Sweet potato and easy chilli bake

Dinner this evening I made sweet potato and easy chilli bake - see the 'try' note at the bottom of the recipe to make the recipe into a bake. 

I opted to make the bake instead of just serving the roasted sweet potatoes with the chilli inside as I thought it might be easier to serve it to my children that way.  My daughter is not keen on sweet potato and I worried that if I served it to her with the chilli in it that she would just eat the chilli and leave the sweet potato.  With the bake she mixed it altogether and ate it all without question.  I served to to the baby the same way.  They both really enjoyed it and I have to say I enjoyed it myself.  Unfortunately my husband was out, so I didn't get any feedback from him on it.  Though, if I am honest I don't think he would have eaten any of it as he claims to hate sweet potato.  Perhaps if he had been here I would have had to mix it all together the same way my daughter did and give it to him that way!!

Anyway, to save myself some time I roasted the sweet potato last night.  TIP  - when roasting sweet potato avoid using a pizza tray.  In my haste to get my potatoes on last night I roasted them on the first oven tray I could put my hand to and it was a pizza tray.  Result - the sugar that oozed out of the sweet potatoes as they were roasting dripped through the holes in the tray and is now all over my oven.  So - that's oven cleaner for the shopping list this week :-(

The recipe is for 8, so I halved the ingredients.  I had loads left over so I froze the leftover chilli and made a portion for lunch tomorrow.  I didn't freeze the little bit of sweet potato I had left over as there was sour cream in it and I didn't think that the cream would freeze well.  Next time I'll make a bit less sweet potato as I had to throw a bit out. 

I used chilli powder instead of Cajun seasoning as I don't have any Cajun seasoning.

COST - The mince cost €3, the sweet potatoes were €2.74, the chilli was 40 cent, the onion was 28 cent, 400g tin of tomato is €1 and the can of kidney beans €1.09, making the total cost of the chilli €8.51!  Gulp!!  I think that it is safe to say that this might be the most expensive meal I had made to date.  Of course, some of it is in the freezer, so I have actually not spent that much on what we had for dinner this evening, it's more like half of that - €4.26, which sounds an awful lot better!

Pancake Tuesday!

Well, as it's Shrove Tuesday I decided that we may as well have pancakes for dinner.  Pancakes are quick and easy to make and can be served with  of sweet and savoury foods. 
One of my all time favourite ways to eat pancakes is to have them with maple syrup and crispy bacon.  I also love them served with blueberry compote that I make by heating blueberries and a little sugar in a saucepan over a low heat.  A bit sweet to be having for dinner everyday, but we only do this once a year on Shrove Tuesday so I think it's ok to have them for dinner as a once off!

Pancakes are excellent finger food to give to babies.  I made small ones especially for my son and gave them to him to try.  My 3 year old daughter refuses to eat eggs, so pancakes are a good way of including eggs in her diet.

Who doesn't like a Sunday roast?

To be honest, until a few years ago I had gone off Sunday roasts altogether.  During my final few years living at my parents house we seemed to have roast chicken or beef with potatoes and vegetables all the time.  At least, that's what it felt like.  After I left home to go to university I stopped eating roast dinners, even managing to avoid eating them when I went home.  I had become sick of them!  Fast forward a (good) few years and I love having a roast dinner.  We don't have them every Sunday though - I don't want to get to the point where I am bored of eating them again - and I try to shake things up a bit by having different vegetables on the side or cooking the potatoes a different way.
Yesterday we had a roast chicken dinner.  I got the chicken from my local butcher on Saturday.  It cost €6.99 which is a bit more expensive than the whole chickens you can get in the supermarkets but I prefer to buy it from my butcher as I feel it tastes much better. 

With the chicken yesterday we had a little bit of mash potatoes, roast potatoes (made the same way that the roast potatoes were made last weekend), mashed carrots and parsnip and gravy with onions, some carrot and parsnip through it.  For dinner this evening, we had leftovers from yesterday.  The baby had the same dinner as us, minus the gravy. 

TIP - Having a whole chicken - then get as much out of it as possible.  After slicing the roast chicken for our dinner yesterday and today, I pulled the remaining meat from the wings and legs and put it in a bowl.  Then I made chicken stock by boiling the carcass in water in a stock pot on my cooker.  I used the chicken stock and the meat to make a soup (a version of the creamy chicken soup mentioned earlier in the blog) for lunches this week.

