatoes
Friday dinner - Salmon, green beans and baby potatoes

For lunches I will be making creamy chicken soup, ham sandwiches and chicken salad wraps.

This week my grocery shop cost €79.63.  I spent €44.51 in Dunnes, €15.13 in Boots, €19.99 in my local butchers.

Chilli con carne - well, my version of it anyway!

For dinner on Thursday night and tonight we had chilli con carne.  I make it the way my mum always made it, which is a bit different from a normal chilli as we use baked beans instead of kidney beans, and I serve it with pasta instead of rice.  A lot of people think it's a bit strange, but as it's the way it was always made in our house I've never questioned it.

So to make my chilli I used a 800g tin of chopped tomatoes (€1 on special offer), 1lb of mince (€3 from my local butcher), 1 onion (39 cent for a net, 6.5 cent for one), punnet of mushrooms (99 cent per punnet), heaped tsp hot chilli powder, a tsp of hot papkira and a can of baked beans (€2 for 4 on special offer, so 50 cent for one).  I fry off the mince in a non-stick pot until cooked and then add the onion and mushroom after slicing them.  Then I add the spices and cook them for a few minutes before adding the can of shopped tomatoes and the can of baked beans.  I then simmer for about 15 minutes.  Usually I put my pasta (49 cent for 500g) on during this time.

This recipe makes make enough to do dinner for three for two nights, plus two portions for lunch, making it under €3 per meal.  I usually freeze one portion to use a night when I'm too busy to prepare something from scratch.  As it is this dinner is quite quick to make, but on the second night it only takes as long as it takes the pasta to cook for this meal to be ready as I heat the chilli up in the microwave at the same time.

Braised peas with bacon, lentils and sea bass

 

Dinner tonight was braised peas with bacon, lentils and sea bass. 

The recipe uses cod, but I am not keen on cod, so used some sea bass fillets that I had in the freezer instead.  I had no cans of lentils in, so used some dried lentils as I always have a variety of these in the cupboard.  Tonight I used Puy lentils, which I soaked in boiled water in a bowl for 20 minutes before adding them to the pan.  Rather than adding them just before serving to heat them through, I added the lentils at the same time as the frozen peas I used to ensure that they were properly cooked. 

The fat content of this recipe can be lowered by grilling or steaming the fish instead of fryng it.

It is difficult of me to work out the exact cost of this meal, as the only ingredients that I bought for this recipe in my last grocery shop were the bacon, lemon and mint.  The other ingredients were in my cupboard/freezer.

What I can say though is that this recipe is extremely quick to make and is very tasty, making it a brilliant dinner for a weeknight.

Oven-baked red pepper risotto

I love this recipe for red pepper risotto that I came across in October 2008 issue of Good Food magazine.  I've made it so many times now that I no longer need to follow the recipe in order to make it.

TIP   One of the main ingredients is 200g of frozen roasted peppers.  I've not been able to find these anywhere, so buy fresh red peppers and roast them myself.  To do this, you wash, deseed and cut the red peppers - I usually quarter them - place them on an oven tray, spray with fry light and then put in a hot oven until the skins start to bubble and blacken.  I often peel the skins off them before chopping them up for the recipe.  To peel the skins off I put them in a bowl and cover with clingfilm, leaving them to cool a bit.  This makes them easier to peel.  If I am using the oven the day before I make the risotto I will roast the peppers a day in advance, peel and chop them and put them in a tub in the fridge until I need them.

Cost wise this is one of my more expensive recipes just because of the cost of the risotto rice which is 3.15 in my local supermarket.  It is one of the ingredients that I buy if I have money left over in my budget so I tend to always have a pack in the cupboard.  I am going to shop around to see if I can find it cheaper in another shop.

Top tips for lowering the fat in your meals

It's the time of year when most of us have resolved to eat better and one of the main things that can help us do this is lowering the fat content of our meals.  There are a number of things I do when I am cooking to try and lower the fat content of my food as much as possible.

