putting my money where my mouth is... weekly menu

I thought it may be of interest to some people to show you some of what we are actually eating on a day to day basis. I cook or make pretty much everything from scratch, so I mainly just buy ingredients. That way I save a lot of money and I can also be sure that what we are eating is as natural and healthy as possible. Oh yes and I do enjoy cooking, the kids and I work together in the kitchen preparing meals and it is a good family time for us and way for me to express my love and care for them and also for myself. So here are a few samples of things we eat:

 Breakfast

• Cereal or museli (I buy these ready made but am avoiding any with lots of added nasties) and organic milk
• Toast made with home made spelt bread and jam or peanut butter
• Eggs, the kids love boiled eggs and we have them with soldiers/ fingers of toast
• Pancakes 
• Smoothies, at the moment we are adding spirulina to them, they make the smoothie a fantastic green colour and we are hoping that if we drink enough of it we might turn green from head to foot like aliens, well Benny is hoping that! 
• Yoghurt with fruit and seed granola sprinkled on top
• Breakfast rice. If we have rice in the evening I make extra that I keep in the fridge over night. The next morning I add milk, cinnamon and raisins and re-heat it for a lovely quick, hot breakfast

 Lunch
This is usually a simple meal as the kids have lunch boxes for school that I pack with crackers, salad, a piece of fruit, a scone and such like. So we often would eat hummus and bread and salad, soup, or if we didn't have eggs for breakfast an omelette.

Dinner

• Vegetarian spag bol, corn spaghetti and salad. When I make bolognese sauce I make a huge pot using whatever veggies I have in the house, mixed with a whole packet of quorn mince and about 250g of red lentils and a jar or two of passata. I freeze this in portions and I use it for a quick meal, or to make lasagne. It would feed us for about 4 nights and is always a firm favourite.
• Soups and salad
• Sadlebacks, the kids love these and we only recently discovered them

Saddlebacks: cut a potato in half length ways then with a sharp knife cut slits along the back of the potato but without cutting all the way through. Grease a baking tray with a little olive oil (use your hands) then rub your oily hands over the saddlebacks as you place them on the tray. Sprinkle with a little salt (at the moment I am using pink Himalayan salt). Bake in a moderate oven for about 20-30 mins depending on the size of the potatoes. These are lovely served as a side dish or we frequently eat them as our main with different salads.

• Pizza: When i am making spelt yeast bread I make some extra and roll these into pizza shapes and half bake them in the oven then freeze the bases when cooled. Then you only need a bit of passata and some toppings, or for a nice change some garlic and herb pesto and goats cheese.
• Quorn sausages
• Fallafel and salad in wraps
• Chili using quorn mince as a base

Treats and Desserts

We've been eating a little too much of this of late so I am trying to cut back to just once a week, but we would perhaps have something like:

• yoghurt, berries and seeds
• fruit
• home made vegan ice cream (so easy and there are loads of great recipes online you can find)
• cake/ biscuits (home made, we love brownies and muffins and of course carrot cake)
• chocolates:

I first tasted these raw cacao chocolates at a friends house, little did I know how easy they are to make and they are oh so delicious. The kids and I prefer them to milk chocolates

raw chocolate fudge
100g raw coconut oil
150g smooth nut butter (we use peanut but I think any is fine)
100g raw cacao (if you can't get this a good cocoa is also fine, I've used Green and Blacks)
2-3 tbsp honey (or agave syrup)

gently heat the cocnut oil and nut butter together until they are runny, add the rest of the ingredients. Pour into tiny cake cases or I use those silicon tiny muffin cases or ice cube trays. allow to set in fridge for 30 mins or 10 mins in the freezer. actually I freeze mine and keep them in the freezer and the kids and I take out one each after dinner to enjoy and oh boy we do enjoy them.

If there are any other recipes you'd like let me know.
In terms of recipe books I have quite a few but tend not to use them very much, I enjoy just making it up as I go along, the internet is great for recipes if you have the time to trawl through them all. I recently bought myself a copy of The Mystic Cookfire, which I really love and recommend. It is a vegan cook book, but uses ingredients you are likely to have and won't cost a fortune to buy.

I have another post in mind for this wee series coming shortly :-)