Food for poorly people

Ill health to a certain extent is part and parcel of parenthood. My hope is that with a good diet and reasonably good hygiene (as well as not being a morning person, I'm not the best at tidying) that we avoid most of the bugs and germs that small children so generously share. Unfortunately, even this doesn't always stop us catching something and this week was no exception, with the whole family having a winter sickness bug. Unfortunately, it meant that all of the food I had planned to cook and had managed to do the shopping for, didn't get cooked.

Fortunately the meats that I was planning on using were frozen so we can use them another day. It did mean that I had a fridge full of vegetables that needed using up. By the weekend, we were feeling better but still not really enjoying meals, so I wanted to cook something that was simple for lunch but used up some of the vegetables in the fridge. The benefit that I see in this kind of meal is that it is full of good vitamins and minerals, has lots of vegetables for fibre, beans and bacon for some protein and is simple to be digested. Best of all, it's all thrown into one pan and is ready in about 30 minutes (if you're quick at chopping.)

Vegetable, bacon and bean soup (feeds 5 - 6 adults)

1 packet smoked bacon lardons

1 large onion

3 celery sticks

3 or 4 medium carrots

2 leeks

3 heaped tbsp vegetable stock granules

1 tin black eyed beans

Boiling water

Tbsp dried oregano 

1. Place a saucepan over a medium to high heat and add the bacon (you can add a tablespoon of oil but I was trying to avoid too much fat in this meal.) Meanwhile chop the onion roughly. Once the bacon is looking cooked, add the onion to the pan and turn the heat down to medium to start softening the onion.
   
2. Roughly chop all of the remaining vegetables, drain and rinse the beans and get the kettle boiling.
   
3. Once the onion has softened, add the vegetables, stock granules and enough boiling water to cover the vegetables well (you can add more water later if you want.) Stir in the oregano and a generous seasoning of black pepper. Bring to the boil and then turn the heat down and simmer for 20 minutes until all the vegetables have softened.  
   

I made a lot more than we needed today, but I split the leftovers into two portions and have put them into the freezer. I plan on pulling them out for a quick and easy meal but to make it go further, I will add more stock and some small pasta shapes for a filling meal.

Barbados cream

Where this name comes from, I don't know, but it is a dessert that I grew up with and that was what it was called in our house. I always looked forward to eating it and I was always disappointed when it was finished. My mum used to make it in individual ramekin dishes which I think was designed to stop us arguing over who got more as we all enjoyed it. Anyway, it is a really simple pudding which is so quick to make, I made it today quickly when I got in from work and it was ready for our son to have as a pudding. It is really important that you give it some time to settle as the sugar needs time to melt into the creamy yoghurt mix. How much cream and yoghurt you use can vary, as long as they are about equal, you can make as much or as little as you want.

We don't always have puddings, but I really enjoy them. My husband has a more savoury appetite than I do, he always jokes that it is a family thing. I guess it's true, in a restaurant his family are more likely to order a starter then a main whereas my family will order main and then a dessert. I try to pick from restaurant menus really carefully for a variety of reasons. My main one now though, is going out to a restaurant is such a treat, I want to be able to enjoy everything I eat and not come out feeling so full that I just want to fall asleep and digest!

Barbados cream

Small pot double cream (250-300g)

Small pot Greek style yoghurt (250 - 300g)

Dark muscovado sugar

 
 

1. Pour the cream into a bowl and whisk until it is whipped and forms stiff peaks. It is important that it reaches this stage as the yoghurt will make it runny again.
   
2. Stir in the Greek yoghurt until a you get a smooth consistency. Add the yoghurt in small amounts so that it doesn't become too runny by adding too much yoghurt.
   
3. In a shallow dish (or a few individual ramekin dishes) sprinkle a covering of sugar. Spoon the yoghurt and cream mix on top and spread it out so that the sugar is covered. Sprinkle another layer of sugar on the top.
   
