little morrocan-ish meatball stew

This recipe is ideal for me with meat-loving veg hating boy and veg loving meat-hating girl. I simply dole out different bits from it onto cous-cous and hope that meat-loving gets some veg juice that way and veg-loving gets some meat juice that way. It is a bastardised Nigella one, smaller in scope (she always cooks enough to feed a film crew, and they do live with her, I suppose)and less fussy, with the addition of pulses for awkward daughters protein intake, and different veg entirely. I also add the meatballs to the stew to cook, I think it makes them smooshier, if that is a word. I don't normally like her, as I couldn't get over the vision of her sitting in a London bus looking exactly as if she'd never sat in one before, pretending she had, in the last series, and I can't read the chumminess of her books without wanting to shake her. Give me the Hairy Bikers anyday, but she does do the odd good recipe, if you just read the instructions and not the waffle about her terribly lovely life. The only way I would really like her is if she revealed she was bald. Anyway....
To make the meatballs:
1 pack of lamb mince (500g)
1tsp all-spice
1tsp cumin powder
very finely chopped spring onion
1 tsp cinnamon.
1 beaten egg
Really, it's a kids recipe in the sense that even they can do this bit. Smoosh it all up, that's it! Then the difficult bit comes when you have to roll the meatballs up. Usually I would go for bigguns, but in this instance I advise going for teent tiny 1/2 teaspoon sized ones. You should get about 50 out of 500g. Then, a quick flip on either side in the frying pan to firm them up. This takes a short while and I usually end up with about 5 less afterwards as I eat them. Set aside.
For the stew:
1 green pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 butternut squash
1 can chickpeas
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
2 cans chopped tomatoes
1 chicken stock cube or stock from freezer.
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp tumeric

Chop everything up, you want it a little bigger then the meatballs for a nice mouth feel. The squash you can leave quite big as it's nice to have big chunks of it along with the teeny meatballs. Fry it all with the garlic, tumeric and ginger for a wee while till getting soft-ish, then add the tomatos and chicken stock cube, along with a tin can or two of water, depending on how runny you like it. Add the chickpeas, and stir, then add the meatballs and stir. Set it all to a slow "blurp" on the hob and leave for however long you like, really, I usually give it 45-60 mins, but you can turn it off, leave it and reheat it if you like. Serve it with a dollop of cous cous and some toasted pine nuts and pomegranate seeds on top if you want to be posh. There are no pictures because I ate it all before I thought about it.

If you are me, place meatballs and cous-cous in one plate, assiduously removing all veg, and veg and cous-cous on the other, removing all meat. Wonder why on earth I do this fairy-tale like task every meal time. Next week: spinning grain into gold.

Month long menus and sewing machine graveyards.

(pictures to be added: poorly camera!)
I STILL need to finish my quilt. I have done the quilting, and as long as you don't look at the back, it is ok for a first ever job. Besides, Stella is too young to quibble. But now I need to bind it, and the thought of yet more hand sewing is making me wince. It got smaller and smaller as I tried to straighten it, so it is at least one month quicker to bind than it would have been had I had a straighter eye.

I MUST get a machine going. I have inherited 3. One handcrank Jones, one Singer and one New Home. None of them work, apart from the handcrank, as very little goes wrong with that mechanism, but it is totally seized up and needs oiling. I know I should just give up on them and get ebay them, put the money towards a new machine, but they are just such nice old things, I like them regardless of the space they take up and the frustration they cause me. I have promised one more fiddle with each of them, then they go to ebay or freecycle, where maybe someone will love and use them.