1. Minimise the amount of fat added when cooking.  I do this by using a non-stick pan and cooking meat without adding any oil, or using fry lite instead of olive or cooking oil, or putting a bit of water in the bottom of the pot to start cooking onions etc.
2. Cut fat off meat before cooking, or use cuts that are lower in fat.  I use bacon medallions instead of streaky bacon if a recipe requires bacon and I use lean mince where possible.
3. Use low-fat alternatives where possible, like low-fat cream, cheese, milk.
4. Changing your cooking method can also help lower the fat content.  Grilling or steaming instead of frying can have a massive impact on the fat content of a meal.
5. Decreasing the amount of some ingredients can help lower the fat content of a meal.  For example, if a recipe calls for cream, as well as using the low-fat version, I will sometimes only use half the amount of cream mentioned in the recipe, or not put the ingredient in at all.

Making little changes when cooking means that you can still enjoy a lot of your favourite meals while following a low fat diet. 

Potato and savoy cabbage soup

In line with my meal planner dinner for this evening was potato and savoy cabbage soup.

According to the recipe it takes just 20 minutes to make and I can confirm it took me around 20 minutes to make it.

The picture shows that the soup is served with crispy streaky rashers scattered on it.  I omitted these from the recipe in the interests of saving money and lowering the fat content.  By leaving out the rashers, and using vegetable stock to make it, the soup is suitable for vegetarians.

This soup cost less than €3 to make.  As there is enough for dinner tomorrow night as well this makes it even better value

Chicken stew - freezer dinner

Dinner last night was supposed to be chicken stew but we ended up eating at the home of some family.  As I had all the ingredients in I decided to make it anyway and freeze it for a night when I do not have much time to prepare a meal. 

The recipe uses the same ingredients as the Potato and Savoy cabbage soup plus chicken and leeks.  The recipe is at the bottom of the method for the soup.  To make the stew:-

1. Cut 4 chicken breasts into large chunks and chop the bacon. Heat the oil in a frying pan, fry together until golden, then remove.
2. Add a little more oil, then fry 4 small, finely sliced leeks, the finely sliced celery, the potatoes and the carrot, finely sliced, for few mins.
3. Add stock, turn up the heat and bring to the boil, then simmer.
4. Once the potato is tender, add the chicken and cabbage and simmer for a further 5 mins.

As I was making the stew to put in the freezer I didn't add the potato as I feel it doesn't freeze well when cooked.  Instead, I will cook potatoes separately, then add to the stew when I am reheating it.  In all it took me about 20 minutes to prepare the stew for the freezer.

In order to reduce the fat in this meal, I cooked the chicken and bacon in a non-stick pan and didn't add any oil.  When cooking the vegetables, I added a small bit of water to the bottom of the non-stick pan before adding them.  By doing this I was able to avoid adding any oil when cooking.  I also used bacon medallions instead of streaky bacon, lowering the fat content.

This recipe is another inexpensive dinner.  The chicken breasts were €1 each.  I used 3 instead of the 4 suggested, so I spent €3 on the chicken.  I used 2 large leeks which cost €1, 4 bacon medallions which cost €0.85, a celery stick, carrot and stock cube that I had in which I will allow €0.50 for.  In total it cost €5.35 for 4 generous servings and 2 small ones.  This will do dinner for two nights for my family once the potatoes are added, making it less than €5 per meal.

Successful day shopping - not so successful night cooking

The grocery shopping today went really well as I stayed well within my budget for the week.  The total spent was €49.31 so I have €30.69 left from my budget for the week.

As well as the items on my list I added some additional items as I was shopping.  I bought 4 extra packs of bacon medallions as they were on offer for €1.49 for six and they are handy to have in the freezer.  As well as this, I bought

• Light sour cream
• passata x 2
• kerrymaid spread
• cheese
• 3pk tins chopped tomatoes x 2
• 2pk tins of peas
• 4pk tins of baked beans
• punnet of kiwi
• avocado x2
• parsnip
• pack of wraps x2
• ready made cartons of aptamil x 6

As I was aware that I was spending so much under my budget I stocked up on some things for my cupboard.  All of them were on offer.  Other things I added when in order to make a meal.  For example, it was 48 cent for each avocado, so I added light sour cream so that I can make creamy avocado jackets later in the week.  They will be dinner on either Thursday or Friday night instead of chilli and I'll freeze the leftover chilli for a dinner some other night.