4. Put into the fridge for 1 to 2 hours to allow the sugar to melt.
   

Snacks are the way forward in this house

My husband loves snacks, little nibbly bits that you can easily pop into your mouth and then move on to another flavour. I wouldn't say he had a favourite snack, he just likes snacks. Our son is following in his footsteps, this has been the first year that he has understood who Father Christmas is and when asked what he would like as a present would normally answer with 'snacks'! My husband is also becoming quite skilled in the kitchen and is happy cooking for us as a family. This snack though is one of his specialities and we all enjoy the results. Ours tend to get eaten with slices of cheese but they could be used for all kinds of toppings and even broken up into croutons.

Easy Bruschetta

1 or 2 day old baguette

A little olive oil

Salt & pepper (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 200C
   
2. Thinly slice the bread and spread the pieces out onto a large oven tray. Drizzle over the olive oil. If you are using seasoning sprinkle this over now.
   
3. Put in the oven for 15 minutes, half way through turn the pieces over so that both sides brown evenly. Keep an eye on them as they burn very quickly.
   
4. They will keep for about a week or more in an air tight container, if they don't get eaten first!
   

Baked camembert

It does seem a bit of a cheek writing this up as a recipe, but it is very easy and delicious, not to say a life saver if people pop by unexpectedly and you want to give them something to eat.

I have a best friend who lives in Tennessee, USA and we were very lucky (and raided our savings) to go and visit her and her family last summer in the Great Smokey Mountains where they live. Whilst there I persuaded my husband that a trip to the Old Mill at Pigeon Forge was a necessity, he didn't believe me as all of the information he had read about Pigeon Forge suggested that there might not be much history to be found. Well, I won, and we drove the Old Mill, had a lovely Southern style lunch, I had fried cat fish, and then looked around the rest of the complex. We visited the pottery, from which I had on a visit years earlier bought an apple baker which I love to look at and use. Now with our own kitchen (and space in a suitcase!) I knew I would want to bring home another special reminder from this lovely store. We found a brie baking dish, I'm sure that this is something I could have found back in the UK but I love the pottery from this store and it is the most wonderful reminder of our trip. Now whenever I make this dish I think of that wonderful time with our friends and treasure my friendship even more.

Baked camembert

1 round camembert (it needs to fit into the size of dish you plan to use)

Optional - sprig of rosemary, or thyme, black pepper

Baguette

1. Preheat an oven to 160C. Remove all packaging from the cheese, place it whole into your dish. Your dish needs to be just a bit larger than your cheese in case it explodes (as ours did tonight!) If you are using herbs, make a small incision into the top of the cheese and poke the herb stalk in.
   
2. Place the dish into the oven. Cook for 45 minutes - 1 hour. You need to check on the cheese every 15 minutes, just to make sure that it isn't burning or needing more time. Whilst it's cooking slice some of the baguette ready for dipping.
   
3. When the cheese goey inside, remove from the oven and use a sharp knife to slice off the top of the cheese (discard this bit for the compost bin) and bring to the table.  
   

We like to eat our molten cheese with a fresh baguette. At the moment though, as our son is small, we take the cheese out with a teaspoon so that it has a chance to cool down before reaching little mouths. If you do decide to use herbs with this, I would recommend using more robust herbs (think thicker stalks) as they will survive the cooking process better.

Chicken quesadillas

I have been fortunate to travel around the world and have managed to work and live in a few places for an extended period of time. One of these has been in America, I was enticed by the snazzy posters whilst walking around a recruitment fair at university and before I knew it I was off to spend a summer living in the woods with hundreds of boys at a summer camp north of New York. Whilst I was there I met amazing people, so much that I went back to the same camp two more times and am still in touch with my first ever co-counsellor who now lives in Tennessee USA. The local town was probably quite typical of a small town, it had a big supermarket and a cinema, enough to keep us happy most of the time. There was also a good laundrette where I spent many an hour. Down the pavement was a bar, which I will admit to having visited in the evenings quite a few times but would also go there to eat whilst waiting for my washing. It was here that I was introduced to quesadillas, which is quite sad as it would probably have been better to have discovered them somewhere a little more authentic but they were good.