So I have tweaked and tweaked to get my weekly shop consistantly at around 40-45 quid. This time, I have gone for the full monthly. I've only mentioned dinners, but the shop includes sandwiches for lunch 3 times a week, and freezer lunches from the previous weeks dinners 4 times a week, plus cereal and fruit for breakfast.All veg comes from the allottment blokes and is of a negligible cost, as are eggs from the bloke opposite. All meat comes from the butchers van that visits, cheap cuts are ordered the previous week. God, I sound so 50's.It remains to be seen if knowing your dinner for a whole month will be as boring as it sounds. (All recipes are generally heavier on the veg and less on meat. So if a recipe calls for 500g meat, I use 250 and keep the rest in the freezer. DH eats a lot of meat but the kids only a little and me likewise. Not using too much meat keeps costs down)
Week 1:
Mon: chicken and leek pie (using leftover chicken)
Tues: Macaroni cheese with hidden veg and pork chops
Weds: Gasman's stew from Jamie Oliver. Want to slap him, like to eat his food. Whilst slapping him.
Thurs:Paella
Fri: Fish cakes and veg
Sat:Moussaka
Sun: slow cooked lamb stew from Nigel Slater (using cheap lamb neck)
Week 2:
Mon: spicy pork and noodles
Tues: Sausage and veg casserole
Weds: Tomato bean and bacon stew
Thurs:Chicken and butter bean casserole (from the fragrantly annoying Tana Ramsay)
Fri: Chilli
Sat:Cornish Pasties (from the superb Hairy Bikers, not annoying, just ordinary and tasty)
Sun:Steak and Kidney pie (from my nan)
Week 3:
Mon: Goulash
Tues: Cannelloni with spinach and Ricotta
Weds: Lamb burgers and salad
Thurs:Pork, apple and juniper casserole
Fri: spicy chicken and fruity cous cous (basic marinated chicken baked with couscous)
Sat: Fish pie (whatever 500g x 2 is cheap in the fish van)
Sun: Lamb stew with pearl barley (The Nigel Slater again, everyone loves it so much it's on twice)
Week 4:
Mon: Whore's pasta
Tues:Jacket spuds, radish and orange salad and coronation chicken
Weds:Sausages and puy lentils with baked field mushrooms
Thurs: Lamb chops and baked aubergine and tomato layer
Fri: chicken kebabs and salad with rosemary focacia
Sat: homemade pizzas, spinach, egg, tomato, chorizo and olive using Jamie Olivers recipe for the dough.
Sun: Baked marmalade gammon with baked potatoes and salad. Gammon is fantastically cheap and not just for Xmas.

Here is the recipe for Coronation Chicken, a terribly 70's dish, but one that is a guilty pleasure. The kids like it, and I do too. Serves 4 and makes 4 sandwiches the next day.
25g butter
1/2 finely chopped onion
3 tbsp curry paste
2tbsp tomato puree
100ml red wine
1/2 lemon juice
4 tbsp apricot jam
300ml mayonnaise
150g greek full fat yoghurt
6 cooked chicken breasts (I steam them)
Cook the onion in the butter, then add the tomato puree, curry paste, lemon juice and wine. Simmer and reduce the sauce (for about 5-10 mins). Add the mayonnaise, yoghurt and jam, mix up and blend if you want it smooth, if not keep it lumpy like I do. Slice the chicken into pieces, stir in the sauce, and eat with a big salad and jacket spud. Some people like sultanas in it, but that is just to make an odd recipe even odder. Yum. In a 70's way.

Time and motion mum

I have been thinking lot lately about how much time I do and do not get to myself during the day, where time goes, and how I should prioritise it. I do not give a fig for a tidy home, luckily, but I do need a hygienic one. I do not relish playing the stupid dinosaur game a million times in a row, but I know it is beneficial for the kids. I absolutely detest playdough ("here's another sausage mummy, look, look, LOOK" "You know what? Make something else") but I like it better than cleaning the loo and finding son's weird boy wee has corroded the fittings AGAIN. I am stuggling, in short, to balance the hygiene/ dutiful mother equation, as well as feeding them where necessary. And husband, of course. He gets the 30 minutes at the end of the day. Unless I have an episode of "Flashforward" to watch, now "Being Human" is ended.

