Meal Planning Monday - 14th September

Monday - Tomato soup (using some of our meagre crop of homegrown tomatoes)
Tuesday - Sausage pasta
Wednesday - Tuna fishcakes
Thursday - Chicken curry and rice
Friday - Homemade fish fingers (phil & the girls), jacket potato and beans for me
Saturday - Slow cooker chilli and rice
Sunday - Slow cooker chicken, bacon and potato stew

I need to pop to our local butcher for the mince and bacon, and will be getting 6 chicken breasts for £6 at Tadcaster market.

We've had an unexpected expense this month so are having to cut back on our shopping spend to try and stay afloat, I'm trying to use up as much of what we have in the cupboards and freezer and make use of deals on meat to get through to pay day.  I have one large frozen fish fillet left in the freezer, which will become the fish fingers, and we have some sausages left over from the last time I bought them in bulk from the butcher that goes to Tad market.  We always have lots of dried pasta in the cupboards and usually a tin of tuna in there.

I'll be looking out for the usual MPM post on At home with Mrs M to link up with the other meal planners.

Chocolate Tart

I made a chocolate tart to accompany the sunday lunch at my parents last weekend - and promptly forgot to take it with me, not very clever.  Luckily they were passing that evening and could pick up some to try for supper.

I used this BBC Good Food recipe, but opted to melt my butter on the hob, and also melt my chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water.  Our microwave is unpredictable at best in it's desire to cook - so I don't trust it to melt chocolate in, back to the old school method for me.

I had a tiny piece of this as I cut my parents portion.  It was OK - but lacked something.  I thought maybe some pieces of honeycomb to add another texture to the chocolate topping.  It was very rich, and a bit sickly really.  I'm tempted to make it again, adding in some pears and ginger, and using ginger biscuits as the base.

Do you have a go to chocolate tart recipe?

Recent Eats

I'm back on the slimming world train, having signed up for a 12 week weight loss programme, which gives 12 free slimming world sessions, and 12 weeks of free use of the gym.  In my first week I struggled to get back 'on plan' but since my weigh in on Thursday I've felt more focused.

 

I've done a couple of bits of baking in the last few weeks, made bread, some flapjack and a chocolate tart.  I also popped my popcorn cherry - why have I never made my own before?  I love popcorn, and will definitely be making my own from now on.

 

 

I've been out a few times; I was invited to the launch night of Turtle Bay in York - but unfortunately didn't really get to sample any food, it was more of a drinking and celebration event; those that were enjoying the free bar and live band were having a great time.  It was a little noisy and chaotic for us though, so we popped along to a charity night at Bettys in York, in aid of SANDS and another of their chosen charities.  We had a three course meal and plenty of conversation.

We'll be going on our honeymoon shortly, I can't wait to go to Rome.  I'm going to be scouring the net for recommendations of off the tourist track places to eat, and we can't wait to do all that sight seeing.

Gourmet garden lightly dried herbs

I was sent a selection of lightly dried herbs to review; parsley, basil and coriander.

I usually have fresh basil, parsley, rosemary and mint growing at home, but for some reason I can never keep coriander alive - something to work on!

I'll admit that when I was sent these I didn't quite see the point to them. However, as I've been using these I've found the herbs just being in the fridge to be really useful and have made use of them more than I thought I would.

I always find I prefer to use fresh herbs, these lightly dried versions have provided a good alternative - and my inner lazy cook does quite appreciate not having to chop my fresh herbs up, or rescue the children from the garden whilst I'm cutting a few sprigs.

I also like the packets they're in. My herb and spice collection has taken up a whole shelf of a cupboard - I need one of those spice tree thingys with them all together. So just chucking these on the shelf of my fridge door was handy.

I've found the flavour, texture and smell of these to be good too - certainly better than my dried varieties that have been open a good few months.

If I saw these in the supermarket I would definitely buy - particularly the coriander!