 

Move on a quite a few years and I spotted quesadilla's on one of those handy recipe cards that you can find in supermarkets. I decided to introduce my husband to them and as a quick weekend lunch, they can be very easy and tasty. They aren't as good as you might get in a restaurant, but this dish is really easy and kid friendly, they'll get into a good mess which they enjoy and if old enough can help prepare the ingredients and construct their own quesadilla. If you have a normal cooker I would recommend cooking them one at a time in a frying pan. We have a mat that can be placed straight onto the simmer plate of our Aga and cook ours directly on this heat. Which is also very good for making yummy cheese toasties if you have an Aga.

 

I knew that there was going to be chicken left over from the previous night, and when visiting our greengrocer in Cirencester this morning found yummy avocados. I know they're not in season but they were a good deal and didn't travel that far and with a red pepper and some grated cheddar cheese made for a simply satisfying lunch.

 

Chicken quesadillas (feeds 4 with a side salad)

8 tortilla's

Approx 250g cooked chicken breast

1/2 red pepper

2 - 3 baby avocados

250g cheddar cheese

 

1. Prepare all of the contents first. Grate the cheese, chop up the avocado into chunks (deseed and peel avocado), deseed and chop the pepper into thin slices. Shred the chicken into chunks.
   
2. Heat the frying pan over a medium/high heat. Put one tortilla into the frying pan and add your ingredients, then cover with a second tortilla. Leave until the tortilla touching the frying pan starts to go brown, then try to flip it! This is normally where it goes wrong in our household but it's good fun! Cook on the other side until the cheese has melted.
   
3. Slide the toasted quesadilla onto a plate and chop into quarters.
   
4.  
   

I would add some salad if there are only adults eating this meal. This is by no means the only contents of a quesadilla and it's probably not the traditional way of cooking them, but it gets eaten very quickly in this house!

Chicken and chips family style

What child wouldn't enjoy having 'chicken and chips' for their dinner? In fact how many adults would turn that meal down? OK, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration but most people have meals that they would enjoy from a takeaway or restaurant that could be seen as an indulgence. Having grown up in the countryside, I've never had takeaways regularly as no one would deliver that far out of town. I don't think this has done me any harm, we ate takeaways as children, but they were always a treat that was savoured and was fitted in if convenient. Now, I live closer to town but takeaways are still a treat that we really don't have very often.

 
 

A few years ago when I started to get more interested in the food I was eating, I was reading more literature about food, where it comes from, how it's made, what gets put into it and started making choices and changes. A few of the things that I've chosen to remove from my diet are carbonated drinks and fast food. Now, years down the line if I drink cola it tastes foul, like burnt caramel and if I eat fast food it might taste good for about 5 minutes but 15 minutes down the line I feel sick from all of the grease going into my body.

 
 

We're in January, the month where the news recently reported the most divorce cases are started, the television is filled with programs trying to help people lose weight and get fit. Recipe books and magazines are full of tips and tricks for cooking the food you enjoy but with less of the calories or fat or salt content. Adverts bombard you with slimming products and clubs all promoting the idea that a new year means a new you. My biggest piece of advice is that you need to forget about 'dieting' and think more about living healthily. It is easier than all of those programs and adverts suggest and you need to look at it as a permanent part of life. It can be done with the whole family. In fact, it's probably easier and more supportive if everyone is eating the same things.

 
 

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make, is that it's ok to have your favourite things, but you might need to have them less frequently if they're calorie or fat indulgent. I still eat chocolate, we have pizza occasionally, my husband enjoys a glass of wine each evening, but this is balanced by the rest of our diet. The chips recipe is adapted from BBC Good Food magazine, but the whole meal concept was dished up for dinner tonight. Best of all, it's really simple, yes it has a less common ingredient polenta, but we all need to think outside of our comfort zone some times.