Unfortunately I didn't get to make the chicken stew I had planned to make for tonights dinner as we ended up visiting family and eating with them.  This means that I have ingredients in my fridge for a recipe that I didn't get to make.  I've decided to cook the chicken stew tomorrow morning instead and put it in the freezer for a night when I dont have time to make dinner from scratch.

Towards the end of the week I may take a trip to the butchers to pick up some meat for the freezer.

Cheesy leek and bacon pasta

Friday nights dinner is a recipe from my current issue of Good Food magazine (February 2012).  As it is from my most recent issue it is not available on the website, so I will provide the recipe as it appears in the magazine.  When preparing it for dinner I made a few alterations which I will note at the bottom of this post.

Ingredients

1tbsp olive oil

300g/11oz leeks, halved and finely sliced

8 rashers smoked streaky bacon, sliced

400g/14oz pasta shapes

100g/4oz herb and garlic soft cheese

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan.  Add the leeks and 2 tbsp water, and cook for about 10 mins until very soft.  Add the bacon, turn up the heaat and fry until cooked.
2. Menwhile, cook the pasta following pack instructions.  Drain and reserve a mug of the cooking water.
3. Spoon cheese into the leek and bacon mix, adding some of the reserved cooking water.  Season and stir gently over a low heat until melted.  Toss though the cooked pasta, adding a little more cooking water, if needed, to help the sauce coat the pasta.

Per serving - 556kcals, protein 23g, carbs 76g, fat 18g, sat fat 7g, fibre 4g, sugar 4g, salt 1.5g

In my altered version I didn't add the olive oil, I just cooked the leeks in the water.  I used some back bacon that I had in the fridge in the place of the streaky bacon.  For the cream cheese I used some phildelphia light that was in the fridge.  Also, as the recipe is for four I halfed the ingredients.

It was really quick and easy to make, so would be perfect for a night when dinner has to be prepared quickly.

I can't work out how much this meal cost me exactly.  The bacon was €1.50, the pasta was 49 cent for 500g and the leeks were €1.  The phildelphia has been in since before christmas and I cant remember what I paid for it so have allowed €1.  I think this is quite generous as I only used a third of the tub. I think it's safe to say that it was well under €5.

If I make this again it will just be for me and the kids as my husband isn't keen.  He doesn't like cheese and I decided to give it to him without letting on what was in it.  Although he ate it, he obviously didn't enjoy it so I will not be making it for him again.  My daughter and I loved it.

Grocery shopping - meal planner 7/1/2012 to 13/1/2012

Each week before I do my shopping I plan the meals for the following week and then write a list of the groceries I need to make these meals.  My meal planner for Saturday 7th until Friday 13th January is as follows:-

Saturday dinner - Chicken stew (recipe after the method)

Sunday dinner - Potato and Savoy cabbage soup

Monday dinner - left over potato and savoy cabbage soup

Tuesday dinner - roasted red pepper risotto

Wednesday dinner - braised peas with bacon, lentils and sea bass (recipe has cod, but I will use sea bass)

Thursday dinner - chilli

Friday dinner - left over chilli

Saturday lunch - chorizo and chickpea soup

I've lunch for Saturday 14th as well as I have will have everything in I need to make it after this week’s shop.  For lunches we will have ham sandwiches as there is ham in the fridge and left over red pepper risotto on Wednesday and Thursday.  For weaning the baby I will get a parsnip and sweet potato and introduce these to him this week, along with potato, apple and banana.

