Saturday, 17 February 2018

Food for Thought

I have been thinking a lot about food. How do you sort out food? Who cooks? What do you like to eat? I find it really interesting. Whether you have a young family or you cook for one or two, we all need food and I find it a fascinating subject.
Butternut Squash muffins, cheese scones and vegetable soup
I would say I am a good cook. I like baking, making and I love recipes not just a collection of items on a plate. My mum has worked in pubs, restaurants and kitchens all of her life and taught me to cook really well. My paternal grandmother was a sustenance cook - feeding farmers hearty meals of basic food but her niche skill was preserving.
She would have made jam and crumble with this lot
My dad traveled extensively with his job: Germany, India, Pakistan and Switzerland. He brought back food ideas. We hosted his engineer clients at our house, sometimes with their families. 
Dahl, flat breads and pakoras
My girls love to cook. Ever since I could sit them on the counter top and hand them bits of food, they have cooked with me. Now they can bake when friends come over and I hardly have to do a thing! They are good eaters trying a huge variety of foods.
Early knife skills have been used well since


Baking with friends
On Sunday, we plan our food. Sometimes I choose the weeks evening meals and put them on the menu planner on the fridge but if dinners are not going down too well, straight away I open it up to everyone. We all pick a dinner from a cookbook and make a list of what we need ready for a Monday food shop. It creates an atmosphere of tolerance. It might not be your favourite meal but you eat it because you know yours will come up another day. I count myself in that - I tolerate macaroni cheese. 
Paperchase food planner
In terms of health, planning like this gives you an overview of the whole week. We try and have something with fish, something vegetarian or a Sunday dinner that provides meat for the following week. There is always cake of the week for lunchboxes - Lamingtons in this instance. It is a magnetic board and stays on the fridge. This one is from paperchase but has nearly run out of pages. My brother bought me a new one for Christmas.
Stuffed pepper and sausage tray bake
We have next to no waste food because we buy what we need for the meals we have chosen. We also make sure that on busy nights, with Brownies or me at work later, we have the easiest thing to cook. Conversely, on the days I am not at work the prep might be a little more time consuming which is fine because I like cooking. Our family have an allotment so planning is key at seasonal times when we need to use food as it arrives in gluts.
Courgette cake with lemon curd
I try to cook more than one meal at once and freeze one. Curries, casseroles, cakes and crumble mix come under this bracket.It means I have one in the bag for say an accidental afternoon of sewing instead of getting dinner ready!
My girls make batches of crumble mix ready to freeze
Finally, because we have a planned menu anyone can crack on and get started. So sometimes my mum might read it on a Tuesday and peel some potatoes for us or if bloke gets in first he can make pizza dough or flat breads which he is very good at. The world does not wait for me to start dinner. 
Every weekend we make a batch of cake for lunchboxes
It all works well for us. Bloke teases me sometimes about the control aspect of it but essentially everyone gets their dinner at five O'clock and nothing is frozen solid or unavailable at the time of need so I roll with it.
My favourite food is anything that fits in a flat bread!
I have been enjoying reading the cookery challenge blog posts this year and this post is inspired by those musings and celebrates wonderful home cooks all over the world. Eat, drink and be merry.
We are on half term this week so there will be lots of baking, foodie shopping and of course eating with family.
Jo xxxx

19 comments:

  1. This is such a fabulous way to meal plan with your family Jo. Very organised, seasonal and fair. What an excellent idea.

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  2. It sounds as though you do really well with your meals and planning. We try to plan once a week for the week ahead too, and write it on a similar pad to yours - we do ours on a Thursday night because I shop on Friday. I love macaroni cheese, so I don't know if you would like me to help with your meal choices though!! How were the lamingtons, I have never heard of an English person cooking them and would love to know what you thought of them. Happy eating!

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  3. Meg made the lamingtons for Brownies. She is doing a world culture badge and made a leaflet about Australia along with cakes to share. We loved them after the girls initially said they did not want coconut on them - in the end they really enjoyed them. They are now on our lunchbox bake list.

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  4. I don’t understand why there is such emphasis on food nowadays, too many fancy ingredients, bread, cheese, eggs, veg and fruit are all you need. Cake, biscuits = junk.

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    1. I think food has always been considered an essential for all households, eating being a requisite of being alive - a concern of past generations as well as the current one. Some people would call bread junk; at least homemade cakes have not the preservatives etc in them that purchased bread does. Food is to be enjoyed and that might mean cake sometimes. I don't need them, but sometimes I want them. No fancy ingredients in a rock cake or scone. Nice though.

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  5. Fabulous blog. Your food is always great Jo and the girls love to bake anything especially when they know they will be enjoyed. You all have a very healthy lifestyle a little bit of everything is so good for you. Enjoy half term.

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  6. I love this post, Jo! You and I are so much alike. I take a very similar approach to meal planning and cooking. Generally, I'm the one who does these tasks, but I'm also a stay-at-home spouse/parent, so I have a lot more time for it. I plan my menu for one week at a time and do the shopping on Saturday mornings (I just came home about an hour ago). I try to plan at least two or three dinners each week that have enough leftovers for my husband to have lunches he can take to work with him. This saves money and helps him avoid unhealthy cafeteria foods. I am so glad to hear that your girls are good eaters and that they love to help with cooking because mine are the same. They'll eat almost anything and they can cook so many things on their own. People always ask how I made that happen and I don't have a good answer - I always just give them everything I'm eating and give them tasks in the kitchen every day. This morning, they cooked oatmeal and eggs for everyone with very minimal help. I might write a post like this soon too, if it's okay with you. I think it's a great idea to share tips and methods. I loved seeing your meals too, everything looks delicious!

