I decided this week to have a look in my cupboards and see what was available for Recipe of the Week, rather than buying all ingredients new. In my house there is always (for no particular reason) chopped tomates, tomato puree, garlic and onions. On this search I also found kidney beans and mince. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what I made! Forget the pack mixes - homemade chilli is the best and most of the time you’ll find most of the ingredients hiding away in the kitchen. Don’t forget that if you have to buy the spices for the first time and it seems a bit expensive - you won’t have to buy them every time!

My usual chilli recipe is a bit ‘play it by ear’ so I got this one from BBC Good Food. Enjoy!

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Continuing our support of British Food Fortnight I’ve decided to upload a recipe which is my all time favourite (i’m a simple soul at heart), plus it’s guaranteed to satisfy all hectic mum’s sweet tooth, albeit in a very British way.

Apple crumble is by far one of my favourite puddings, especially during the winter months when served with hot custard and its guaranteed to be my number one choice whenever I’m out for a meal in a pub and its on the menu - what I love about it is that you feel a little bit healthy because its got fruit in it!

I remember once at university a friend of mine was given the task of making the pudding at a meal she was going to. She thought of apple crumble which I agreed was a great idea and offered my help. “No, no” she said “I’ve got it covered”. Two hours later she had created a…I can’t really call it an apple crumble, but it was something with apple in it! She had bought the crumble ready-made and then also bought the apple mixture ready-made and then had just layered it up and voila! It tasted absolutely awful and I vowed that one day i’d teach her a proper recipe for it, so Sue, this ones for you!

Homemade apple crumble

Picture from www.saidaonline.com

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This week marks the beginning of British Food Fortnight, so that means roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, cornbeef hash, shepherds pie (check out my cottage pie recipe but use lamb instead), apple crumble with custard and of course fish ‘n’ chips! not very carb free but I’m drooling already!

Off carbs next week then…….

I was tempted in this post to just say, instead of cooking just go down to your local chippy and treat yourself and the family to good old fish ‘n’ chips (complete with mushy peas and gravy of course!) but then I know that some of you will be thinking “but that’s not organic, fresh and healthy”! But the truth is that every hectic mum deserves a night off sometimes and children absolutely love the novelty of eating dinner out of a newspaper – not too sure why.

 
But for the mums out there who would rather stick to homemade I’ve found a great recipe to make your own. It’s from the BBC Good Food website and appears to be a lot healthier than what I’ll be eating!

Best of British Fish ‘n’ chips

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So, as I said last time, I spoiled myself with pieces from the new Get The Label catalogue when it landed on our doormat. A week or so later I’ve been thinking that it’s only fair to see if there is anything I fancy for Mr Hectic Mum to Be. I’m spoilt for choice, however below is my much edited version of what I might be adding to his wardrobe - if he’s a good boy of course…oh, and if he lets me use his card!

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Last night when I got home I had no time whatsoever to start rustling up a masterpiece, not to mention no patience or enthusiasm and I was starving (I think I was just having one of ‘those’ hectic mum chaos days!) So when it came around to making something for tea I just needed something I didn’t even need to think about, something easy and wouldn’t leave me shouting “I’ve been standing over this hot stove all day!!”

Looking in the fridge I had chicken and a few packs of assorted veg – zero inspiration for me there. Looking in the cupboard a packet of noodles fell out as I opened it causing me to have a Eureka! moment – or rather a ‘that’ll do’ moment. So the conclusion I came to was chicken stir fry. What I remembered after the meal was that it is in fact National Organic fortnight so if you can use fresh and organic veg in the stir fry you’ll be doing your bit!

No hassle chicken stir fry…

stir fry

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