My shopping list for the week is as follows:-

• bag of onions (on offer in lidl)
• Savoy cabbage (on offer in lidl)
• Irish bacon medallions x 2 (on offer in lidl)
• parsnip x1
• sweet potato x 1
• red pepper x 2
• parsley
• lemons x 2
• mint
• mushrooms
• bananas
• oranges
• apples
• slim line milk x 2
• 2 litres full fat milk
• butter
• loaf of bread
• chorizo x 2 (on offer in Dunnes)

My shopping budget at the moment is € 80.  This week’s shopping should be considerably less than this so I will get some extras in for my store cupboard depending what is on offer. 

Once I have got my shopping I shall post a comment updating what extras I bought together with the exact amount spent. 

Egg-cellent!!

While trying to figure out what to make for my lunch today I noticed that the best before date on some eggs I had was for the 28th December.  I'm never sure what to do about eggs that are older than their best before date and usually end up throwing them out if they are more than a few days past it.  As I had a bit of time today I decided to have a search of the internet to see if I could find a way of checking to see if they were safe to eat rather than just throwing them out.  I came across a wikihow on the egg water test.  Basically you can check whether or not an egg is safe to eat by putting it in water and seeing what it does.  Never again will I needlessly throw out an egg!!

Chorizo and bean salad with oven chips.

For dinner tonight we had a variation of the cannellini bean salad with roast cherry tomatoes and chorizo on the BBC Good food website.

When roasting the tomatoes I sprayed fry lite on them instead of drizzling them with olive oil.  I had no sherry vinegar in, so used white wine vinegar instead.  The taste was still good!

In the past I have used butter beans instead of cannellini beans as well.

Cost wise, this wasn't too expensive for me.  The chorizo is on offer at the moment at my local supermarket  and is €2 for 200g, so I used 50 cent worth of chorizo in this recipe.  The bag of lettuce leaves I used was lambs lettuce and rocket, which cost €1.09.  Cherry tomatoes were 89 cent and the cannellini beans (which I got a while ago) were €1.09.  I am allowing 30 cent for the red onion and another 20 cent for the squirt of fry lite, the white wine vinegar and honey.  This means that the total cost of the salad is €4.07.

I served this with a few oven chips.  To save on energy costs I roast the tomatoes while I am cooking the oven chips.  Doing this also means the salad is nice and warm.

The recipe easily feeds 2 adults and a child.  I could have stretched it further by putting on a few more chips and getting a lunch out of the salad for tomorrow, but having done this in the past I dont think it tastes as nice cold the next day.  If I was to keep some for a lunch in the future I think I would mix all the ingredients together, except the lettuce leaves, then lift out what I needed for the next day before adding the lettuce.  Then I would add the lettuce leaves before serving it for lunch.

Grocery shopping - part one

Once a week I go to my local supermarket and my local butcher to get the groceries for the week.  I always take a shopping list with me.  One of my new years resolutions will be to stick to it as far as possible.

To prepare my shopping list I check out what is on offer at my local supermarkets and what I have in the fridge and freezer.  I then pick the recipes for the week based on what is on offer.  If I am stuck for recipe ideas for the vegetables on offer I go to the BBC Good Food website and do a search for recipes containing one or more of the vegetables on offer.

For example, this week Lidl have savoy cabbage, onions, and carrots on offer.  For dinner one night and for lunch the next day I will make potato and savoy cabbage soup, which I came across by doing a search on the Good Food website.  I will also make chorizo and chickpea soup as I have chickpeas in my cupboard and chorizo left over in the fridge from earlier in the week.  These recipes are new to me, so I will try to stick with recipes I am familiar with for the rest of the week.

Once I have my final shopping list ready I will post it, together with a list of the meals I have planned for the week.

Leftovers

Tonights dinner is leftovers from last night.  I often try to double up quantities when I'm cooking so that I can eat the same thing the next night, or freeze a meal for another night when I dont have as much time to cook. 

As well as saving time by cooking once instead of twice it means we are less likely to resort to expensive take-aways on nights when we don't feel like cooking as we always have something decent in the freezer.  It also saves money as you only have the cooker going once so you use less gas/electric.