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    1. Please do because I am genuinely interested in what happens in other households. What if you do something amazing and I don't know about it! x

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  7. I loved the look of the courgette cake with lemon curd, not something I would have necessarily put together. I tend to batch cook to save on the electricity bill and have meals organised for the freezer.

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    1. It is a recipe from an early Nigella book. I can't remember which one because I wrote it out on a piece of paper from a friend about 10 years ago but it is so beautiful. Jo x

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  8. Ah Jo, such a lovely post. I did so enjoy reading about your food. I think we are quite similar in many ways. We go through phases with our eating - reaching a low point at the moment. I like to have a meal plan but Richard doesn't. He prefers shopping for bargains. It is a bit of a give and take here for this reason. We all cook. Some better than others I have to say. James an Alistair are starting to be more active in the kitchen, helping with food preparation and all. James makes a pretty mean scrambled egg! I am a good cook I think but my kids may beg to differ. It is not easy to make food that we all like. I don't eat lamb. Richard doesn't like chicken. Annie doesn't eat chick peas. Sam only likes fried food. Alistair barely eats. James hates courgettes...... but the rule is that we all try everything. I am except from eating lamb though, it makes me sick. Off to look out some cookery books! Have a lovely Sunday xx

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    1. There are more of you to think about in your household! x

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  9. I love this post, there's something very satisfying in knowing how other people decide their menus for the week. I love that you bake cakes for the week too. I sadly have gotten out of habit with this one. I used to bake flapjack every week many years ago. Making double the recipe and cooking in the oven with the roast, it was budget cooking at it's best. A friend encouraged me to plan a 2 week menu and make a shopping list accordingly, but I think that was forgotten after a while. My Nan would list her weekly menu too, though hers featured the whole day. For years now, I've made a menu for the week - for the evening meals. I just got fed up peering into the freezer etc expected to 'know' what's for dinner. I try to cook one and plan the next day, if at all possible. Even if it's just get the ingredients out ready. I decided to let the teens pick a recipe each from the book I'm using for the next Cookery Calendar Challenge, they've chosen some right weird things too! Smoked salmon doughnuts! I've not asked my husband to choose anything yet. I've chosen 2 things so I must sort my shopping list out as I too like to shop on a Monday. Enjoy your cooking, Cathy x

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    1. I like to know what is coming up the next day too - very often it requires opening the freezer. I was sick of having to think of something and then find it was all frozen solid! Planning really helps. Jo x

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  10. I know that there are many people who regard food as fuel for their bodies, it is far more than that. Planning,cooking and eating meals is part of building family values and memories for the rest of our lives. I only have to smell bread baking and I am back in the kitchen, with my Granny, on a Sunday morning. Bread went in the oven first,then pastry followed by sponge and small cakes, as the temperature dropped pound cake and fruit cake went in.The range would be stoked up then ready to cook a roast, all the while I was learning and building my memories. This is a great post, much more than a list of meals and baking.

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  11. Oh WOW,you really are a Blog Queen Jo.I Love this post so interesting and that food is sooooo yummy too.Butternut Squash Muffins,now that is something I must try,love Butternut Squash.there is only the two of us and we are a bit slap dash about meals lol.We do share the cooking,I am not good cooking anything with eggs but Husband is.I do enjoy cooking and love baking,making soup is another fav of mine,husband makes bread too.We Love Indian food and usually have an Indian some Saturdays ( home made of course ).Love all the photos.Thanks for the comment on my blanket for the Twins.x

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  12. It's so interesting to nosy at how other families sort out food! We actually do it very similar except I don't bake much. We plan our week's menu on a Sunday and everyone gets some input - although Friday has been (homemade) pizza night for about 9 years now... One thing I really would like to do in the future is grow some vegetables - we have raspberries, blackberries and strawberries in the summer, but only because they require zero effort! Generally I struggle to keep a cactus alive, but maybe one day...
    X

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  13. I love to make cakes but don't very often because then we would eat them which makes me fat. I hate the organisational aspect of cooking and it is all a bit random according to what I have bought, or if I can get to the shops. I like to eat a mixture of established recipes of which there are many, or to try out something new. I like to improvise and make my own or follow recipes. Sometimes we have a meal plan but usually that is not the case as I prefer to eat what I feel like on the day. I couldn't do just one shop a week as I like things to be as fresh as possible and also food shopping is done on foot, so I can only carry so much. Cat litter and food is heavy and we can't eat those but must be lugged home, so we end up at the supermarket probably every other day.

    Daughter sometimes shares meals but she is vegetarian while I am vegan. This results in a few meals that are the same or one made cheesy and the other not but often I cook two completely different things. She also requires that things like tomatoes be chopped very finely. I eat a far bigger range of foods. Left to her, it would be cakes all the way

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  14. I plan my cooking menu for five days of week. Sometimes there are three different veggies cooked for three of us on a single day, in addition to rice/bread. I invest a lot of time in cooking both for lunch and dinner everyday. I haven't yet got expertise in baking yet. On weekends, we either order food or go out to eat, otherwise, my husband cooks.

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