Day 6 - my spending so far!

Tuesday was unusually warm and sunny so mini and I headed off to the beach to meet friends. This turned out to be quite an expensive trip, especially due to the gorgeous beach side brasserie!

Trip to Langland:
Car park £2.50
Bucket and spade £2.50
Coffee, squash, chips £7.40
Ice cream for mini £3.95

Total £16.35

This was definitely unnecessary spending but as I'm sure you've noticed the sun has the effect of making people spend money. I didn't feel too bad as I hadn't spent anything so far and I was on a foraging trip that evening which I felt would balance it out.
The foraging trip itself was excellent and I would recommend it to anyone. The trip I went on was with WI so we had a guide but you could easily DIY with a book from the library (an excellent source of freeness!). We went to the woods in Parkmill,Gower and our guide Dawn told us what we could and couldn't eat and the best way of preparing our foraged goodies, I even ate a raw stingy nettle and it was great tasted like runner beans which I love. I came away with a bag full of wild garlic, wood sorrell, nettles and ash keys all free courtesy of natures larder.

Wednesday turned out to be another day of spending with a trip to the shops necessary as we had run out of mini's favourite Dora the explorer pasta shapes, at times these are the only thing he will eat so we cannot be without them (disappointing for a foodie mum like me but thats another blog!). I spent £24 in Sainsbury's, which although a chunk of my budget was on essentials - Okay okay and £4 on the union jack bunting bag for life that seduced me.
I had 3 meals planned using my foraged goodies the first of which we had today, nettle and wild garlic soup. Sounds scary but it was delicious, even my very fussy husband enjoyed it.

Nettle and Wild Garlic Soup Recipe:
This makes a vibrant green soup that is both delicious and nutritious!
Quantities are not exact and they needn't be with soups like this. Soups are an excellent way of using up things youve got hanging around.
2 onions finely chopped
large handful wild garlic finely chopped
large handful of nettles scalded (scalding removes the stingy part)
1 tablespoon pearl barley
1 tablespoon lentils
1 knorr chicken stock pot (any stock pot/liquid or cube is fine)
olive oil

lightly fry the onions in the olive oil to soften, you don't want to brown them just spften until they become translucent. Add the pearl barley and lentils and again fry lightly for a few minutes.
Next add the nettles and wild garlic mix well with other ingredients and continue to fry lightly.
Dissolve the stock in a pint of boiling water add this to the saucepan and top up with a further litre or so of boiling water.
Bring to the boil, leave to simmer over a low heat for about an hour.
Blitz soup to remove the lumps.
The soup can be served with cream as a cream of version but I prefer it without.

Potato can be used instead of pearl barley and lentils, thats just what I had lurking in the cupboard.
This soup went well with the wheaten soda bread that I found at the bottom of the freezer, and was very filling.

Thursday. With father's day on Sunday we needed to get a card and present sent to my father in law in North Yorkshire, cue more spending.
Mini and I made him some yummy hazelnut cookies with ingredients we already had so they cost us nothing - so far so good. To send these first class recorded cost £3.65 and the moon pig picture card was £6.45 including postage. This is a lot less than we would normally spend but still £10.10 which means I have now gone over budget and spent £50.45.

Today's main meal was a Spanish omlette:
My version of the Tortilla Espanol using wild garlic, chorizo and Jersey royals.
5 eggs lightly beaten
6 potatoes boiled and cooled (ideal for leftovers)
Chorizo ring sliced (I used half a ring)
1 onion finely chopped
Handful of Wild Garlic finely chopped
sea salt
Black pepper
Olive oil

Wood Sorrell to serve

Use the olive oil to saute the onions and chorizo in a frying pan until the oil starts to be released from the chorizo, add the wild garlic and thinly sliced potatoes and mix thoroughly until all coated with the oil.
beat the eggs and season with salt and black pepper.
Pour the egg mixture into the pan completely covering the other ingredients.
Turn the heat down and cook on the hob for approx 3 mins.
When the egg is cooked about half way through place frying pan under a medium grill for 4-5mins to cook the top.
When the top is golden brown your omlette is ready.
Tip out onto a plate and cut into wedges and serve with freshly foraged wood sorrell (or salad!)