Cost - Sometimes paying for a whole chicken can seem a bit expensive, however you can get more out of a whole chicken than you can out of chicken breasts making it good value for money.  We had dinner for 2 nights - slicing a breast for each night - plus six portions of soup from our lunch during the week.  The chicken was € 4.66 (I've allowed two thirds of the cost for the roast dinners), the parsnips were 49 cent, the carrots were 99 cent per 1 kg bag (I used them all between the soup and dinners), the potatoes were about € 1.50 and the onion was 28cent.  The total for the roast dinner was €7.92, making it €3.96 per dinner. 

Looking at the cost of our roast dinner I can easily understand why my mum made so many of them.  It was good value for money and offered a well balanced meal of protein, carbs and veg.

Chicken and chorizo jambalaya

Last night I made the chicken and chorizo jambalaya recipe from the April 2011 issue of the good food magazine. 

The recipe requires Cajun seasoning.  I didn't have any Cajun seasoning so I used a teaspoon of hot chilli powder instead.  It has a few of the ingredients used to make Cajun seasoning in it and was the closest possible substitute I had in my kitchen.  I found that the 350ml of chicken stock was not enough to make the rice tender and I had to add a bit more water to it as it was cooking.

Overall this was really easy to make and turned out really nice.  I feel that it took less time than the 55 minutes stated in the recipe to make and would be happy to make it during the week after getting home from work.  Next time I make it I'll add an extra pepper to increase the amount of vegetables being served.

TIP - This recipe is already low fat, but I decreased the amount of fat further by not adding the olive oil when cooking.  Instead, I cooked the chicken in a non-stick saute pan which is the only pan I had suitable for making the recipe as I don't own a frying pan with a lid. 

Cost - The two chicken breasts cost €2, the chorizo cost 75 cent, the red pepper was 95 cent, the can of peeled plum tomatoes was 67 cent, the rice was 30 cent, the onion was 28 cent and I am allowing 20 cent for the garlic, chilli powder and stock cube.  That makes the total cost of the recipe €5.15.  The recipe will easily serve 4 adults.  Leftovers would make a nice cold lunch with some salad leaves.

Grocery shopping - meal planner 18/2/2012 - 24/2/2012

My grocery shop for this week should be relatively cheap as we are going to be away from Thursday to Saturday, possibly Sunday.

My meal plan for Saturday 18th Febraury to Friday 24th Febraury is as follows:-

Saturday lunch - leek and potato soup
Saturday dinner - Chicken and chorizo jambalaya
Sunday lunch - leftover soup
Sunday dinner - roast chicken, roast potatoes, roast veg and parsnip mash
Monday dinner - leftover Sunday dinner
Tuesday dinner - pancakes!!
Wednesday dinner - Sweet potatoe and easy chilli bake

My shopping list for this week is quite small so I'll add some extras like toilet roll.

Chicken and veg bake with mashed potatoes

My husband prepared dinner tonight from a recipe that I taught him how to make - chicken and veg bake.  We had leftover mash from yesterdays roast dinner with the chicken and veg bake.

I usually use a can of chicken soup for this recipe but we had none in the house so used a can of mushroom soup instead.

Ingredients
2 x chicken breasts (€2)
carrots (30 cent)
celery (50 cent)
broccoli (59 cent)
can of mushroom soup (€1 - estimate)
milk - I use around 250ml (50 cent - estimate)
slice of bread (5 cent)

Method

1. Prepare the veg and cut into chunks.  Steam until almost soft and remove from the heat.
2. Cut the chicken breast into chunks and cook in a non-stick frying pan.
3. Heat the soup and add milk to it.  Once is it starting to warm lift it off the heat.
4. Make breadcrumbs with the slice of bread in a food processor.
5. Put the veg in the bottom of a rectangular roasting dish.  Put the chicken on top of the veg and then pour the heated soup on top of it.  Scatter the breadcrumbs across the top.  Put the dish in the oven.
6. Heat until the breadcrumbs are beginning to brown.  Lift out of the oven and serve.

TIP - This recipe is already low in fat, but to lower it further I use low fat condensed soup. 

TIP - To save time on making the meal tonight I prepared the veg in advance so that all my husband had to do was steam it.  After preparing the veg I put it in a resealable sandwich bag and stored it in the fridge.

COST - The total cost of the recipe is €4.94.  As this is doing dinner for two nights (we are having leftovers tomorrow) this means that the cost is only €2.47.  Not bad, although the mash increases the cost slightly. 