 
 

Chicken and chips

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Chicken pieces (if they have skin on, you can choose not to eat the skin or could take it off before cooking)

3 or 4 medium potatoes

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp polenta

Salt & pepper

Bag spinach

 
 

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. On a large tray pour the oil. Heat this in the oven for a few minutes. Whilst this is happening, use 1/2 tsp of the smoked paprika to sprinkle over the chicken with a little salt and pepper. Put this in the oven.
   
2. As soon as the chicken is in the oven, slice the potatoes into chip style pieces, leave the skin on. In a bowl mix together the remaining smoked paprika, polenta and a little more salt and pepper. Then get the potatoes in the bowl and give it a good mix. I'd recommend hands, and this is where my 2 and 1/2 year old joined in with cooking tonight.
   
3. Tip this mix onto the tray with the chicken and place back in the oven. The chips need about 40 minutes and should be shaken half way through. The most important thing is that the chicken is cooked through thoroughly - skewer and the juices should run clear.
   
4. 5 minutes before serving the chicken and chips, empty the packet of spinach into a saucepan with a lid and place on a high heat and cover with the lid. Give it a shake/stir whilst it's wilting so that the bottom pieces don't burn.
   

Jambalaya

I'm starting to notice how many recipes I could potentially write which contain sausages! We do eat other meats and part of the reason I plan our meals is so that I make sure we have a variety and eat fish at least once a week. However, I will not deny that we enjoy eating sausages and that they do feature frequently on our meal plans. I have been very lucky and probably spoilt as I've grown up eating tasty sausages from our local butchers. Now that I'm buying food for my own family I make sure that I buy sausages from the butcher as well as minced beef. It may seem like a luxury when the cost of goods is rising and the rise in salary isn't matching it, but I would more rather buy a little less of a higher quality good when it comes to sausages and beef. I do buy meat from the supermarket, but for my personal taste, I prefer these two items from the Butcher. Jesse Smiths is our local butcher, we use the shop in Cirencester but my parents have been going to the shop in Northleach since before I was born. They are also the company that we bought our delicious turkey from this winter.

 
 

Anyway, I tend to buy in bulk from the butchers, and if I time my visit right and go when they're quiet, they even split what I've bought into separate bags ready for the freezer. I've got quite a few bags of sausages at the moment, so they were the inspiration behind this meal tonight. I used chipolatas tonight but you could easily use large sausages, just reduce the number that you include, I normally cook 3 large sausages per adult.

 
 

Sausage jambalaya (fed 2 adults plus toddler easily)

8 Chipolatas

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium/large chorizo sausage

1 red pepper

1 yellow pepper

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 tablespoon tomato puree

1/2 cup rice (this isn't an American measure but how we measure rice in my family. I use a cup not mug, I guess when I make this it is probably about the same as the packet instructions for two people. So if you're doing this for yourself and your not sure if your cup is the same size as mine, follow the rice packet instructions and adapt it to two people if necessary.)

 
 

1. Preheat the oven to 200C, put the sausages onto a tray with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Cook the sausages for about 25 minutes or until they're golden brown.
   
2. Meanwhile, deseed and roughly chop the peppers into 1-2cm sized chunks, if you want to use different colour peppers it's fine, these are the colours I had today when I cooked. Chop the chorizo into slices roughly 1/2 to 1cm thick. I used ready chopped chorizo and it was a mistake as the flavour was totally different.
   
3. In an oven ready dish pour the second tablespoon of olive oil and add the chorizo and chopped peppers. Fry this over a medium heat until the peppers have started to soften and all of the tasty juices have been released from the chorizo.
   
4. Once the sausages are cooked and cool enough to handle chop into chunks. Leave the oven on but reduce the temperature down to 180C. Add this along with the chopped tomatoes, tomato puree and rice. I also add half a can of water at this stage. Give it all a good stir, put a lid on the dish (this is really important to help the keep the juices in and help cook the vegetables) and put it in the oven.
   
5. Cook for 40 minutes or until the rice is cooked.
   

 

You could swap the sausages for chicken or prawns. If using chicken, I would probably use chicken pieces and brown them off first before adding the chorizo. If using prawns (unfrozen), I would put them in for the last 5-10 minutes cooking time so that they are just cooked through before serving.

