Recipe of the week

October 06, 2009 By: Liz McNamara Category: Food, recipes

We’ve already featured a cottage pie recipe, but I absolutely love shepherd’s pie too. It’s great comfort food, especially as we wander into the colder months, and I like being able to add any random vegetables that I have lying around. Mmmm just writing this is making me want to go home and cook one right now! This recipe is actually to make use of leftover Christmas turkey, but you can use chicken or just plain old lamb. Either way it’s delicious. The great website I found this recipe on is American and so the measurements are in cups, sorry!

Turkey and leek shepherd’s pie

turkey-and-leek-shepherds-pie

(more…)

Recipe of the week

September 28, 2009 By: Liz McNamara Category: Food

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

Apple Crumble from www.saidaonline.com

Picture from www.saidaonline.com

(more…)

Recipe of the week

September 21, 2009 By: Liz McNamara Category: Food

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

fishandchips

(more…)

Recipe of the week

September 14, 2009 By: Liz McNamara Category: Food, recipes

Cruising Femail on the Daily Mail’s site, as I often to, I came across a great recipe for homemade ice cream which both intrigued and excited me. And made me a little hungry. I’ve never tried to make homemade ice cream before or anything in ‘that family’ so it was a little daunted but it looked so nice! So off I went and had a little go.

jo-pratts-creamy-vanilla-ice-cream

(more…)

Healthy packed school lunches

September 08, 2009 By: Liz McNamara Category: Education, Food, Parenting, recipes

So after a couple of months racking your brain about how to entertain the kids every day, they’re finally back to school. School uniform check! Sports kit check! Stationary check! Healthy packed lunches…hmm not yet got that sorted?

With fresh news of Jamie Oliver getting out there to the schools once again and banning butter on sandwiches, I think we’re all realising how important it is for kids to get the right nutrients on a daily basis, without all the junk food. Another factor is that the food needs to keep them full throughout the day – a hungry child is a grumpy one!!

healthy-packed-lunch-pic-1

(more…)