FUSSY FOOD: Honey and Lemon Thyme Roast Chicken & Triple Choc Cherry Brownies

Rowse Honey are saying thank you to bees by planting thousands of 'bee friendly' plants. 

If you follow them on Facebook you can submit your own thank you note for the bees. Then the lovely people at Rowse will transfer the note onto a plant marker, plant it in a field with all the other thank you noted plants and send you a photo of your plant on facebook. Heres my plant.

I chose my favourite Victor Hugo quote for my thank you. The plant marker reads 'Thanks #BusyBees for life if the flower for which love is the honey ~ Victor Hugo. Love Angie x'

So with a jar of Rowse Honey in the cupboard and a roast chicken in the fridge I decided to have a look at their recipes to find some inspiration for Sunday lunch.

Wow lots of lovely recipes and I finally settled on this one for Honey and Lemon Thyme Roast Chicken. 

I was quite pleased with what turned out to be a very quick easy roast chicken recipe. It would be delicious cooked over chicken breasts for a midweek tea or as a marinade in the summer for BBQs. This is how it turned out. I was surprised how out of this world the chicken tasted given that the recipe and preparation takes all of 10 minutes!

For pudding I made the girls their favourite triple choc cherry brownies - sorry the recipe I can't part with all I will say its from a website but I'm not telling which one. Yes, it's very selfish but I've never tasted a better brownie and it even gets a 'just like mom bakes' thumbs up from my Californian boss! 

The only thing I will tell you is the pan is a proper double walled brownie pan from Lakeland (where else?).

Enjoy, Angie x

Fussy Food: Swedish Meatballs and New Potatoes with Fizzy Raspberry Trifle

No Visit to IKEA is complete without a visit to their Swedish Food Market. They stock lots of delicious Swedish delicacies and drinks. With this in mind I went to IKEA at Ashton-Under-Lyne on Friday after school to pick up a few bits from IKEA and some Swedish food. 

When we got home we tucked into a very Swedish meal of meatballs, boiled baby new potatoes and peas with lashings of Gräddsås and Sylt Lingon!

You can buy frozen meatballs, Gräddsås in packets that you just add water and cream, and also Sylt Lingon. 

Gräddsås is not only delicious with meatballs but it also works with beef and pork. We had it at Christmas with our Turkey and it was a very nice change from the normal Bisto blend. 

Sylt Lingon is actually a jam made from Lingonberries. These berries grow wild throughout the forests of Sweden and taste scrummy with meatballs or crispbread with cheese. The girls like it on pancakes with vanilla ice cream. 

Unfortunately the food market is not available to purchase online so you would have to visit your nearest store to buy these. 

For pudding I made some cute and healthy mini trifles. I made 'fizzy' raspberry jelly in the little pots then just before serving I spooned on fat free natural yoghurt then topped with slices of strawberry and banana. 

Tonight's dinner was a big hit! DD3 and DD5 both said they could eat it all again :) 

Enjoy, Angie x

Fussy Food: Sausages with Orzo Pasta and Easy Homemade Tomato Sauce

My kidlets, as I imagine most kidlets, are notoriously fussy eaters. Food they adore one week will inevitably by despised the next! So I try to find something they all like and try to get them all to eat a little bit of everything. Occasionally I get it right and they practically inhale everything on their plates before I've sat down to eat mine. 

Grandma and Granddad arrive home from work about 6.30pm so its too long to make the girls wait just so they can eat with them. 

Tonight I made sausages with Orzo Pasta and easy home made tomato sauce. I served peas, carrots and sweetcorn and the kids favourite - baby new potatoes on the side.

The Orzo Pasta looks like really big rice flakes. It says 8 mins on the packet for cooking time and they really do need 8 minutes and not a minute longer or it sticks together with starch just like over cooked rice!

The tomato sauce is simple to make and almost cooks itself. 

Ingredients for 4 kidlets or 2 adults:

2 tbsp of olive oil

1 can of chopped tomatoes

2 bay leaves

1 small finely chopped onion

2 finely chopped or crushed garlic cloves

Method:

Take a saucepan and add 2 tbsp olive oil

Add chopped onions and garlic cloves and gently heat on a low heat for a couple of minutes to soften the mix.

Add the chopped tomatoes and bay leaves. 

Bring to the boil and as soon as it does turn the heat right down and simmer, stirring occasionally - don't let it stick, for approx 20-30mins until the excess water has evaporated and leaves a thick tomato sauce.

Remove bay leaves before serving.

This is also a lovely basic pizza topping!

So how did it go? Well thankfully they inhaled the lot. Really. I'm not even kidding. DD5 finished hers before I had finished serving the older girls meals. Glad she liked it though.

Pudding was coconut macaroons and a slice of Victoria sponge with yummy custard. My camera decided it didn't want to take any more photos and stopped working in protest so have no pics for this so you will have to  use your imagination!

What meals do your kidlets love? What can they eat no matter how often you make it? 

Love, Angie x

New Beginnings

Thursday, 12th April 2012 will remain with me forever. Its the day I moved my family to live with my parents. 

As a single mum to 4 busy little people I found it hard to combine all my energy and attention on raising 4 little wonders. I was spreading myself too thin and needed help. Fast. 

So now as I write this 10 days later am I happy with the decision? Do I think it was the right thing to do or had all my preparations since November 2011 been for nothing?

It has turned out to be the best decision I've made for a long time. I now have the support of two of the dearest people in my world and know that I can focus my energy on working and raising my little people the best that I can. 

So hopefully, in 10 weeks, months and years time I will be able to say 'Yes, that was the best decision I ever made' :) 

I will be mainly posting on the blog about my girls, what they're doing, eating, reading, playing with etc etc. When the girls aren't around the blog will be about other things that I think would interest other parents like me. 

So welcome to the blog, hope you can stay awhile and have a good read! 

Enjoy, Angie x