The £50 challenge - Day One

Just a brief post to update on today's progress in my challenge to spend only £50 this week.
I think it is going to be harder than I initially anticipated but a challenge is a challenge and I'm sticking to it!
My plan of attack was to avoid impulse buying (a huge weakness of mine) by doing an online shop. I very rarely do online food shopping because they always seem to substitute the things I really want with weak alternatives, and also because I don't want everything from tesco as I try to support small, local businesses in particular my lovely butcher.
This week however it seemed that online shopping was my only option, so I logged in, booked my delivery slot and placed a basic order - it came to just under £80 not including the £4.50 delivery charge - so that was cancelled!! I hardly had anything on there so I am beginning to see how this can easily become a problem when you are on a tight budget.
My next plan of attack was to raid the freezer and cupboards to see what they had to offer and it was here that I struck gold! I haven't yet fully explored the depths but the freezer had some frozen veggies, 2 packs of steak mince, a pack of 2 seeded cod fillets and 2 posh fish cakes as well as 2 huge bags of potato wedges! Incredible that's 4 meals right there! Next I moved on to the cupboards and again had little more than a cursory glance, a bag of risotto rice and some dried porcini mushrooms will make a great dinner one day, there is also a full bag of paella rice, pasta, brown rice, 2 boxes of miso soup, tins of tomatoes, passata and loads of different stocks!
I am now feeling a little less apprehensive about my challenge, and it also presents the opportunity to empty my freezer for a much needed defrost!
I had taken some mince out to defrost ready for a spag Bol dinner, when my mum called in to invite us to dinner at hers so I didn't need to cook at all. Thus the spag Bol will be there tomorrow.
Total spend for day is a big fat ZERO, an excellent start to the challenge!
How are you getting on? If you're on twitter use #50challenge.
As always I'd love some feedback to improve my blogging!

Hunger - A first world problem?

The image we normally associate with hunger is that of skinny children with huge mournful eyes and  bones sticking out in far off countries. However, as the economic crisis continues could this become a reality in the so called first world - our world?

My attention was drawn to the problem of hunger in the UK a few months ago and it has been playing on my mind ever since. It all started when by chance I was channel surfing and came across 'Richard Corrigan on Hunger' which saw telly chef Richard Corrigan investigate the growth of food poverty in the UK. Quite frankly I could barely believe what I was seeing. The people featured in the documentary weren't  homeless, they weren't drug addicts they were ordinary working families on low incomes who between rent, bills and essentials for the kids (by this I mean shoes etc not playstations and ipads) simply couldn't make ends meet.
It seems unthinkable that people in one of the worlds richest countries are regularly going hungry because they can't afford food, or because they have to choose between feeding themselves or feeding their children.

What made this situation even more astonishing for me was the contrast with the sheer amount of food wasted in the UK (an estimated 5,375,000 tonnes per year or 17.6% of total household waste if you're interested) and this is something so many of us are guilty of.
How can people be starving when so much perfectly edible food is being thrown away?
 Here is the link to the programme I watched, it's well worth a look http://current.com/groups/videos/93576223_richard-corrigan-on-hunger.htm

In response to this problem there are a growing number of foodbanks in the UK, people in need of food are issued vouchers by front line care professionals (such as health visitors, doctors and social workers) and can use these vouchers to claim food packages at one of these foodbanks.

I must admit that aswell as being shocked I also felt incredibly guilty as I am one of the millions regularly throwing away food. I wanted to know more about the hunger problem in my own area, surely no one around here is going hungry? This must be a big city problem! How wrong I was.... A foodbank has been set up in a small town less than 2 miles from where I live, they regularly carry out food collections at supermarkets throughout Swansea. If this is playing on your conscience why not get googling and find out what's going on in your area, most of us can afford to throw a few extra items in the trolley at the supermarket and any donations are appreciated.

I have contacted my local foodbank and arranged for them to give a presentation to our WI, we plan to get more involved in helping our community and this seems to be an excellent place to start.

I mentioned my food waste guilt earlier, in this house we throw food away regularly. There is rarely anything wrong with the food, the usual reason is that we didn't fancy it so ate something else, or we went out or we felt like a take away (less so now we are being healthy and avoid take aways!). I am determined to stop taking food for granted, and since becoming aware of the problem I have thrown away a lot less food mainly because I have been conciously buying less and buying more frozen food. However, we are still throwing food away, this is wasting food aswell as money, and that IS a motivator.
So.......I am setting myself a challenge! There are 3 of us in this household (2 adults and 1 toddler), I think I spend about £100 every week on food (including eating out) when I go shopping I rarely even notice the price of things and do A LOT of impulse buying. This week i'm going to lock all debit and credit cards in the safe and do my very best to survive on £50.
Keep checking the blog to see how i'm getting on, i'm also going to be brutally honest and record what is going in the bin.
As Geraint says 'it's a challenge, a challenge for me and a challenge for the coracle'.

Wish me luck.......

Motivation - how do you do it?

I've just been looking over my early posts namely New year, new me (again). One of my resolutions was to lose weight and get fit. The losing weight started off really well with me losing 8lbs in 3 weeks. On January 21st I suddenly lost my daddy so dieting was the last thing on my mind and I put about a stone on rather quickly and it is proving to be very difficult to shift.
I finally joined a gym in April and I have been going frequently, however I have not lost any weight. My eating is pretty good, I do occasionally eat more than I should (no more than once a week) but generally I am pretty healthy so it is very frustrating to say the least!!
I think I need to get motivated to exercise more as I frequently can't be bothered (like now).
I'm at the moment trying to psyche myself up for a gym visit when hubby gets home in 40mins. Trouble is I hate going in the evenings as it is just so busy there. I had talked myself out of it and decided to go in the morning until I logged on to Facebook and saw someone I use to be so much thinner than looking like my old self!
I can't have this! I won't have this! I am going to the gym!!
We all need a little motivational inspiration from time to time. What gets you going when you really can't be bothered?
Have we all got this competitive streak of vanity lurking beneath the surface??

