http://www.lovepotatoes.co.uk

Tonight we are having steak, chosen and cut by our local butcher. We get all our meat at our local butcher, my 3 year old George knows him by name and will chat to him about what type of sausages he likes! To accompany our steak we will have potato wedges, they are very quick and very tasty. You can serve them with any recipe that might normally be associate with chips, but these are healthy chips!

Here is my recipe:

Ingredients:

• Olive Oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Dried mixed herbs
• Potatoes (2 medium sized potatoes per person)

Method:

1. Heat oven to 180°c.
2. Scrub the potatoes, then cut each into half lengthways, and then in half lengthways again. Repeat until you have 8 even-shaped wedges.
3. Pour a little oil onto a baking tray, use a pastry brush to cover the tray evenly in oil.
4. Lay out the potatoes trying to keep them from over lapping.
5. Drizzle potatoes with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and about 2tsp of mixed herbs (add herbs to your taste).
6. Place in the pre-heated oven for approx 20 minutes or until the wedges are tender on the inside and their skins are golden and crispy.

Dinner tonight was my chicken noodle broth recipe. Yesterday we had a roast chicken and this is a fantastic, healthy way to use up the leftovers. Plus it is like having your own healthy Chinese takeaway at home.

I made my own chicken broth, which I was able to do with the Sunday roast leftovers. If you don’t want to make your own stock buy some good quality chicken stock in a tub rather than a stock cube, which will be high in salt and low in nutrition.

The best thing about this recipe is if you have your chicken broth ready you can make it in under 10 minutes and use only one pan – barely any washing up!

How to make chicken broth/stock:

This is a very rough recipe. I suggest to add chicken bones to a large pan of water with a handful of bay leaves, a teaspoon of black peppercorns, some garlic cloves, an onion, fresh rosemary, a few carrots and some sticks of celery. Boil up the pan and simmer for at least an hour. Strain the stock through a sieve and you have wonderful healthy fresh chicken broth.

Chicken Noodle Broth:

Serves approx 4

Ingredients:

• 1 litre chicken broth/stock (approx)
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp worcester sauce
• 2 large blocks of noodles (I use chow mein noodles)
• 1 bag of stir fry vegetables (a pack with plenty of beanshoots)

Optional serving suggestions : cashew nuts, sesame seeds, sliced spring onions, chilli sauce.

Method:

1. Bring the chicken broth to boil in a large saucepan.
2. Add soy sauce and worcester sauce, stir.
3. Turn heat under broth down to simmer and add noodles, simmer for approx 3 mins (or as stated on noodle packet).
4. Tip contents of vegetable pack into saucepan and place on a lid. Leave to simmer for approx 3 mins or until vegetable have softened but still have a crunch.
5. Serve in a bowl with toppings of your choice from the ingredients listed above.

Top tip: I make this recipe after we’ve had a roast chicken, I can then add any leftover meat in with the noodles to cook through, this stretches your Sunday roast to make another cheap, easy dish for your meal plan. If you want more ideas for leftover chicken check out my blog post ‘Use Your Roast Chicken’.

Please leave feedback. I love this recipe and I’d love to hear what you think of it!

This time next week it will be Valentine’s Day. My husband and I usually cook each other a special meal on for Valentine’s day as we meal plan I always get the ingredients the week before. What I really like to use are quick, easy recipes that allow you to enjoy the evening together rather than working away in the kitchen, but of course they have to be tasty recipes! I looked through some of my past blog posts and found some recipes that fit the bill:

Starter Options:

• Smoked Mackerel Pate
• Sweetcorn Fritters
• Summer Salad (make a small plate of this for a starter)

Main Options:

• Waitrose Easy Fish Dish
• Matt’s Gnocchi
• Lemon & Five Spice Chicken

Desserts:

• Summer Fruit Custard Fool
• Mock Chocolate Trifle (use seasonal fruit if you cannot find blackberries)
• Chocolate Cheesecake Brownie

All of the desserts can be made ahead of time or the day before which frees up time on the day. All of these recipes have maximum flavour but do not take longer than 30 minutes to prepare/cook. I’m started to get hungry just thinking about which I’ll choose to cook!

http://eatgood4life.blogspot.com

With Valentine’s day coming soon, I thought it would be great to find recipes that care about your heart as well as your tastebuds.