Baby weaning - making your own food

This week I began to wean my youngest on food that I have prepared myself. 

I've opted to prepare the food myself as I feel it has a number of advantages that out-weigh any cons I can come up with.  By preparing the babies food :-

• I know where the food has come from
• I know what is in the food
• I save money as jars of food are very expensive
• I can feed the baby the same food I prepare for the rest of the family instead of preparing something separately (provided I make some simple alterations such as avoiding stock cubes which are high in salt)
• I do not have to worry about disposing of glass jars, pouches etc that ready made food comes in (this also saves me money as I have to pay to have my bin emptied each time it is full, or I have to make a trip to the bottle bank to dispose of glass which costs fuel)

At the moment I am going through the process of introducing food to the baby by giving first tastes of the various vegetables and fruit that I use to cook with.  I'll give tastes of these fruits and vegetables on their own initially so that he can get used to the different tastes and I can make sure he isn't allergic to anything.  Later on I will give him mixes of foods, depending on what the family is eating.

For anyone interested in preparing their own food for baby I recommend Annabel Karmel's website for information on weaning and recipes. 

Lamb and lettuce pan-fry

For tonights dinner I made lamb and lettuce pan-fry, a recipe from the June 2007 of Good Food magazine, served with boiled potatoes.


I used diced lamb from my freezer that I bought from my butcher before Christmas instead of the neck fillets outlined in the recipe.  There were also frozen peas in my freezer and I had chicken stock cubes in, so all I had to buy was the baby gem lettuce. I bought a pack of 2 instead of 3.

Again in the interests of my new year, shed the pounds diet, I left out the butter and fried the lamb in fry lite.

Soup anyone?

For dinner tonight we had Leek, Potato and Bacon soup at the request of my 3 year old.  Normally I make this soup by frying and onion in butter, adding 3 chopped bacon rashers and continue frying, then add 3 leeks and medium potatoes that have been sliced, add 1.5 litres of vegetable stock, bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.  I then blend and add about 150ml of cream.

For my new year, shift the pounds version, I omit the butter and cream.  I softened the onions in a little water. 

It went down well with the family and we have some left for lunch tomorrow.  It cost less than €4 for 4 servings. 

Sharing herbs and spices

Recently I cleaned out my herb and spice jar section of my kitchen.  There were a LOT of jars that were unopened or practically full that had gone out of date.  This is the result adding herbs and spices to my shopping list as I come across recipes that require them.  Unfortunately, more often than not, I end up using said herb or spice once, if at all!  Bit of an expensive habit!!

My first task for 2012 will be to kick this habit.  I've dumped all the old herbs and spices, but kept the jars.  After talking to my mum and discovering she has the same bad habit, we've decided to do a spice/herb swap.  Each time we need to buy a new spice or herb we are going to check if the other has it in their cupboard.  If my mum has something I need she is going to pour some into one of her old jars and give it to me.  If mum doesn't have what I need, I'll add it to the shopping list and buy it (if possible I'll buy a refill box of it instead of a jar as I have loads of jars I can use as a result of my clear out).  When I get home I will pour half of the new spice/herb into one of my old jars, label it and give it to her.  She'll do the same each time she buys a new herb or spice.

We are hoping that by doing this we will save a little bit of money in 2012 and stop having to throw out nearly full jars of herbs/spices that have gone past their best.  It will also mean that we are putting the old jars we have to good use by reusing them.

My new years resolution

This year I have decided that my resolution for 2012 will be to create and maintain a blog.  So here it is!!

After spending a while trying to decide what the content of my blog should be, I have opted to write about food.  I love cooking (and eating), so will be writing about different recipes that I try from the various cookbooks and magazines I have gathering dust on my kitchen shelf, as well as providing some of my kitchen tips. 

Like many families, our grocery budget is much smaller than it was previously and I hope that I can outline how it is possible to provide nutritious meals for a family that are not too expensive.  For each recipe mentioned I will attempt to provide a rough estimate of the cost per serving based on the prices I pay for the ingredients in my local shops and supermarkets.