More Birthday Stuff Sunday

Boy Lacer had a birthday party that was not his own to go to this morning, his first ever proper birthday invite (and there I was beginning to think he’d never get any). It was a Playball party in the library hall, Playball parties were not really something Girl Lacer’s crowd were in to, so it was a new experience for me as well. I stayed, I felt I had to, I can’t really be leaving Boy Lacer anywhere until he’s toilet trained and he would have been a bit lost anyway, although he managed to follow most of the instructions, he did need a bit of prompting where to stand and some of the group games went totally over his head. Boy Lacer was also tiring a bit by the end and was beginning to literally climb the walls courtesy of an OAP bar at the side of the hall. Luckily most of the other kids had their mums with them anyway, I was not sure if there would be many other mums there (in Girl Lacer’s year group most mums were happily abandoning their Reception kids in parties as there had been so many parties in Nursery where we had stayed, we felt more confident about leaving our children, but Nursery for Boy Lacer’s group didn’t seem to have such a manic social scene).

After the party we went and picked up Girl Lacer and we got the bus into town to spend Boy Lacer’s birthday money. We went and picked up an Argos catalogue and then went to McDonalds to eat lunch and browse the contents of the toy section. You see both Girl and Boy Lacer have a bit of an obsession about Argos at the moment (particularly Boy Lacer), thanks to Argos’ massive advertising blitz on Nick Jr., so Boy Lacer will often ask if you can “Find it, Get it, Argos it,” (oh I miss CBeebies!). We very rarely go to Argos, as it’s a bit out of the way, but I thought Boy Lacer would be actually interested to see it. He ended up choosing a Thomas playset and some playdoh and got a bit bored with all the queuing, so maybe I’ve punched that particular obsession on the head.

We then went to M&S, the mother in law had given me some money for the children that grow like weeds; Girl Lacer is now firmly in the ‘big girls’ section (6-14), as she’s so tall she’s a size 8 (and she’s not quite 7 yet) but the poor thing is still quite attracted to the less sophisticated styles of the 1 – 7 section, so she was wondering around the 6 -14 section, amidst all the clothes of pretty uniform colour looking a bit lost, but settled on a quite cool pink and black striped t-shirt, a legging and short combo and after some prompting from me as she needed something smartish for a school assembly, a pink and purple checked tunic. Then it was Boy Lacer’s turn, ugh, remind me not to go clothes shopping with that boy, as he is fussy (yet will wear stuff if I buy it for him when he’s not there) and he could not, despite looking and desperately needing some, find trousers he liked, so some more tops, heavily featuring Elmo.

We then went to Smiths to use up a voucher he’d been given and he was seriously wilting, what with not having the pushchair with us and so was I having to shepherd him around and carry all the shopping. I came to a realisation shopping with Boy Lacer, specially when it’s crowded, is like one of those game shows where someone is blindfolded and another person shouts instructions so that the blindfolded person avoids obstacles, that’s me and Boy Lacer that is, although of course he can see. So after maxing out on books in Smiths I couldn’t take it no more and we went home.

Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals

It’s a Jamie Oliver book, so of course I’m going to get it (specially when it’s £8.99 in Sainsburys) but I have this nasty feeling now I’ve got it in my sweaty little cookbook obsessed palms, that this is not a cookbook that I’m going to use regularly. However, don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad but I’m not sure it’s for me, although at first glance of the principal behind the book, complete meals that can be served up in 30 minutes, wow, I so need that book, as a time starved mother of two. But that’s the big problem you see, these are complete meals (the book is divided into menus where the instructions are for the whole menu and not for the individual dishes) and I don’t think there is a single menu in the whole book that everyone in my family would eat every single thing. Also a lot of the menus are for six portions and have multiple dishes (for example a meat dish, two types of salad and a dessert) and for me personally I’m at the moment cooking meals with three adult size portions (I always equate each of my children as eating a half adult portion), so yes I know I can reduce the ingredients by half but I think it would make more sense to drop one of the salads for example or probably drop all the salads really as I’m the only person in this household who actually eats them. So basically what I’m saying is if you’re in a family with small fussy children (and husbands), using this book you’d have to be prepared to shuffle some of the menus around a bit. But on the other hand if you’re single or part of a child free couple and like entertaining with simple, quick, unfussy but nice food or your children just aren’t fussy and have massive appetites, this is the book for you. Also Jamie says in the instructions that although he didn’t set about to write a budget cookbook, he’s priced the menus up against the ready meal equivalent and they’re cheaper, but looking at the amount of food involved in each menu, it’s still looks quite expensive. And another, final this time, also, the book makes heavy use of food processors, the big sort of ones with grating etc attachments and if you’re like me and you literally don’t have space in your kitchen for a food processor like that (honestly, my kitchen is too small, I used to own a lovely food processor when I moved here but had nowhere to put it so had to very reluctantly get rid of it), the lack of food processor will instantly push some of the menus over 30 minutes.

