Turkey Mince Moussaka Recipe

Still on my quest to make healthier meals for me and the family, I am try to adapt recipes that I already love and give them that healthy twist. This week I really fancied moussaka but instead of using lamb mince, I decided to change it for turkey mince, less fatty and a better source of protein.

Ingredients

Base :

500g Turkey Mince
1 Tin of Chopped Tomatoes
2 Tbsp Tomato Puree
1 Large Red Onion
2 Large Aubergines

Sauce :

250g Greek Yoghurt
80g Grated Cheese
1 Egg
1 Heaped Tbsp Cornflour
Fry Light for Cooking

Peanut Butter Mug Cake

One of my guilty pleasures has to be the nutella mug cake, it is delicious and really satisfies that craving for cake that I seem to always have come the evening time. However it isn't exactly the healthiest thing to eat. I wanted to come up with something that would be just as tasty but wouldn't leave me feeling as guilty after consuming it. I came up with the peanut butter mug cake.

Ingredients

* 4 tbsp wholemeal self raising flour
* 4 tbsp caster sugar
* 3 tbsp cocoa powder
* 3 tbsp sunflower oil
* 3 tbsp semi skimmed milk
* 1 large egg
* 2 tbsp crunchy nut peanut butter

Coconut and Marshmallow Muffin Recipe

I was lucky enough to receive a selection of goodies from Cake Angels on Monday. This included icing, sprinkles, candles and marshmallows.

 The question was just what was I going to bake? I had a look through my cupboard at the other ingredients that I had and I decided to make coconut and marshmallow muffins, adapting a recipe for muffins that I had made before.

Banana and Raspberry Smoothie Recipe

I hope I'm not the only one that has children that change their minds like the wind. One day they really like something, the next day they hate it. This happens a lot when it comes to fruit and vegetables. I've found a good way to get them have some of their five a day is to make a smoothie. The good thing about smoothies is that you can vary the flavours. A firm favourite in this house is the banana and raspberry smoothie.

Ingredients

* 2 x bananas
* 2 handfuls of raspberries ( I used fresh but you can use frozen)
* 2 tsp of sugar
* 1 tsp of vanilla essence
* 600 ml of semi skimmed milk

Pita Bread Pizza Recipe

Since it is half term, I thought it was time to get the kids involved with cooking the dinner, seen as we weren't in a rush to do anything else yesterday. On the menu was pita bread pizzas, a great alternative to a normal pizza.

Ingredients

* Packet of pita breads
* Tomato puree
* Grated cheese
* Pizza toppings, we opted for a variety of meats

Preparation

* Turn on the grill and warm up to a medium heat.
* Cut each pita bread in half and place on a baking tray.
* Place the pita breads under the gril for approximately a minute.
* Spread tomato puree over each of the pita breads.
* Add your toppings, making sure to cover the whole of the pita breads.

Tomato and Courgette Baked Omelette

With Daddy Hazelden working away in London during the week, I end up cooking the girls dinner in the afternoon and then find myself not wanting to cook again later on. So I have been trying to come up with some quick and easy meals for me to eat for on those days when I really can't be bothered. Omelette is something that is not only easy to make but it is versatile too because you can put whatever you want with it. This week I used tomato and courgette to make a scrummy baked omelette.

Ingredients

* 3 x medium eggs
* Knob of butter
* Handful of cherry tomatoes
* Half a courgette

Preparation

* Crack the eggs in a bowl/jug and whisk them together.

* Cut the tomatoes and courgette into small chunks.

Banana and Oat Pancake Recipe

I love pancakes but I was getting bored of having the same ones all of the time and because I am trying in vain to lose weight. This month I am joining in the OXO pancake day blogger challenge so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to try and conjour up a slightly healthier pancake recipe for us all to eat.

To make the challenge of making pancakes slighlty easier, OXO kindly sent me one of their flip & fold omlette turners, yes I know an omelette isn't a pancake but technically making them uses the same kind of processes!!

