Meal Planning

I have been writing out a weekly meal plan for some time now.

I find it really does cut down on your shopping bills to know what you need to buy for the week ahead. Or to not decide one day that you will make X for dinner, only to find you need a certain ingredient for it, pop out to the shops for said ingredient and then buy a whole pile of other stuff too.

It doesn't mean I won't buy anything that is not on my list but on offer.

When I am doing the food shopping, if I see a meat or something else that is freezable on a good special offer, but that isn't on my meal plan for that week, I will probably buy it and pop it in the freezer, then include it in a following week's meal plan.

I have been known to succumb to the odd chocolate offer too :0)

I was quite excited to see that Sainsbury's (my store of choice!) have this last week launched a 'Feed a family of four for £50' meal plan.

The meal plan includes breakfast, lunch and dinner for 7 days, with the recipes and shopping list. It doesn't include any snacks or puddings but I don't think that is too big a deal. I bought extra fruit for some of the snacks, the rest will be home baking anyway, as will any puddings.

We will have to modify things a bit, with all the food allergies I need to cater for, but on the whole I'm planning to stick to the menu, which we started last night.

The dinner menu is:

Monday - Meatballs & Spaghetti 

(two lots of pasta, one normal, one wheat free)

Tuesday - Vegetable Stir Fry 

(I'm planning to add the left over beef from Sunday's roast. The suggested protein was peanuts, which are a BIG danger in this house!)

Wednesday - Sausage & Bean Hotpot

Thursday - Cottage Pie 

(an almost weekly choice in our house anyway)

Friday - Salmon Pasta Bake 

(again, two lots of pasta needed)

Saturday - Toad in the hole

 (I just can't get wheat & dairy free yorkshires to work, so as well as this I'll cook wheat-free sausages for Calum & Alasdair and they can have them with the mash.

Sunday - Roast Chicken

It's really nice to have the menu's made up in advance, and I think Sainsbury's are planning a month's worth, so I'm looking forward to what next week has in store - thanks Sainsbury's!

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It's Pancake Day!

Never ones to pass over any celebration of food, the boys and I made pancakes tonight in celebration of Shrove Tuesday.

Technically they weren't pancakes but crepes, but that is what everyone associates with Pancake Day so that's what we had.

Here is little man with his little pancake.

Now here is Calum, eager to get to flip his pancake.

And here is the flipping.....

It was then James' turn to flip his pancake, and it was at this point that I realised that without a fancy camera, it's not really possible to take a good photo of a pancake being flipped!

In order to share their skills at flipping these pancakes/crepes I then took a couple of wee videos but first I thought I show how I had my pancake.

Smothered in warm chocolate sauce, and stuffed with bananas (and a little more sauce!)

Onto the flipping.

First Calum and then James & David.

Gaelic word of the day:

spòrs (as it looks) - fun

Bha tòrr spòrs againn a nochd (va tor spors ag-een a noch-g) - we had a lot of fun tonight

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Recipe of the Week - Chocolate Reindeer Cake

Christmas cake can be a bit rich for children to eat. As well as that, our Calum doesn't like raisins, which is a fairly major obstacle to enjoying Christmas cake! So one year a few years back I came up with this idea, and it has become something of a tradition in our house ever since.

This fellow here is last years cake. We spent last Christmas at my parents' but the reindeer cake still had to feature!

The cake is basically my Old fashioned chocolate cake recipe but instead of cooking it in round sandwich tins, cook it in a long rectangular tray-bake tin. It will need slightly longer to cook, although not too much longer.

You will also need:

2 cinnamon sticks (the antlers)

a pinch of dried cranberries, or a glacier cherry (the nose)

2 dairy-free white chocolate buttons (the eyes)

Once the cake has cooled it is time to start cutting the shapes. These measurements are very rough. I don't measure them!

Place the cake with the longest sides across the top and bottom. Using a sharp knife cut off a chunk, from top to bottom, of about  a quarter for the head, leave 2/4 for the body and cut the final quarter into four slices (across the way) for the legs. 

I hope that makes sense!

If you think your cake is thick enough to do so without it crumbling, slice each section through the middle so that you can sandwich them together with some of the chocolate butter icing. If your cake isn't thick enough it won't need this extra layer of icing anyway as it will be covered in the stuff!

Now arrange your pieces on a large plate, or foil covered tray if you don't have a plate large enough, and cover the whole cake with the rest of the chocolate buttercream.

Add the antlers, nose and eyes, using a dot of buttercream on the buttons to make the pupils.

I know he looks too cute to eat but once you have a taste of the chocolate cake you will feel better about it!

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i can cook!

Yes, well, I like to think that I can. But this is about David.

He loves the Cbeebies programme I can cook and was desperate for the book for his birthday. He got both the book and a kids cookery set. 

This week he has made a chocolate orange pudding on Tuesday, apricot rock buns on Wednesday and easy-peasy pizza on Thursday! He coped admirable with rubbing the butter into the flour for the rock buns and pizza.

He loves the book and so do I. It is ideal for children his age or older. A lot of kids cookery books are mainly sweet recipes or have recipes designed to look like something fun but really don't taste so good. This one has a good balance of sweet and savoury and it all looks like the sort of food that would be good to eat!

I'd highly recommend it. David's already planning what to make next week!

I

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