So here, in the manner of the original time and motion pioneers, is my last 24 hours. They measured the units of time and motion in therbligs, the creation of Frank and Lilian Gilbreth, the original Industrial psychologists. I like that it is their surname backwards, with the TH treated as one letter. Maybe they were more fun than they sounded. Either way, you probably know them from "Cheaper by the Dozen" , made into a film. They were the parents with 12 children, who ran their house on industrially efficient means.

11.45: go to son's room, his "feet are peeking out" the duvet, a terrible thing he cannot rectify himself, apparently. Sleep.
12.50: Daughter needs me to fish dummy out from under the bed. (SEARCH)
1am: locate it. Spend 10 minutes persuading her it IS the ruddy yellow one. (FIND)
2.30am: Son is "all shivery" and needs some juice. Take temperature, sense he is bluffing post-illness the other day, and tell him to sleep. Listen to dramatic sighing of son from my room. (INSPECT)4am: Daughter is trapped with a leg through her headboard. Extricate her, sleep, sort of. (POSITION)
6am: Kids get up. I moan. 6-8 is a rush of feeding, dressing, washing, getting out appropriate toys for kids to distract them while I shower. Wave to husband as he gleefully leaves for work. (ASSEMBLE)
8-8.10 I shower, quickly, before entering son's room to confiscate toys which have now become weapons. Dry myself and dress haphazardly with whatever is to hand. (Normally, on a playgroup day I leave the house at 8.30 to get to playgroup, drop son off, take daughter to Toddler group, then pick him up and home for 12.30.)
8.10-9 I make a cup of tea and leave it to go cold while I deal with getting shoes on daughter who likes to say "no, I do it" when she manifestly cannot. Simple tasks take ages. Engage in debate with son as to hat wearing. Yes, it is sunnier but it is also cold. Put in a wash, sort out airing cupboard airing wash from yesterday into piles. Son, daughter, me, him, note: no ironing pile. (POSITION ASSEMBLE)
9-9.30 Kids go mental in garden. Daughter, who needs to get in, refuses the buggy. Son, who should walk, wants it. Long, pointless debate only solved by happy appearance of rubbish trucks which provide distraction. (TRANSPORT LOADED)
9.30-11: I visit post-office, grocers and bank for stuff to fill in, cook, and cry over. Kids buy bits of tat for 10p from charity shops, then lose them instantly. I retrace steps to get tat. Visit bakers, walk slowly home with both kids out the buggy, admiring every woodlouse, ladybird, and twig, and exclaiming "Mind that, it's dog-poo". (PRE_POSITION FOR NEXT OPERATION)
11-11.45: hang out washing. Cook kids lunch. We all watch the terrible "Go Diego Go" whilst eating. Brief silence. (RELEASE LOAD)
11.45-12.15: deal with the inevitable poo aftermath of lunch. Realise I too need the loo. do this with an audience of 2. "Do you need the paper yet mummy?" (RELEASE LOAD 2)
12.15- 12.45: wash up, chop veg for tea, hoover downstairs and mop up milk from floor, real culprit unknown, as both kids now have the talent to lie. (GRASP<>

12.45-1.15: relative peace, if mind numbing boredom, of reading the ladybird "Jack and the beanstalk" 4 times. No, I do not know how many real giants there were. No, Jack probably didn't kill them all. No, adults are tall, not giants. (UNAVOIDABLE DELAY)

1.15-2.30 Quality play with kids. This means playing with the toy cars and stupid fairy boot house. (UNAVOIDABLE DELAY)

2.30-3.45 (yes, that long) taking son round and round the local paths on his bike (recent aquistion, newly learned) pushing daughter on trike and saying "steer as well as pedal! No look out!" (GRASP HOLD POSITION)

3.45-4.30: cook kids tea, and husbands for later, and cake. (GRASP HOLD ASSEMBLE UNAVOIDABLE DELAY)

4.30-5: eating. Pleading to eat the vegetables. (UNAVOIDABLE DELAY)

5-6: chilling out playing games on pc, reading and playing terribly boring dinosaur board game and drawing. INSPECT

