Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. Mark Twain

I have just read an article in The Sun newspaper on Danielle Ross of Colchester.  Her Facebook page on feeding a family of five and her dogs for just £38 a week, has clocked up 22,000 followers.  https://www.facebook.com/Budgetfamilymealsuk

Some of Danielle’s menu ideas work but some do not – that’s life.  However, a failed meal is not an excuse to give up.  It is merely an opportunity to learn from a mistake before moving on. 

As a wife and mother, I have am the sole cook in the house.  I am responsible for meal planning and production.  My job title includes buying food supplies, storing all produce in a way that maximises its shelf life, as well as preparing and cooking it in a way that appeals to five adults.  I guess because God likes to see mortals rise to a challenge, the only fruits my eldest young adult eats are tomatoes and peppers with potatoes being the only vegetable.  My middle young adult is lactose intolerant plus reacts badly to Monosodium glutamate (MSG), which is a salt form of an amino acid.  It triggers migraines and as MSG is used in food preservation and flavourings, it appears a lot in oriental meals including takeaways, all processed meats as well as in canned goods.  I have to make everything from scratch if this young adult is eating with the family.  As a rule, my baby adult eats anything except pulses.  There is no medical reason for the aversion; it is solely based on texture.  All beans, green peas, lentils, and chickpeas.  He also avoids pear barley which is actually one of my own favourites to add to soups.  Thank goodness, hubby is easier to please, although his dislike of spinach is rather childish in my opinion.

Luckily for me, not everyone is home for dinner ever night.  I do have some evenings when one or more offspring either eat out or else prefer to make their own meal.  It is unfortunate though, that some of the meals the male members prefer to make for themselves include enough meat to feed an entire family, but I guess that’s the price I pay for taking an evening off.

On such evenings, my meals of choice are either a Lamb Cassoulet because this requires very little otherwise expensive lamb, or a vegetable curry.  The latter is most likely to be made if my night off occurs toward the end of the week.  Just about any left over vegetables can be used in a curry although I personally do not like adding cauliflower, broccoli, or sprouts.  I find some sprouts can be bitter whilst cauliflower and broccoli have a tendency to break apart into mush but you may feel differently.  I often do not bother with boiled rice as an accompaniment to vegetable curry, preferring the more calorific option of naan bread – it is a night off after all.  There is just something about scooping up lumps of vegetables, split lentils and chickpeas with a hunk of bread that adds to the meal experience.

  

Easy vegetable curry

If I do have vegetables that require using up but I have not had the chance to make a curry, then on a Saturday mooring you will find me making a batch of soup.  Just like curry, you soup anything so long as you have a good homemade stock in your freezer.  As a thickener, I use either split lentils or pear barley, so long as I remembered to soak it over night.  

I blitz most of my soups because that way I can –

1.     Forget to mention some of the vegetables it contains and

2.     Hide the fact that it contains pulses.

It may be wrong but it is my job to make sure each meal contains the maximum nutritional goodness possible.  I cannot be the only mum who resorted to liquidising peas and/or carrots in with the base stock for a Cottage Pie or Spaghetti Bolognese can I?  FYI peas remain easier to detect than carrots to any eagle eyed critic.

As a final note on vegetables, sweet potato oven chips are gorgeous so long as you can get them crispy.  They make a colourful change to white potato and work equally well as wedges to liven up a midweek meal.  When in season, try oven roast fresh beetroot as an alternative to roast parsnips or roast potato. 

Mary Berry has a recipe –

Serves 6

8-10 tennis ball-sized fresh beetroots, ideally red and yellow (golden), cut into quarters

2 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp. fresh thyme leaves

·         Pre-heat the oven to 375F/190C/gas mark 5.

·         Toss the beetroot wedges with the olive oil, thyme leaves and salt and pepper, so that they are well coated.  Tip them into a shallow roasting tin.  Roast for about 40-45 minutes until they are charred around the edges and tender.

·         Serve warm (not hot) or cooled to room temperature.

Cauliflower with cumin, coriander and chillies

And if you are looking for alternative way of using cauliflower, try Jamie Oliver’s roast cauliflower with cumin –

Serves 4 - 6

1 head cauliflower, broken into florets

Sea salt

Olive oil

1 knob butter

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

2 teaspoons coriander seeds

1-2 dried red chillies

1 handful blanched almonds, smashed

1 lemon, zest, and juice of

• Preheat your oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6.
• Blanch the cauliflower in salted boiling water for a couple of minutes then drain in a colander, allowing it to steam dry (you don't want any water left in your cauliflower or it won't roast properly).
• Toss it in a good lug of olive oil and the butter.
• In a pestle and mortar, bash your spices and chillies with a pinch of salt, then mix them with your almonds and put in a hot, dry ovenproof pan to slowly toast them.  
• After a couple of minutes, add the cauliflower.  When it gets a nice bit of colour on it, add the lemon zest and juice and mix around well.  Fry for about a minute longer then pop the pan into the preheated oven for about 15 minutes to crisp up.