I found the recipe for these cookies made with wholewheat flour and coconut at the blog Eat Good 4 Life. Although the measurements are American, it is easy enough to convert these using Delia Smith’s helpful conversion table. Hope you like this recipe. Leave a comment if you give it a try!

The next culprit to absorb my time is our laundry basket, it is always full. I put load after load on, but it never ends. It is a toddler’s job to keep his Mother in a constant stream of washing, either his clothes are covered in food, mud, paint, glue etc or it is my own clothes he chooses to wipes his hands or maybe even rub his grubby face on! I’m lucky I’ve only got one little boy to look after! Well, I guess you could say one little boy and one big boy too!

Following this on my busy list, is the amount of time we devote to play, I am either playing with toys, finding toys, organising toys or tidying up toys, even tripping over toys. Basically toys take up a lot of my time, and as much of my time is spent tidying up toys as it is spent playing with them.

So this week I really want to put aside some time and get on with my blog. Valentine’s recipes are my focus for the next few weeks and I’m going to find some good recipes. In the meantime check out the Valentine’s cookies George and I made last year.

Mmmm brownies. George and I made some this week for our friends. We have a fantastic new book called The Cookiepedia by Stacey Adimando filled full of yummy cookies and biscuits. I love how this recipe book has set itself apart from all the other baking books on my shelf. It is spiral bound and more like a textbook than a traditional recipe book and I like the style. The use of spiral binding is a simple idea, but very effective and I wish all my recipe books were so easy to use. Listen up publishers – spiral binding is a must for a user friendly recipe book.

Now, as the name suggested The Cookiepedia works its way through every type of cookie imaginable but in clear sections group cookie types together. For example there is a whole section on chocolate cookies, where my brownies fitted in (cookie or cake you decide) and another on fruity cookies which included the delicious oatmeal raisin cookies I’ve enjoyed making. There are lots of helpful hints with each recipe; a useful glossary, which I think most recipe books lack; and great food photography accompanied.

At the moment my copy of The Cookiepedia is my go to baking book and the one recipe book that is staying off my bookshelf and out on my kitchen counter – and in my kitchen that is the equivalent of my own special culinary award.

Quick Healthy Smoked Salmon Pasta:

Fruit Custard Fool; quick, easy, healthy and delicious:

My Quick Jacket Potato recipe:

Rose piped icing for beautiful cupcakes:

Speedy Prawn Stir Fry:

If you have time and you want to make a quick last minute homemade gift or have something yummy to offer guests over the next week then check out these very cute Christmas pudding petits fours. Think of these as healthier versions of the chocolate truffle. They are about the same size, but packed full of dried fruit they are much better for you. I made mine with my little boy so they are a fun Christmas activity for kids to get involved with.

Here’s how to make them:

Ingredients:

• 400g fruit cake
• 50g softened unsalted butter
• 100g luxury mixed fruit (I combined dried figs, dried apricots and sultanas)
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• zest of one orange
• 1 pack marzipan
• Green food colouring
• Cloves

Method:

1. Crumble up the fruit cake into a large bowl and add the softened butter.
2. Put the mixed fruit into a fruit processor and blitz until it comes into a smooth paste.
3. Scrape the fruit paste into the bowl with the fruit cake, add the spices and orange zest.
4. Mix well with a wooden spoon until it is combined and a sticky consistency, this will take a few minutes to achieve.
5. Take a generous teaspoon of the mixture and roll into a ball, continue until you have used all the mixture.
6. Cut a small section of your marzipan, approx 50g and add a few drops of green food colouring. Kneed the marzipan until the colour has distributed evenly. Take very small pieces and shape into leaves.
7. Wash your hands to remove any food colouring and then take small pinches of the plain marzipan roll into small balls and then flatten to look like a penny coin.
8. Mold the marzipan on top of the mini christmas puddings and then place the green leaf on top, push a clove into the leave to secure the leaf.

I have wrapped my gifts in greaseproof paper and tied with ribbon, you could also use cellophane before wrapping in christmas paper.

Look what I’ve found for the Christmas stocking. These gorgeous Lindt chocolate teddy bears. They are absolutely adorable and just right for something to add to the a Christmas stocking. I always go for chocolate coins but that’s boring, these festive chocolate teddy bears are much better. I know my little boy is going to love them – not least because he has already shown them to me when we were out shopping!

There are other stocking fillers to choose from:

I hope this is a useful idea for your Christmas stocking, or maybe even a small gift for children big or small.