6-6.30 Pre bath, get in washing. Whilst kids are running around in the nude, fold and put washing in airing cupboard. Put away set of washing from the airing cupboard. Curse washing. Bath two kids. Argue for 15 mins about hair washing. I win by dint of being taller and armed with a bottle of water. SEARCH FIND SELECT GRASP POSITION INSPECT
6.30-7.15: thankfully dump kids in front of Cbeebies and wash up dinner stuff. Eye wine in fridge. PRE-POSITION FOR NEXT OPERATION

7.15-7.45: bedtime stories and plea bargaining. GRASP HOLD POSITION TRANSPORT UNLOADED

7.46: glass of wine and sewing. REST TO OVERCOME FATIGUE

Husband not in yet, likely to arrive home 30 mins before I go to bed tipsy at 10pm having unpicked the last bit of quilt.

There's not a lot of sitting down there, really. I sat down more teaching all day. And got to poo without an audience. What strikes me is that I am not very good at either side of the equation. The big housework has to wait for weekends, the kids never get undivided attention because a) there are two of them 15 months apart and b) I have to do maintenance cleaning almost perpetually to avoid being buried in debris and dying of disease. I do not understand how women iron as well as all this. How women managed in the days before washing machines (and well I remember my nan's twin tub and the sheer noise of it) and super hoovers I don't know. Maybe I sit and attempt to sew the kids mangled toys and quilts of an evening to show them I love them despite saying "hang on, i've just got to do this" so much. Maybe I should teach them to hoover.

Rhubarb Rhubarb

Well, the market today in Chatteris had rhubarb. I love rhubarb. I love the way it makes your teeth feel squeaky, a property it shares with halloumi cheese. I like the weird texture of it, I like the hugeness of the leaves in a garden, a tropical native plant look for the Fens. Most of all I love the fact that it's pink, a lovely sharp citrus pink that just about brightens my cupboard in these months of turnip. I know we are all meant to eat seasonally now, but there is only so much swede I can take, so I allow a little bit of rhubarb forcing into my life. So I grabbed 4 big sticks and gave them to daughter to brandish all the way home. Rhubarb is more interesting than you might think.

• It is a film by Eric Sykes, in which the only dialogue is the word "rhubarb". Really.
• It used to be more expensive than saffron, imported from the banks of the River Volga.
• It was first cultivated in the UK in Oxford, as a medicinal plant, in 1777
• In 1835, the Chinese Imperial Commissioner put a stop to the trade in tea and rhubarb, opining that without rhubarb and tea, the foreign Western barbarians would surely die.
• Rubbing the raw end of a piece of rhubarb over burnt pots will remove the encrusted black stuff.
• Rhubarb root dyes your hair blonder.
• Rhubarb leaves make a good insecticide.
• Ambrose Bierce described rhubarb as "the vegetable essence of stomach ache".
• Rhubarb chutney goes extremely nicely with lamb.

I have two snotty coughing children. I can tell they are not well, as they are arguing even more than usual and sleeping in the day, although not at night. Son even fell asleep on the naughty step today. Rhubarb crumble with proper (tinned) custard is about as comfort food as you can get. Here's my recipe.

5 good size sticks of rhubarb, about 400g

2 apples, chopped

handful of sultanas, presoaked in orange juice

1 tsp ginger powder

for the topping:

60g soft brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves or 3 whole cloves to be removed later

60g butter, melted

130g muesli

Oven: gas 4, 180 degrees

preheat your oven grease your dish. Cook your apples, rhubarb,sultanas and ginger till tender to the fork (about 5 - 10 mins) in about 4fl oz of water or orange juice, making sure all the sugar is dissolved, and plop into your dish. For the topping, stir all the dry ingrediants together, add the butter, and stir till it's crumbly and the butter has touched it all. I like to use a mesli with a high oat/ grain content and some nuts. Plonk it on top and into the oven for 15-20 mins.

And off topic of rhubarb, here are 3 things I am extremely pleased with this week. The first is a great invention, and has saved me from endless trips up and down the stairs since it arrived on Monday (from Dunelm mill, a tenner well spent).