Ingredients

For the pancakes :

* 1 Banana
* 70g Porridge Oats
* 2 Egg Whites
* 1tsp Vanilla Essence

For the sauce :

* Peanut butter (I used crunchy but you can of course use smooth)

Preparation

* Mash up the banana with a fork.

* Place the porridge oats, egg whites and vanilla essence into the bowl with the banana.

* Using a hand blender, blend all the ingredients together.

Fruit Loaf Recipe

Recently I have been putting up a lot of dinner recipes so I thought I would change it up a bit with a sort of cake recipe. Last week was my mums birthday and one of her favourite things to eat is fruit loaf, this is something that I have never made before but I thought I would give it a go. A nice easy recipe to follow.

Ingredients

* 225g Self Raising Flour
* 110g Castor Sugar
* 110g Butter
* 1 Egg
* 225g Dried Fruit (I used a mix of dried fruit and nuts)
* 8 - 10 Tbsps of Milk

Preparation

* Preheat the oven to 180degrees.

* Rub the butter into the self raising flour until it looks like breadcrumbs, I do this whilst saying, "up tickle tickle".

* Add in the sugar and dried fruit and mix.

* Stir in the egg and at the milk until it reaches a dropping consistency.

Slow Cooked Lasagne Recipe

One of my favourite dinners of all times has to be Lasagne however I have never made one myself, either my mum has cooked me one, I've eaten one when at a restaurant or I've bought a ready made one from the supermarket, so this week I decided to bite the bullet and see if I could cook one all by myself. And as an added twist I cooked it in my trusty slow cooker.

Ingredients

* 750g Fresh Beef Mince
* 1 Large Onion
* 1 Courgette
* Box of Lasagne Pasta Sheets
* 2 Jars of sauce, one red, one white (ok I admit I cheated and didn't do it all from scratch)
* Mixed Herbs
* Cheese for grating on top

Preparation

* Dice the onion and cut the courgette into small chunks.

* Fry the onion for 2-3 minutes.

* Add the mince to brown it off.

Chicken and Chorizo Stew Recipe

One of the reasons I love my slow cooker, is because I have something cooking at the start of the day and leave it to bubble away until we are ready to eat late. Another advantage is that we can all eat the same meal at different times of the day. This week I decided to make chicken and chorizo stew, I made that much that there was even some leftover for freezing

Ingredients

* 3 Chicken Breasts
* 200g Chorizo
* Tin of mixed beans (we had mexican ones for an added kick)
* 1 Large Onion
* 3 Carrots
* 2 Medium Potatoes
* Tin of Chopped Tomatoes
* 500ml Chicken Stock
* 1 Tbsp Tomato Puree
* 2 Tsp Smoked Paprika

Preparation

* Dice the onion, cut the carrots into thick slices and cut the potatoes into small chunks, lay these on the bottom of the slow cooker

* Place the mixed beans over the top of the carrots, onions and potatoes.

* Cut the chorizo into small pieces.

* Put the chicken breasts and chorizo on top of what is already in the slow cooker.

* Mix the paprika and tomato puree into the chicken stock.

Turkey Stir Fry Recipe

Now I'm back into the swing of cooking again, I am also trying to stick to healthier foods to eat too. The trouble comes in convincing my daughter's that we don't need to have chips with every meal!!

This week I opted to make a turkey stir fry, quick and easy to do and includes lots of fresh vegetables as well. The recipe below serves 6 people.

Ingredients 

* 3 x Carrots
* 1 x Large Red Onion
* 1 x Pepper
* 1/3 Red Cabbage
* 1/2 Tin of Sweetcorn
* Packet of Mange Tout
* 500g Diced Turkey

Who needs Mcdonalds...

Well it has been a busy few days, what with Christmas and New Year and there seems to have been a lack of cooking going on!! So today we decided it was indeed time to do away with the Christmas leftovers and make something yummy from scratch. 

We all decided on beef burgers, something simple that the girls could help me make and a much better alternative to Mcdonalds.

Ingredients

* 500 - 750g of fresh beef mince, depending on how many burgers you are wanting to make, I find the lean mince is better.

* tomato ketchup

* seasoning

* Bread rolls

Preparation

* Break the mince up into a large bowl.

