A couple of tasty lunches

In the spirit of trying to stick to my New Years Resolutions I have been trying to make more nutritious lunches recently.  Our usual meal would consist of toast in some form topped with either scrambled egg, baked beans or grilled cheese, so I am really being very adventurous with these dishes.
First I did homemade hummus on homemade bread (always) topped with roasted red peppers and Greek feta cheese:

 

Then a tomato salad (not very seasonal I know) with the same hummus and feta cheese and some homemade tortillas drizzled with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and a sprinkling of pepper and dried parsley. Yum!

Both very delicious, and both making me feel ever so slightly pleased with myself, the hummus is really easy to make and so are the tortillas.  I really don't mind taking the time to make these sorts of things from scratch, I just really hate the washing up!

Hummus is:

400g tin of chickpeas,
2 garlic cloves,
Juice of a lemon,
2 tbsp tahini,
3 tbsp olive oil,
A pinch of paprika.

Whizz up in a blender

(Recipe is from the Baby Led Weaning Cookbook by Gill Rapley)

Tortillas are:

300g plain flour,
60g butter,
175ml warm water,

Kneed together then roll out and fry on a hot dry frying pan.

(recipe adapted from step-by-step vegetarian by Rosemary Wadey etc.)

My baby ate blackberries!

On Friday we took Orren to the allotment for a foraging session and gave him a blackberry to enjoy.  He examined it carefully the gently stroked it's shiny black bumps before squashing it into his little fist and slurping it from his hand.  He had juice all over his face, hand, arm and top, but a happy smile on his face!  I think he enjoyed it.

Zesty Beetroot Chutney

We often end up with a glut of vegetables in our fruit boxes (which is one of the reasons we aren't getting it any more) and a few weeks ago we had one too many beetroot, along with a growing collection of empty jars I was inspired to make some chutney.  I find that beetroot can be a bit muddy tasting sometimes, even when fresh, and don't even get me started on the picked variety, yuck!  So I was pleasantly surprised to find that this recipe transformed the beetroot into delicious fruity chutney that goes perfectly with cheese on toast. 

You can find the full recipe here,

1 1/2kg beetroot trimmed and peeled and chopped,

3 onions chopped,

3 eating apples peeled and cored and chopped,

Zest and juice of 3 oranges,

2 tbsp white or yellow mustard seeds, 

1 tbsp coriander seeds,

1 tbsp ground cloves,

1 tbsp ground cinnamon,

700ml red wine vinegar,

700g granulated sugar.

Mix ingredients together in a pan and cook until the beetroot is tender and the mixture parts when you run and spoon along the base of the pan,

Sterilise jars then put the chutney into the jars.

Eat! (It gets better with age.)

40 soups - 2. creamy chicken

Hi folks, so sorry for my absense, my laptop charger cable has broked and my hubby has been using the main PC in the house so haven't been able to get online much the last few weeks, also I have just been so busy; and not the kind of  "look how fun and exciting my life s I am far to busy for such trivialities as blogging" and more like a "I am so damn busy cleaning up poo and doing laundry and making dinners I literally havn't found a second to do a blog post, as soon as I sit down I fall asleep!"  kind of way.  Anhyhow, lets get going with a long awaited blog post that I started weeks ago and might noe finish:

A few months ago, a lovely lady from one of the blogs I follow, Elise Blaha, posted a series of recipes entitled "40 Loaves" where she baked 40 different bread recipes, blogged about each of them and included recipes for each.  After finishing this project she decided to embark on a new one.  Initially she thought "4 Soups" would be a fun idea, but she realised her husband didn't enjoy soups and thought the project wouldn't be so much fun to do alone, so instead she decided to a project called "40 pizzas"!  I however LOVE soups and make them often, so I thought it would be a really fun idea to blog about each of them and give you a recipe and photo to go with.

My second soup in this series is Creamy Chicken Soup.  I made this soup after wanting something tasty to do with leftover chicken bits and carcass.  As per usual, weights and measurements are approximate.  (You know me!)

Ingredients:

Olive oil,

1/2 onion,

1 clove of garlic,

Chicken carcass and bits,

1 chicken stock cube,

1/2 cup double cream.

Bring a large pan with the chicken carcass and pieces to the boil then let simmer with enough water to cover the bits.  

Cook until the chicken falls from the bones.

Leave to cool then remove all the chicken from the bones.  Take out any skin and fat that you can.
Fry the roughly chopped onion in a little olive oil, add some roughly chopped garlic.  Pour into the chickeny water and mix, heat till the mis if heated through.  Add the stock cude and stir it in.  Remove the chicken mixture from the pan and blend in a blender or leave in the pan and blend with a stick blender to a fine soup.  Add the double cream and stir in being careful not to let the soup boil.  Serve immediately with toast, yum!

First BBQ of the year

It was such a beautiful day today we decided to spark up the bbq and get some sausages on the go for the first time this year.  It was 19 degrees at mid-day and perfect cider supping weather so we very much enjoyed sitting in the garden, bap in hand, not a cloud in the sky, wondering what we used to do with out time before baby Orren came along.
Our days are so busy now it really is a wonder that anything ever gets done, I seem to spend every free moment when Orren sleeps or spends time with the hubby cleaning or doing laundry! But I am loving nearly every minute of it, he really is a joy and my heart melts every time I look at his sweet face.  I can't say it isn't hard work but it is totally worth it.  Today's relaxation in the sun truly was a rare moment of peace in our otherwise chaotic and busy schedule.  I am hoping as things settle down and the visits from friends and family become more of a special treat that a daily occurrence; that I will be able to blog a bit more and get into more of a routine of posting than I have done over the last few months.  I might even get a few craft tutorials into the blogging schedule to boot!
I the mean time please enjoy these photos of our bbqing escapades and enjoy your Sunday (hopefully it will be as sunny as Saturday).

Day 4 - 30-day Mori Girl Challenge

10 different kinds of foods you like

1. Malt loaf,

2. Laughing Cow Cheese Triangles,

3. toast with jam,

4. strawberries,

5. boiled egg and soldiers,

6.  Cake,

7. Chocolate,

8. Ice cream,

9. Bara brith,

10. scallops,