The second is the first quilt top square I finished that actually looks any good (although this is all relative...). The third is the booty I returned from Ely with. Lots and lots of Michael Miller fat quarters.

Foolproof kid fart food for a rainy day.

It rains a lot in the Fens, and even if it isn't raining, it can often be too damp to let the kids outside for long. Fen mud is essentially peat, and turns to slop all too quickly. Today it has been hailing on and off, and once son's friend had gone home, there was a long indoors afternoon to fill. I can only stand reading "The mole who knew it was none of his business" so many times, or indeed, watch the "Come Outside" sewage episode for so long. Son is poo obsessed at the moment and find farts incredibly hilarious.

I therefore decided to create his favourite meal, designed espcially for the sweet palate of my children, and their inevitable amusement as they start to fart.

I present you with Meditterranean "Shepherds" pie, a.k.a "blow-off pie" and the failproof Banana Fart Muffins, to be eaten with custard.

Everyone knows how to make Shepherds pie. This version is constructed the same, but is altered for the sweet tooth- gravy hating children of my family. You'll need: lamb mince, 2 cans of tomatoes, chopped, selected veg (I like pepper, courgette and carrot, but you can do it with anything. Aubergine is nice), garlic, herbs, about twice as much squash as potato. If there's too much squash, it somehow doesn't mash as nicely, too runny. Feta cheese, or any nice crumbly cheese. Lancashire is nice too. Splash of wine for the gravy. In my house there's always a bottle open, or about to be opened that night anyway.

I don't actually like the finished dish, too sweet for my palate, but when I need them to eat vegetables, this is how they get them. You know how big the dish you always use for this sort of thing is, so you know what amounts you need. I usually use 500g mince and eye judge the rest so I know i'm getting a nice balance of topping and meat.

Fry up your mince with a couple of cloves of chopped garlic, add rosemary and thyme. To that, add chopped (and as for me, I need to disguise those veg, so for chopped read "grated") courgette, carrot, and red bell pepper. I also add a little onion powder as my two won't eat actual onions. My two go through olive loving phases, so I add these when they are in phase. Once softened, add two cans of chopped tomatoes, a splash of red wine and leave to simmer. The essential "blow-off" element is provided by the addition of some butter beans, either ready cooked from a can or lovingly soaked, cooked and made by yourself. You can use any beans, even baked beans. I know it seems odd giving both a carb topping and a bean underneath, but my two love it.

Then boil up a mixture of butternut squash and potato to use as your topping. The squash makes it sweeter than usual, you can also use sweet potato if you want. When mashing, add a little pepper, olive oil, and feta cheese. Plonk it on top of your meat mixture, bake for 30 /40 mins, gas mark 6 with a sprinkle of extra cheese on top if you like. You don't need to serve it with anything, it's a meal by itself.

The Foolproof banana Fart Muffin is a delicious "afters" smooshed up with a bit of custard. The kids can easily help with this and it is essentially kid-proof if they "help" too much. You will need:

200g plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of bicarb (The fart powder. Or is it just my two it does it to?)

3 mashed old bananas

150g caster sugar

1 medium egg

75g melted butter

pinch of nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger

It's what I call a "2 bowl" do. Sift the dry ingrediants together. In another bowl, mash the bananas, and add to it the beaten egg, and melted butter. Get the kids to smoosh it about for however long. It doesn't matter if some lumps of banana are left, I quite like the bits chunky. Add the sugar and give it all a good stir. Then add it to the "dry" bowl, mix to a batter like mess (it's quite sludgy looking, like a thick batter). Add to the muffin cases and bake at Gas 4 / 180 degrees for 25 to 30 mins (less for a fan oven). They do store well, but act more like a banana bread than muffin, getting progressively stickier, and denser. I like them that way. You can add chocolate, fruit, anything to this receipe, it all works.

And then sit back and wait for the farting to start. It's a laugh a minute at my house.