Cracked Ribs (and no, it is NOT a recipe!)

I fell a couple of days ago. I bashed my face, broke my glasses and cracked my ribs. I now feel old. My side hurts like mad and I can only shuffle around. so why am I cheerful? Here are my three reasons:

• The first is that a very kind lady stopped and picked me up. I was on the way to the doctor for a routine checkup anyway. She was so kind and mopped my face with a hanky and went right into the waiting room with me. There are far more good kind people in this world than the newspapers would have us believe.
• The second is that my husband and family have been lovely. Peter has taken over all the wrapping of parcels etc. for our business and has been really nice to me. Our 10 year old grandson was staying the night anyway, the day I fell and showed what a lovely little fellow he can be when he tries. He even made his own bed and laid the table. In fact he was the perfect child! and my son and daughter have both phoned me for long, consoling chats. So I am a lucky woman indeed.
• The third reason is that because at the moment I am very sore, have difficulty moving and am not very mobile, I realize how lucky I am normally to be so fit and active. I had just got back from a pre breakfast swim when it happened and was running to the doctors in my trainers!  Lots of people are not nearly as lucky and would not be able to do that. So I will never take this all for granted again.

Glenda
www.cutleryandcatering.co.uk

Meal Plan Monday - cooking and shopping

Meal Plan Monday. This is proving to be a very good idea for us. I plan very carefully, do one big shop and then a couple of big baking sessions and the rest of the week is a doddle.

•  Sunday :Morocan Turkeyand Chickpea stew with cous cous and salad (Recipe is here)

Morocon turkey and chickpea stew

Dessert - Baked Pears with Ginger and Almond

• Monday Baked salmon with pesto, roast peppers, roast tomatoes, peas, sweet corn, baby new potatoes  Dessert: home made rice pudding.
• Tuesday Cheese Pudding ( breadcrumbs, with cheese, mustard made up from powder, egg, milk mixed and baked in the oven) with home made oven chips, baked beans, baked tomatoes.

cheese pudding

• Dessert : bananas and custard
• Wednesday: Cod, parsley sauce, new potatoes, carrots, spinach, peas.
• Dessert: jelly, blancmange (made with skimmed milk) and ice cream.
• Thursday: Home made Quiche, new potatoes, salad
• Dessert: dried fruit salad - made with prunes, dried apple, apricots, figs
• Friday: vegetarian bolognese sauce with pasta and green salad
• Dessert: Home made rice pudding
• Saturday: the rest of the bolognese sauce with meat balls and pasta
• Home made apple pie

• 

  apple pie

Light meals:
baked beans, picklets, eggs, corned beef, cheese, cottage cheese with chives. Wholemeal bread.
Light desserts: yogurts, fruit fool - homemade with custard + creme fraiche + the cooked dried fruits, rest of the jelly, blanc mange and ice cream, rest of the apple pie.
Baking: shortbread biscuits,

Homemade shortcake biscuits made by hubby!

 ginger biscuits, cocnut cake.
Breakfasts: always porridge with skimmed milk, wholemeal toast and marmalade
Glenda
www.cutleryandcatering.co.uk

You Are What You Eat

For Magpie Monday I thought I would show you another cookery book I found. It was in perfect condition and looked unused an the original price was £8.97(reduced from £12.99).  I paid £1.99 from the British heart Foundation. It is the official book to go with the television programme.

"You are what you eat"

Inside there are recipes for every month of the year together with all sorts of information about food, nutrition and health.
I cheat a little bit and try recipes from the wrong month (there are two days of breakfast, lunch and dinner recipes for each month).
  Here is one I used this week. I will alter the wording a bit.

Moroccan Turkey and Chickpea Stew
The recipe says you should use chicken breasts but I use turkey leg meat. It is much cheaper and tastes just as nice. I cook it a bit longer than the book says. So this recipe is my version, really.

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 crushed garlic cloves
2 sliced onions
three quarters of a pound of turkey leg meat cut up into bite sized pieces
About 10g of fresh corriander roughly chopped
About 10 grams fresh mint roughly chopped
1teaspoon hot chilli powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
400g can chopped tomatoes
400g chickpeas in water (drained and rinsed)
75g dried apricots chopped
25g blanched almonds
1/2 vegetable stock cube

• Put the oil, garlic, onions, turkey, herbs and spices in a large cast iron casserole (or saucepan) and toss well together. Place over medium heat and cook for 5 mins stiring now and again.
• Add all the rest of the ingredients and refill the empty tomato tin with cold water and pour that in as well. Bring to the boil then simmer for about 45 mins until turkey is tender. Stir now and again.Serve with cous cous and salad.

• 

  Moroccan Turkey and Chickpea Stew

  
  

For dessert on the same day you should have (and we did!)