* Pour in around 2 tbsps of tomato ketchup and pinch of salt and pepper.

* Knead the ingredients together.

Warm Three Bean Salad Recipe

With all the cold weather that is upon us, I do like to eat a lot more cooked meals at lunch time rather than sandwiches etc. I tend to eat a lot of soups but this can become boring when having them all of the time. I do enjoy a good salad so I opted for a lovely warm three bean salad this week.

Ingredients

* 1/3 Tin of kidney beans
* 1/3 Tin of butter beans
* 1/3 Tin of flageolet beans
* Olive oil
* Chives

Preparation

* Chop up the chives finely.
* Open each tine of beans and place roughly a third of each into a bowl.
* Pop in the microwave for around 40 seconds to warm through.
* Sprinkle over the chives and drizzle some olive oil over.
* Stir all the ingredients and it is ready to eat.

A lovely healthy option for lunch that is full of protein and fills you up nicely and the good thing is one tin of each of the beans makes enough for around three lunches.

Are there any warm meals that you really enjoy eating at lunch time?

xxxx

Sausage and Bean Casserole Recipe

I love a good casserole, I find they are good hearty meals and there are endless possibilities as to what ingredients you can use to make one. This week I opted for a sausage and bean casserole which I made in my trusty slow cooker.

Ingredients

* 450g sausages (around 8)
* tin of cannellini beans
* 300ml beef stock
* tin of chopped tomatoes
* 2 tbsp tomato puree
* 1 large onion

Preparation

* Brown the sausages under the grill.
* Whilst waiting for the sausages to colour, prepare the beef stock and slice the onion.
* Mixed together the beef stock, tomato puree and chopped tomatoes.
* Place all ingredients into the slow cooker for either 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low.

We opted to eat this with some crusty bread rolls this time but normally we would serve with new potatoes, you could always cook the potatoes in with the casserole to save time.

What's your favourite casserole?

xxxx

Sausage and Chorizo Wrap Recipe

I don't know about you but there are definitely some days when I really can't be bothered to cook and I just want something quick and easy to make, food that requires little effort is essential. One thing that Daddy Hazelden and I love are sausage and chorizo wraps, simple to make and you can add whatever you want to them.

Ingredients

* 6-8 Sausages
* Chorizo Sausage
* Black Pudding (optional)
* Cherry Tomatoes
* Oil for cooking

Preparation

* Cook the sausages and black pudding under the grill as per instructions on the packet.

* Cut the chorizo into slices.

* Halve the cherry tomatoes.

* Once the sausages and black pudding are cooked cut them into chunks.

* Warm up some oil in a pan and fry all of the ingredients together.

* Once cooked, place in a wrap with your sauce of choice, I opted for tomato salsa and some lettuce.

As I said the good thing with this recipe is you can add in what you like, we sometimes switch the tomatoes for peppers and of course it doesn't have to go in a wrap, I find a nice baguette is always really tasty too!!

xxxx

Spaghetti Bolognese Recipe

Ok so November has arrived and it it seems to have brought the cold weather with it so I have started to cook some of the dishes I associate as being "Winter Warmers". One of these meals is spaghetti bolognese.

Now I think this is one of those meals where everyone seems to have their own variations, so here is mine :

Ingredients

* Fresh Spaghetti
* 500g Fresh Beef Mince
* 200g Cooking Bacon
* 3 Carrots
* 1 Large Onion, diced
* 1 Tin of Chopped Tomatoes
* 2 tbsps of Tomato Puree
* 150ml Red Wine
* Oregano

Preparation

* In a large pan, fry the onions until golden.

* Add the mince, make sure it is all browned and then drain the fat.

* Pour in the remaining ingredients, the carrots, bacon, chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, oregano and wine.

* Leave to simmer for 30 minutes, whilst waiting enjoy the remainder of the wine ;)

* After 25 minutes, cook the spaghetti as per instructions on the packet.

* Serve in a bowl accompanied by some garlic bread.

