Comfort and ease.

I like nothing better than coming home from work and relaxing. I don't want to spend lots of time doing stuff when I get home; home time is for relaxing, spending time with family and winding down after a hectic day. 

And that includes food and cooking. I love cooking, but the last thing I want to do after a long day at work is slave away for ages over a meal - I want something nice, simple and easy. 

This is what we had for tea tonight:

The potatoes, onion and peas were things we had in already. That's a pork shoulder steak on the plate too, which cost 75p and we needed apple sauce too. But, a very tasty meal which doesn't cost much and little effort in cooking is the best one in my book. 

Happy Monday. 

Homemade ready meals.

Something that I'm going to try and use a bit more to my advantage over the next few weeks are homemade ready meals. I'm going to make more than needed and freeze the leftovers, therefore creating homemade ready meals. 

I'm hoping that it'll make life easier in the long run, even if it's slightly more effort in the first place. 

Tonight we had spanish chicken bake, which was leftovers from a previous night. I made enough for four portions, and froze two of them. When it's been frozen, it doesn't look particularly good....:

But, once heated through it tastes pretty good! 

It's a Hairy Dieters recipe, which can be found here and it's really straight forward and healthy. 

Do you do your own "ready" meals? How do you set it up? How long can things be frozen for?

Food.

Sorry, things have been busy lately, and to be honest, my life is not exciting! So, nothing really to post. 

But, here's some things I've been eating lately:

Poached egg on toast, with a mini babybel and some cherries :) with a coffee made with almond milk

Veg and noodle stir fry

Spaghetti with tomatoes, garlic, capers and anchovies

And sometimes, just because I can, I had this for tea:

Pancake with nutella, banana and raspberries - YUM!

N xxx

Rain, rain, go away.

I spoke too soon before about the sun shining - the weather has been awful here today! It's rained pretty much all day and it's been very dark and gloomy. Pffft. 

I've been thinking lately about what we eat (as always) but also how much processed food we eat. Over the coming months, I am going to try and cut down how much processed food we buy and therefore eat, and go back to more basic food stuffs. 

Another cheap-o tea here:

Spaghetti puttanesca, from the good food website but with some small changes (more capers and anchovies, no olives) and all food from the food cupboard again. It took less than 15 minutes from start to plate. 

N xxx

Simply does it.

I am loving the sunshine at the moment - finally feels a bit like summer!

I'm trying to incorporate more vegetarian meals into our diet, as it's healthier and also cheaper. 

This is what I made tonight:

Bean chilli with HM potato wedges. First time I've made either, and it was pretty tasty! The wedges look really pale in this picture, but they were cooked properly :) they were a nice change from rice with chilli. By using tinned harricot beans, kidney beans and chopped tomatoes, it made a pretty cheap meal for us both :) 

N x

Plain and simple.

It has turned into a lovely evening here, with the sun shining and just a couple of fluffy white clouds in the sky. 

I can't believe it's half way through June tomorrow, already! This year is going so fast - it'll soon be December by the look of things. 

Just a couple of pictures today, simple food and speedy to make - just what I like on a week night!

Yellow pepper, courgette, onion and button mushroom stir fry with sauce. 

Even easier pud - greek yogurt with honey, raspberries and strawberries.

N xxx

Let them eat cake.

Some weeks I try and use food stuffs that we've already got in for some meals, just so the food budget isn't stretched during the month. Tonight I made risotto (only my second time making this!) using risotto rice from the cupboard, peas and bacon from the freezer and a stock cube. The only thing I had to buy towards this meal was a small onion, which didn't cost too much. 

It was really really tasty! Straight forward, quick and fairly cheap too. A definite keeper for a swift midweek meal.

Remember I mentioned my friendship cake the other day? Well, today was D-day! It was the day to mix in all of the ingredients and wait for the results. To mine I put in some chopped cooking apples, cinnamon, raisins and chopped almonds in. The end result was this:

Nom nom nom. Of course, me and other half had to try it, just to check it tasted okay.... ;)

Verdit? Very yummy, and if we get another starter given to us, definitely one to make again! 

N xxx

A new trend?

I've been trying to eat from our store cupboard lately, and to make meals out of things we already have in. This week I have used 2 onions, some couscous, many spices and other bits and bobs to make lovely meals with. 

Today, for me at least, was no exception.

I found a couple of days ago, in the fridge, a half eaten broccoli tree. Oh no! I must have forgotten about it during last week and it has sat and languished in the corner of my fruit and veg tray in the fridge. So, last night I had Moroccan style chicken stew with a side of broccoli and tonight I had this:

May I introduce to you broccoli bolognese? It's the healthier cousin of spaghetti bolognese, designed to use up the broccoli in the fridge, but also making the whole dish much more healthy. This is what I had for my tea tonight. My other half did himself a massive portion of spaghetti to have with his sauce, and was much amused when I sat down with half my plate filled with green trees. 

I said I thought I'd start a new trend.... 

He was rather sweet today though, and got me some beautiful flowers:

He's not all bad.... ;)

N xxx

Slow cooker round two.

I need to get better with this whole blogging thing (have I said that before?), I promise I will!

Today marks the second time I have used my slow cooker, in over the year and a half I have owned it. I don't really know why I don't use it, maybe it's because I have to start thinking about tea time food either 9PM the night before, or before work (which is never going to happen!). I always think it's going to be a faff too, but it wasn't, at all. 

So (not the best picture) here is our beef ghoulash:

It was still steaming when I took the picture, so couldn't avoid it! Oops. I served mine with two slices of bread, whilst OH had some rice and about 6 slices of bread! It's very yummy and low in fat too, and really simple to make! 

So, over the next few weeks I am going to investigate slow cooker recipes, watch this space...

N xxx