Baked pears with Ginger and Almond

You need

4 dessert pears,  halved and cord

2 preserved stem ginger balls cut into small dice

15g flaked almonds

1 tablespoon stem ginger syrup

100ml cold water

Low fat fromage frais

Just preheat the over to 200C or Gas 6. Put the pears in a shallow dish, cut side up. Sprinkle with the stem giner and the almons and spoon the syrup over. Then add the water to the base of the dish and cover with foil. Bake for 20 minutes and take the foil away. Spoon the juices over. Return to oven, uncovered for 15 minutes or until the pears are tender and slightly browned. serve with the fromage frais.

This menu provides plenty of protein (also in chickpeas) and soluble fibre and also plenty of iron. the dessert contains plenty of vitamin C, potassium and fibre.

Nice recipes, nice book, nice price!

Glenda

www.cutleryandcatering.co.uk

It is not Polite to ........Children's Table Manners

What do you teach children about dining with others. Here is my simple list:
(do you think this is enough or can you think of any other essentials?)

1. Use your knife and fork unless it is food you are meant to eat with your fingers, like sandwiches.
2. Don't make rude remarks about the food. It upsets people.
3. Remember to say "please" and "thank you"
4. Eat with your mouth closed and don't talk whilst chewing. It puts people off their food if they see what you are eating.
5. Don't eat too quickly and gobble your food. You are not a turkey!
6. Don't stretch across people to reach things, ask them to pass to you.
7. Pass things to other people.
8. When you have finished put your knife and fork together in the centre of your plate to show the plate can be taken away.
9. Do not try to leave the table until everyone has finished, unless a grown-up says you can.
10. Always say "Thank you" at the end of your meal

and, finally,

It is not polite to have a burping competition!!!

Glenda
www.cutleryandcatering.co.uk

What's on the box?

I have many reasons to be cheerful and, as usual they are all to do with family, business and food and so I thought I would have a bit of a change this week and talk about television!
Three reasons to be cheerful in the form of three television programmes. (Well, that's different, anyway!)

Michel Roux

• The Roux Legacy  comes to Good Food tonight at 8 pm.  The Roux Brothers, Anton and Michel opened La Gavroche in 1967. They worked with Marks and Spencer to produce early and very tasty ready meals, they trained Marco Pierre White and Godeon Ramsey. Michel Roux junior, the son of Anton, is surely one of the most pleasant chefs on television and I just love his attention to detail. What a treat this programme should be!
• Earlier this week there was a wonderful programme on about Pugin and that too was a real treat as we were taken inside his beautiful churches and shown how he designed Big ben.  i looked at Big Ben and its tower through new eyes and realized how very beautiful it is.

My third reason is the third programme I am enjoying - Great Railway Journeys with Michael Portillo. It is so interesting and wonderful to be taken the length and breadth of the country and to visit towns en route and see what a difference the railways made.

So maybe my reasons are unusual and a bit odd , but I think we are so very lucky to be able to watch such wonderful stuff!

Glenda

www.cutleryandcatering.co.uk

Burns Supper

25th January is the birthday of Robbie Burns and this is when traditional Burns Night Celebrations are held

Cheers!

. 
A Burns Supper traditionally begins with the Selkirk Grace:
Some hae meat and cannae eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.

The main course is, of course, the Haggis and this is brought in to the tune of the pipers.  Many years ago the haggis was made of the liver, lungs and heart of a sheep, mixed with spice, seasoning and toasted oat meal and cooked in a sheep's stomach. Now it is made of best meats and is served in a synthetic skin. There is a recipe for haggis here.

Burns wrote an Address to the Haggis ( which is read out at Burns night as the haggis is brought in) just after the Jacobite Rebellion. He used haggis to demonstrate his love of Scotland's nationalism in a light hearted way. There are 9 verses.
To anyone attending a Burns Supper, we hope you enjoy the evening, and the Haggis.
Glenda
www.cutleryandcatering.co.uk
  

All in a Single Pot

Beacause I like cooking and catering, I bought the Reader's Digest "One Dish Meals the easy way". This is a post to link to Magpie Monday where people show what bargains they have got from charity shops.  I love buying cookery books and this is one of my favourites. I bought it from The Red Cross and it cost me the princely sum of just £1.95!  Inside is the original price sticker which says £21.95!  When I got it, it was in mint condition but already it is looking worse for wear now! 

Inside every single recipe is made in one dish.  This is usually a cast iron casserole which you can move from hob to oven to table.  There are recipes for soups, casseroles, meat meals, fish dishes,vegetarian dishes, pizzas,salads, microwave meals and ideas for simple holiday cooking e.g. for self catering holidays.
Here are my photos of some that I made.

Roast pork with apples and red cabbage

Plaice with lemon and rice all in a pot

chicken with wine and mushrooms

Ham, pineapple and sweet potato casserole.

Braised chicken  casserole

I have done lots more of the recipes as well but, as you can see, I have really got my money's worth out of this book! Not bad for less than £2!

Glenda
www.cutleryandcatering.co.uk