A simple yet scrummy dinner that is perfect for the whole family!! So how do you make your spaghetti bolognese?

xxxx

Pumpkin and Coconut Bread Recipe

So today is Halloween. I'm sure many of you are busy with your kids, dressing up, carving pumpkins, perhaps a spot of trick or treating.

On Sunday I posted a picture of  a pumpkin with its top cut off. The question was, what to do with the insides??

I seem to have caught the baking bug lately so decided to bake some pumpkin bread with the added ingredient of coconut to add a little twist.

Ingredients - makes 2 loaves of bread

* 400g Castor Sugar
* 220g Brown Sugar
* 250ml Vegetable oil
* 4 Eggs
* 440g Plain Flour
* 2 tsps Bicarbonate of Soda
* 2 tsps Salt
* 1 tsp Ginger
* Pureed Pumpkin
* 75g Dessicated Coconut
* 150ml Water

Preparing

* Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.
* Grease and flour two loaf tins.
* Mix together the oil, sugars and eggs.
* Stir in the pumpkin puree.
* Add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt, ginger and water.
* Finally add the coconut and fold into the mixture.
* Pour the mix into the loaf tins and bake for around 60 minutes.

I put a skewer in the centre around 50 minutes and again at 55 minutes, if the skewer comes out clean then the bread is baked to perfection.

The bread should come out with a lovely golden crust on the outside whilst remaining wonderfully moist on the inside. No pumpkin waste in sight!!!

Oh and if people were wondering from my Silent Sunday last week what my pumpkin turned out like, well I didn't do the traditional carving, instead I went with this :

What has everyone else done with their pumpkins?

xxxx

Tuna and Sweetcorn Pizza Recipe

Yesterday was Wednesday dinner day with Nannie again. This time it was Freya's turn to decide what were going to have. She chose pizza.

Normally we have pizza as our treat of the week and get it from our favourite take away, Star pizza but to make a change we decided to make our own. This meant that we could choose whatever topping we wanted.

Now we weren't brave enough to make the pizza bases from scratch so I have to put my hands up and admit that we bought them ready made.

Ingredients

* Pizza base x 2
* Passata
* Cheese (whatvever one you like)
* Can of tuna
* Tin of sweetcorn

 

Preparing

* Preheat the oven to around 180 degrees

* Spread the passata over each pizza base using the back of a large spoon.

* Open up the tins of the tuna and sweetcorn and spread them evenly over the whole pizza.

* Grate the cheese into a bowl.

* Sprinkle the cheese over, you can make it as cheesy as you like, I would say my girls went a tad over board but that's what they wanted.

* Place in the oven for 8-10 minutes

Here is the finished product

You can see what I mean by them going a bit mad with the cheese but you can see from the picture below that they really enjoyed what they made.

Another quick and easy dinner. We actually made that much that the girls had cold pizza for their lunch today!!

What is your favourite topping to have on pizza?

xxxx

Cheesy Pasta With a Twist

Since Daddy Hazelden has started working in London, myself, the kids and Nannie have been having Wednesday dinner. This may not seem like anything too special but if you knew what a fussy eater Daddy Hazelden can be, I think you would be as excited as us to eat something that we wouldn't normally cook.

Each week someone gets to choose what we have for dinner and we cook it fresh. This week Elise chose cheesy pasta, this is a treat because Daddy doesn't like cheese at all so this wouldn't normally be on the menu.

Ingredients

* Tub of single cream
* Ricotta cheese
* Ball of mozarella cheese
* Grated cheedar cheese (up to you how much, depending how strong you like it)
* Fresh pasta of choice
* Turkey Rashers
* Sweetcorn

Cooking

* Put all the cheeses and the cream into a microwavable bowl and microwave on hight a minute at a time until all the ingredients have melted together. If you want a thinner sauce then add a little milk to it.

* Cook the pasta as per the instructions on the packet

* Whilst the pasta is cooking, grill the turkey rashers and then cut them into smaller pieces and cook the sweetcorn

* Mix the pasta, turkey rashers, sweetcorn and cheese sauce in a bowl and serve.

A quick and easy dinner that serves plenty. I even had sauce left over to make another dinner for myself.

What do you like to have with pasta??

xxxx