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.