Having said all that, although it wouldn’t be as straightforward as using other cookbooks where each recipe is written individually, each paragraph in each menus instructions are headed, in bold with the particular dish in the menu you’re meant to be working on at that point and I suppose you could look through the menu’s instructions and just pick out the instructions for the dish you want. So with that in mind, here are some of the dishes I like;

• Courgette & bocconcini salad and prosciotto & melon salad, which are both part of a menu with broccoli orecchiette and try as I might I personally just don’t like broccoli unless it’s very heavily disguised, no one else in the family is that keen on it either.
• Pregnant Jools’s Pasta, Crunchy Chicory and Watercress Salad and Little Frangipane Tarts is actually a complete menu that could work for our family, as long as I’m prepared to eat all the salad!
• Another almost complete menu I like the look of is the chicory salad with insane dressing and the lovely stewed fruit, I guess I could make the macaroni that goes with it without the cauliflower (not my most favourite vegetable).
• Trapani-Style Rigatoni, Griddled Chicory Salad (is Jamie being sponsored by chicory farmers?), Rocket & Parmesan Salad and Limoncello Kinda  Trifle also looks quite do-able (minus the alcohol for the kids).
• Herby Salad and Pear Drop Tartlets sound nice, the Wonky Summer Pasta that goes with it uses raw eggs, which I’m always nervous about.
• Quick Mango Frozen Yoghurt sounds nice, it involves a food processor, but I do have one of those small baby food size ones.
• Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca, Crunchy Salad, Garlic Bread and Silky Chocolate Ganache is a whole menu that sounds good.
• I would happily make the Cheat’s Pizza menu, just changing the fruit of the Squashed Cherries and Vanilla Mascarpone Cream dessert and not making the tomato salad (the menu also includes Rocket Salad and Mozzarella Salad).
• The tomato soup, chunky croutons, crunchy veg & guacomole and sticky prune sponge pudding is a whole menu that looks good.
• The Mustard Chicken and Quick Dauphinoise looks delicious, but I’d switch the dessert (Black Forest Affogato).
• The Tray-Baked Chicken, Squashed Potatoes, Creamed Spinach and Strawberry Slushie is a menu I’d very much eat, but I’d have lots of turned up kids’ noses and poor Girl Lacer wouldn’t even be able to eat the dessert as she’s allergic to strawberries.
• The Killer Jerk Chicken and the salad that goes with it looks nice.
• The Chicken Skewers, Amazing Satay Sauce, Fiery Noodle Salad and Fruit and Mint Sugar menu looks delicious but only really to my taste.
• Likewise for the Piri Piri Chicken, dressed potatoes, rocket salad and quick portuguese tarts, yummy but it would mean a lot of left overs.

Then there’s a whole load of fish stuff not of interest to this non-fish eater.

• The Steak Sarnie looks nice and I would have it with the crispy new potatoes and the beetroot salad.
• Steak Indian Style, Spinach & Paneer Salad, Naan bread and Mango Salad also looks delish, a menu I would love to cook but I can’t see a reason for it in my life, a bunch of lads watching some football or something mind you.
• Stuffed focaccia, prosciutto, celeriac remoulade, dressed mozzarella, fresh lemon & lime granita, mmmmmmm.

Actually looking through this book and writing about it is making me hungry, I just wish I had people to share this food with, in the quantities that I think, to make these menus work, you’d need to cook with.

It’s reminded me though, even if I don’t necessarily use this book, I can cook smarter if I try, my big problem with my diet is that I think I cook myself too small a meals and then I end up grazing all day and on not particularly healthy stuff. Cooking multiple dishes always puts me off, but if I were to prepare myself a nice salad on the side and a simple dessert at the same time, it would be better for me.