Parsnip mash with apple

For dinner today we had a roast beef dinner.  For veg sides I decide to try something different that we hadn't had before.  I picked parsnip mash with apple as parsnips and apples were on offer in Aldi this week and I had picked up some, so had all the ingredients in that I needed.  The other good thing about this side dish was that it was perfect to serve to the baby.

Instead of Bramley apples I used Granny Smiths as these were the apples I had.  I had no ground coriander in the house so just omitted it.  It went down well and I will definitely be making it again.

The rest of the dinner was delicious as well.  I served roast potatoes with the dinner which my husband made by peeling some potatoes and putting them on the roasting tray beside the beef in the oven.  At the end, when the beef was resting, the potatoes were put back in the oven to finish off.  They were delicious. 

For the baby I put a bit of the parsnip and apple mash, potato mash and some of the beef pulled apart. 

I had quite a few leftovers with this meal, so I prepared two containers of food for the baby and put them in the freezer.  The remaining parsnip and apple mash was put in a container and frozen while the mash potato was put in a tub and put in the fridge to be used for dinner tomorrow night.  My husband has declared that he is going to use the leftover beef for sandwiches later this evening - I shall try to convince him to leave them for lunch tomorrow instead.

Cost - This was quite an expensive meal, but when you consider all the leftovers it's no too bad.  My parents were visiting, so it feed 4 adults, one child, one baby and had quite a lot of leftovers.  The roast was eye of the round and it cost €13.99, the potatoes cost €1.50, the parsnip cost 74 cent, the apples cost 16 cent and the broccoli was 40 cent.  The total is €16.79.

Grocery shopping - meal planner 11/2/2012 to 17/2/2012

Meal plan for Saturday 11th to Friday 17th February is as follows:-

Saturday lunch - Sausage, bacon, black pudding, fried eggs and rolls
Saturday dinner - Barr's butchers steak and onion pie, wedges and baked beans
Sunday lunch - Leek, potato and bacon soup
Sunday dinner - Roast beef, parsnip and apple mash, turnip, broccoli and roast potatoes
Monday dinner - Chicken and veg bake with potatoes
Tuesday dinner - leftovers from Monday
Wednesday dinner - Salmon with leeks and parsnip
Thursday dinner - Spag Bol
Friday dinner - leftovers from Thursday

For lunches we will have ham sandwiches, leek, potato and bacon soup, black bean and chorizo soup and tuna salad.  We were having a big lunch on Saturday owing to my parents visiting.  They brought with them the dinner for Saturday night, which saved a bit of money so I decided to buy some eye of the round to roast for dunner on Sunday.  It is a nice cut of meat and is a bit more expensive than the cut we usually get at the butchers for roasting.

The baby still has some food left in the freezer.  I need to make up some fruit for him to take to creche though.  They mix it in with his breakfast. 

I discovered Aldi this week.  I had never been shopping in aldi before and was pleased to pick up some groceries at a really reasonable price.  I am off to do my grocery shopping tomorrow, so I'll post up my costs for the week then.

It's my mums birthday today, so I am debating picking up something nice for desert.  I'll see what is in the shops when I go.  If I was more organised I'd have made a cake or something instead. 

Spiced root vegetable soup - lesson learned!!

For lunch during the week I made the spiced root vegetable soup from the Goodfood website.

I made it on Tuesday evening for lunch the rest of the week.  Of course once I had finished making it I has we wee taste of it.  It was delicious and I enjoyed it for lunch on Wednesday. 

However, on Tuesday night when I made it I left it to cool in the pot over night when I went to bed.  I put some into a tub for lunch the next day and left it to cool on the counter.  On Wednesday morning we were running late and my husband put my lunch into my bag.  I was out the door and on my way to work before I realised that I had forgotten to put the rest of the soup in the fridge.  By the time I got home that night it had soured.  :-(  The sun shines in our kitchen all day and it can get quite hot when the doors are closed regardless of the time of year.  So my delicious soup ended up down the sink instead of in tubs for my lunch!

Hmmmm...lesson learned!!

Chunky chicken and ham chowder

Our dinner tonight made use of some of the food we had in our freezer.  At Christmas, the ham we got was very large (I had to get the butcher to cut it in half so that I could cook it!) and we had quite a bit leftover.  So I sliced it and froze it to use in dinners early in 2012.  I decided to use some of the ham this week, but didn't fancy having a dinner of meat, veg and potatoes both nights that I am having ham, so opted to make the chunky chicken and ham chowder from February 2006 issue of Goodfood dinner tonight.

TIP - Although the fat content of this meal is low to begin with, it is possible to lower it further by using fry lite spray in place of the olive oil and by using skimmed milk.