Cod wrapped in bacon

Meal planning is a valuable skill to practise as it really helps you buy only what you need from the supermarket and it has helped us learn to use leftovers much better. I also love shopping with a list, it means that when I'm overwhelmed with the tempting choices that the supermarket puts in front of you, it is easier to make better decisions. I am also learning to pay more attention to the pricing of products to make sure that I am getting the best value for money from the products I'm buying. This does take extra time, but it is making me a much wiser consumer as I found that the larger 'value' packs aren't always the best value for money when you look at the price per gram or kilogram. When my son was in nappies, there were times when I bought two smaller bags of nappies rather than one large pack as the price per nappy was cheaper.

Anyway shopping tips over for today as I've gone completely off my first point which was menu planning. One of my favourite benefits of menu planning is that I don't have the awful thought of 'what are we going to eat tonight?' I know that if there is something I really want to cook and eat, I can build it into the food for the weekend as the majority of my planning focuses on weekday meals. We tend to look at weekend meals as being an opportunity to try out a new recipe. We still try to plan our food for the weekend though as if we have to do a food shop we want it to be as quick as possible so that we can spend more time together as a family rather than in a supermarket. Even though I'm still on holidays this week, I still needed to think carefully about the meals as we had a guest last night and my husband is going to be home late on Thursday night. This paid dividends today though as I've managed to hurt my back and can't really do anything in the kitchen. As my lovely husband is now very practised at looking at the meals I have planned, found my magic planning book, saw what was on the menu and started cooking. This meal is really simple and tasty, our son loved the cod and bacon combination. My husband cooked some boiled potatoes and steamed carrots and sprouts to go with the cod.

Cod wrapped in bacon (fed 2 adults and a toddler)

1 lemon

2 pieces of cod

12 slices thin streaky bacon (or pancetta)

1. Preheat an oven to 200°C. Slice the lemon into thin rounds and use this to line the bottom of an oven dish. I do this so that the fish doesn't stick to the bottom of the dish and can help avoid using oil.
   
2. Place the fish on the lemon slices (skin side down if it has skin on) and wrap the bacon over the top. You can just drape it if you are short on time or aren't keen on handling the fish too much.
   
3. Put in the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes, keep an eye on the fish more than the bacon as you want it cooked not overcooked.
   

   
    

Visiting isn’t over yet

Whilst most people now seem to be heading back to work after the holidays, I am lucky enough that I don't go back until 9^th January. Unfortunately I have lots and lots of work to catch up on, and now that the little man is in nursery again, I need to get going. However, that does mean that I need to think of feeding myself at lunch time and today was another opportunity to use up some food and leftovers from the fridge. The recipe below fed me but the quantities could easily be increased, for example, if my son had been at home with me I would have used 2 eggs rather than one. It does show how easy and quick a frittata type meal can be created from the most random of ingredients.

Potato and ham frittata

2 left over baked potatoes (one was really small!)

½ green pepper

3 slices ham

1 egg

2 tablespoons milk

2 tablespoons finely grated cheese (I used parmesan)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 knob butter

Seasoning

1. Slice the potatoes reasonably thinly, add these to a frying pan over a medium heat containing the oil and butter (it is important to include the butter to help the potatoes go nice and crispy).
   
2. Whilst the potatoes start to brown, thinly slice the green pepper and add this to the frying pan. Then slice and add the ham.
   
3. In a separate bowl beat the egg lightly, then mix in the grated cheese, milk and seasoning (I used black pepper only as both the cheese and ham will have salt in them.) Add this to the frying pan.
   
4. Let the mix start to set, when it is starting to look set around the edges, put it under the grill on in a hot oven for 5 minutes to finish cooking the egg.
   