H x

I'm back!

I'm back! After a 4 month leave of absence I am determined to get blogging regularly so please feel free to prod me if I start slacking again!
In my time away from the blog I have been very busy. I was involved in the start up of a new branch of the WI in Gowerton and am honoured to be president of this wonderful group of ladies. We started in April and so far we have 30 members, a large number of whom are in their 20's and 30's! We even have our own website www.gowertonwi.co.uk have a peep if you fancy seeing what the WI do. I'm something of a young fogey and have always liked the idea of it, there was nothing in the area and I have a few like minded friends so we started our own. Your group can do pretty much whatever you want to, we have speakers and activities alternating at our twice monthly meetings. Next week we are going foraging on the Gower an we are also getting involved with our local foodbank to help the community.

Speaking of websites, I really need to crack on with mine I have enlisted a helper now I just need to pull my finger out.....
I am continuing to build my small home business. There has been a shift in my business goals and I am now focussing solely on cakes and desserts and have recently been supplying a local restaurant woohoo!
I have teamed up with another foodie friend and we are discussing a cake shop, plans are very much at the idle chit chat stage but who knows, I would love to make it a reality.

That's enough for now, just wanted you to know I'm back and I fully intend to stay back.
Time for mini's dinner now (and my miso soup!)

I have a few things lined up for the blog over the next couple of weeks and would love your feedback.

H x

It's Official!

The big news this week is that I am now officially a self employed person with a business bank account, The Gower Catering Company is up and running! It is still a very small enterprise but I am hoping to build it into a full time job by the time my son goes to full time school, he is 2 now so i've got the best part of 2 years. I am very excited but also very apprehensive, running your own business is not easy but I hope that with hard work and an equal amount of luck I can do it!

My first official order was for an 18th birthday cake, ordinary you might think but no, this cake was to be Pokemon themed featuring Pikachou who was the recipients favourite character. Now, being a shade over 18 myself (just a few months you understand) I had only a vague notion of what this was basically I was aware of its existence but that was about it! Fortunately I am a bit of an expert at internet searching so was able to get plenty of images that were very useful in the design process. This led me to wondering, how on earth did we function before the internet was so widely available? The cake was ordered 3 days before it was required, having no idea what this character looked like or what its show was like I would have really struggled to find in a library what was instantly available to me online. I  have become totally dependent on the world wide web, and i'm certainly not alone. If I can't get a 3G connection (or preferably wifi) on my iphone I am in a state of semi panic, the power of that instant knowledge is addictive and I no longer have the ability to wait for anything.

Fortunately for me I do have an excellent broadband connection so was quickly able to learn enough about pokemon to produce a cake that greatly pleased its recipient, and I must admit i was pretty pleased with it too!

8" chocolate cake, covered in sugarpaste with mexican paste model.

Low fat cheesecake!

I had some friends over for dinner on Friday night, this is something I do regularly since I became a mum as it is often difficult for me to get out, that and I love cooking and feeding people! What with it being the first week of January we are all naturally on diets so I was ordered to cook something low in fat. The main course was easy I simply roasted a chicken and served it torn into big chunks (looks so much more appealing than carved) with a huge bowl of salad and some homemade balsamic vinegarette. It sounds virtuous and it was but after all the heavy winer food we'd all eaten last month (last year even!) a crisp, colourful salad was enjoyed by all. The dessert I had a more difficult time deciding on after all puddings are meant to be a treat and are generally calorie laden, I eventually decided upon a lime and ginger cheesecake. I have made many a cheesecake in my time and always used mascarpone cheese, its creamy richness is just perfect for dessert whether as a cheesecake or served with a lemon tart it is a delightful substance. It is however, full of fat which is public enemy number 1 at the moment. I decided to use philadelphia extra light as a substitution, I had never tried it before and when I mixed the topping I was rather concerned that it was a lot runnier than mascarpone and that it would not set. I needn't have worried, it did set although it took longer than mascarpone (I would recommend making the day before) and it tasted delicious, so if you are trying to cut back but need a treat here is the recipe, its not without its sins but it is a lot more saintly than the mascarpone version.

For the base
200g ginger nut
50g unsalted butter

For the filling
500g philadelphia extra light
65g icing sugar
2 limes (juice and zest)
2 pieces stem ginger in syrup (finely choppped)

Method
Crush the ginger nuts (I used a food processor but crushing inside a plastic bag works just as well), when completely crushed add the melted butter and mix well. Transfer mixture to an 8" cake tin (loose base or spring form) and spread to form an even layer that completely covers the base, use a light pressure to ensure biscuit is tighly compacted.
Combine cheese, icing sugar, lime and ginger (I used a mixer but a wooden spoon would do the job just fine and burn a few calories in the process!) stirring until well mixed.
Transfer mixture to the prepared cake tin and smooth over the base with a spatula.
Place in fridge and leave to set for at least 10 hours, preferably overnight.
Use a knife to loosen sides and gently remove cake from tin.
Sit back and enjoy!