I found this recipe really quick and easy to make.  As well as being very tasty, it was extremely filling so is suitable for an evening meal.  The recipe on the website suggests swapping the chicken and ham for some fish which I may do some time I make it in the future.  It is an ideal recipe to keep in mind for any day that we have a roast ham as I can make it using some leftover ham for dinner the next day.

I made it earlier in the day for dinner later one.  This worked out well, although I did find it necessary to add a bit of water as it becomes extremely thick when standing.

For me one of the best things about this chowder was the fact that I was able to give it to the baby as well without making an alterations.  I just mashed the veg and finely chopped the meat before giving it to him.  He really enjoyed it and actually ended up having some from his dads bowl as well!!

COST - As I already had the ham leftover it is difficult to work out the exact cost for this recipe.  The leeks were €1.32, the potatoes were 50 cent, the milk as 80 cent, the chicken was €2 and the peas and sweetcorn were about 60 cent.  So, excluding the cost of the ham, this recipe was €4.62 for 4 servings (I have counted the baby and toddler serving as one, plus serving for lunch earlier in the day when I made it).

To be honest, I found that there was a lot of meat in it and I think that the next time I make it I will use one chicken breast instead of two, which will lower the cost a bit.  I also think it would be possible to add some extra veg to it and make it last for a second night or lunches the next day.

Grocery budget revisited

My grocery budget has been €80 for a while.  I can not actually remember the last time I went through our household budget, so I decided that this weekend would be a good time to check it out.  Having sat down wand worked out our in comings and outgoings, I've realised that we can now comfortably spend €100 per week now instead of my previous €80.  This is just as well as my baby has gone from one meal a day to 3 meals a day within a matter of weeks.  He has an excellent appetite, so though he is only a baby and eating a small amount of food in comparison with the rest of us, I still need to get some snacks for him and the occasional jar of food which all adds up.

This week is the fifth week I've tracked the money I've spent on the food shopping so I decided to work out how much I've spent to date.  Looking back I can see that I spent €228.60 on grocery shopping.  During the week we've sometimes had to pick up extra milk and bread, so I am adding on an extra €10 per week as I haven't made a proper note of this.  That means that over the last 4 weeks our grocery shopping has come to €268.60 which is an average of €67.15 per week. This is quite low. 

If you are wondering how I've managed to keep my weekly spend so low over the last four weeks it is because I have only had to pick up a few cartons of formula for the baby and no nappies, toiletries or cleaning products.  This is because I stocked up on these items before Christmas when there were some really good offers going in the shops.

Although I now have a budget of €100 per week, I will try to keep this as low as possible.  Any money that I have left over at the end of the next four weeks I will use to buy seeds and supplies for my garden as I will soon be preparing to grow my own vegetables over the spring/summer.

My weekly grocery shop for this week I spent €52.42 in Dunnes, €8.23 in Marks and Spencers, €4.39 in Lidl, €10 in the butchers (10 chicken breasts for €10) and €4.97 in my local green grocer.  That's €80.01 in total.

Grocery shopping - meal planner 4/2/2012 to 10/2/2012

Meal plan for Saturday 4th February to Friday 10th February is as follows:-

Saturday dinner - Chicken fajitas
Sunday dinner - chunky chicken and ham chowder
Monday dinner - Shepherd's pie
Tuesday dinner - leftover shepherd's pie
Wednesday dinner - Herb and lemon pork chops
Thursday dinner - Ham, parsnip mash with apple, cider-braised cabbage and leek
Friday dinner  - Haggis, carrot and turnip mash, mashed potatoes

For lunches we will have ham sandwiches, Spiced root vegetable soup and tuna salad.  The baby will eat some of the meals I prepared earlier in the week and froze as well as having a try of the food we are eating, where suitable.  He is getting very hungry during the day, so I'm going to get some yogurts for him to have as a snack as well as his three meals and

Tonight's dinner was made with food I already had in.  I have to go and do my grocery shop tomorrow so will post the total cost of my weeks shopping then.

My shopping list for this week is:-

1. Leeks x 4
2. Potatoes
3. Carrots
4. Sweet potato x 2
5. Onion x 2
6. red chilli
7. celery
8. parsnips
9. parsley
10. lettuce
11. scallions
12. cherry tomatoe
13. cucumber
14. oranges
15. bananas
16. apples
17. slimline milk x 2 1litres
18. full fat milk 2 litres
19. glenisk yogurts (for the baby)
20. ham
21. earl grey teabags
22. frozen sweetcorn
23. formula