Also my father-in-law is coming to stay for the night so he can leave early to go to a conference nearby. It means that I need to cook a meal for us, and because it isn't just my husband, son and I, it does need a little more thought and consideration. It also means that my son will have to eat earlier by himself and then the adults will eat once he has gone to bed. So rather than cooking two meals I wanted to cook something that I could give to my son earlier and then have it as a main meal later. We had slow roasted one of the lamb joints on Sunday and so I had lots of tender yummy lamb left to use. I normally make a shepherd's pie which is a recipe I will write up another day but fancied something different this time. Having looked at lots of different ideas and books I decided to cook a lamb ragu. This is a dish that is normally made with beef but I thought the full flavour of the lamb would be a good alternative plus I am aiming for another freezer meal out of the leftovers from this meal!

Lamb Ragu

1 tbsp olive oil

1 clove garlic

1 onion

4 carrots

500g cooked lamb (I didn't weigh our leftovers and you could always make this with minced lamb, just make sure that the meat is cooked through.)

Lamb stock cube

1 glass red wine

500g passatta

2 tbsp tomato paste

250ml water

Herbs (I used dried thyme and a couple of bay leaves)

Salt and pepper

Soft goat's cheese (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 160/170°C
   
2. Finely dice the onion and carrot (I used a mini food processor for ease and speed), put this into a medium/large casserole dish with the olive oil and finely chopped garlic. Over a low/medium heat start to sweat the vegetables.
   
3. Whilst the vegetables soften, dice up the meat and add this to the casserole dish. Once this has cooked through a little crumble the stock cube in. Then add the red wine, turn the heat up a little and let the alcohol cook through.
   
4. Add everything else except the goat's cheese, give it a good stir and then make sure it is bubbling before putting it in the oven.
   
5. Leave to cook for 1 ½ to 2 hours (or longer if you can). We served ours with frilly tagliatelle and crumbled over some of the goats cheese on our plates.

Ratatouille

We had friends over for lunch today, a rare treat as they live a long way away and they dropped in to visit whilst they were on their way home from spending the holidays with family. It was very exciting as we don't get to see each other very often, especially now we both have children. There were a few things that I needed to consider when feeding our friends. One of our friends needs a gluten free diet, not something I'm familiar with but was a fair challenge. Also their daughter is 16 months old and so whilst she is likely to be well into eating normal family meals, she may not be as adventurous as our son. I also wanted to spend as much time with them as possible rather than being tied up in the kitchen. Finally when they leave us they will have a 2 or 3 hour drive depending on traffic so a heavy meal needed to be avoided.

Taking all of this into consideration, I decided baked potatoes would be a good option and the Aga would be a massive help. I know baked potatoes are easy but with the Aga, I don't even have to think about turning the cooker on and waiting for it to get to the right temperature, an hour in the Aga gives a cooked potato with crispy skin. What to put with the baked potato? Cheese seemed boring whilst baked beans aren't everyone's idea of a good grown up meal. So I decided to cook some ratatouille, not something I've cooked before but a simple easy dish that I knew would be quite happy cooking for a couple of hours in the bottom oven. The recipe feeds 6, there were in fact 4 adults and I put the remaining ratatouille in the freezer for another day. We also had lots of cheese left over from Christmas which was enjoyed along with crackers and home-made plum chutney.

Ratatouille Feeds 6 (plus toddler and 1 year old)

1 – 2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion

2 celery stalks

1 red and 1 green pepper

2 courgettes

1 aubergine

2 tins chopped tomatoes

2 tablespoons tomato puree

Salt and pepper

Oregano

Bay leaf (or 2)

1. Put the olive oil in a casserole dish (or other suitable dish that has a lid), roughly chop the onion and celery (I chopped the celery smaller than the onion) and put in the dish. Start to soften this over a medium heat.
   
2. Whilst the onion and celery are softening, start to roughly chop all of the other vegetables into about 2cm large chunks, the more rustic the better. Once the onion and celery have softened (5-10 minutes) add all of the chopped vegetables, both tins of tomatoes, the tomato puree and seasonings. Give it all a good stir, turn up the heat until it is bubbling gently.
   
3. Put on the lid and put into an oven about 160-170°C for 2 – 2 ½ hours.