Baked Vanilla Custards - suitable for babies, children and adults

A very simple and not massively unhealthy pudding.  Less than 2 tsp sugar per serving.  Pretty thrifty ingredients too!

Thrifty Sunday Lunch Options

Please excuse some of the photography on this post, some of the recipes are quite old on my blog (and I'd like to think my photography has improved) but I thought I'd run through some of the things I like to make for Sunday Lunch without breaking the bank.  Tomorrow it's going to be Game Pie but I will blog about that later.  In the meantime, here are some other delicious options without spending £20 on a joint of meat.

Toad in the Hole.  Ok, it's not all that healthy but there's something about putting sausages into batter which makes it more of a "sit around the table and have a long lunch and a natter" kind of food.  That, in my view is what Sundays are all about!

Pot roast.  I love pot roast (and I love my slow cooker).  What's even better about having a pot roast though is the leftovers made into the easiest and tastiest cottage pie in the world (in my opinion!)  Brisket is also a pretty cheap cut, much cheaper than a straight roasting joint.

Roasted roots

You may have seen a slightly unusual accompaniment to my smoked mackerel fish cakes the other day.  Yes, they were roasted carrots and radishes!  Two things we don't often roast but I'd given my son boiled carrots earlier in the day and we were a little low on vegetables so didn't just want to give him the same.  I'd seen roasted radishes in gastropub type menus and thought "why not?"

I often say to parents who have children who are fussy; "try cutting or cooking things differently".  For example, when my son was a baby he went off halved grapes.  I tried slicing them one day and he liked them again!  He went off broccoli for a while so I tried it in my monster mash and he loved it again.  Get the idea?  So although my son loves carrots, I thought I'd try and mix it up a bit.  If your child is less keen on carrots, they might go for this and the radishes lose all of their 'heat' on roasting meaning they end up just tasting of lovely roastiness.  Is that a word?  Probably not.

Smoked Mackerel Fish Cakes

I may worry (probably unduly) about my child's nutrition but it can be difficult to encourage kids to eat oily fish. Oily fish is an excellent source of Omega 3 oils.  Omega 3 are a group of oils which, although the jury is out on the specific health effects; it's generally believed they're pretty good things to have in your diet.  Sources include things like salmon, herring, sardines, mackerel, fresh tuna, pollock (at lower levels) etc.  There are other sources but oily fish is the most concentrated.  This might not look like a lot of mackerel in the recipe but there's about five times more omega 3 in mackerel than there is in cod.

So how to get this goodie into your child's diet?  A challenge and I've linked some other oily fish recipes at the end if you'd like some more ideas!

My Favourite Healthy Smart Swap Recipes

Well we're thinking on with it being New Year; time for change, renewal and as many people do, dieting.

I've said before, I'm not 100% sure that dieting works; especially if you are substituting 'diet' products for regular.  I know this is a controversial attitude, particularly considering official government advice reported in the media today.  That said though, some people really are out of the habit of eating healthily and I know I get like that sometimes and need to give myself a shake up, wake up and start to realise how delicious healthier food can be.  So rather than swapping sugary drink for sugar free, these are MY smart swap recipes!

Not all of them are salads either (even if this goats cheese salad is delicious) I can appreciate some people reject stuff like this as 'rabbit food' and need a little more encouragement towards their 5 a day.

So here are some recipes which often contain fruit and / or vegetables and have something else about them which I think makes them worthwhile as a 'healthy' recipe depending on your approach.  After all, remember, everything is ok in moderation but the important word is 'moderation' not 'everything'!

Simple Baked Southern Fried Chicken

Ok, sorry to remind you but we're approaching New Year and the time for those resolutions.  What will yours be this year?  Lose weight?  Stop smoking?

Have you ever noticed how resolutions are always about what we don't want rather than what we do want?  That's a bad thing because we're not wired that way.  Don't think about a pink elephant.  Go on, think about ANYTHING else apart from pink elephants.  Don't think about it.  You're thinking about it aren't you?  You can't help yourself!

Anyway, in general, I'm always of the opinion that a bit of what you actually fancy is better than 101 diet products.  Let's face it, if you buy diet biscuits, you eat more biscuits don't you?  Go on, we all know the truth...  So although I'm not a huge fan of dieting per se, I also managed to lose quite a lot of weight in the last two years.  You didn't know that about me did you?  I am now a shadow of my former UK size 16/18 self and am now a comfortable size 12, size 10 in Fat Face or White Stuff on a good day with a fair wind behind me (and size 8-10 in US terms which is even better!)

I can't pretend that I'm healthy all of the time either.  It's not true.  I do exercise but I also occasionally eat chips and, very occasionally, fried chicken.  But that said, I can't bring myself to actually fry chicken at home, I can feel my arteries hardening at the thought and there is something a bit gross about the extreme fattiness of it.  If I ever do buy fried chicken (from a certain well known High Street chain), I always drain it on the paper towels to make it a bit less greasy before eating.

So this recipe is good all round.  Lower in fat but also much less greasy which is a good thing and makes it tastier.  No frying smells to stink out the house and you can feel slightly more virtuous for having your cake (or chicken) and eating it!  Just don't eat 10 pieces because it's 'healthier'!

Merry Christmas From Mamacook!

Simple salt free poultry stock and how to make gravy

It's Christmas Eve Eve (i.e. the 23rd) and I picked up our goose yesterday from Seldom Seen farm.  Yes, goose is an extravagance but even at the pampered free range prices you're looking at less than £3 per portion for each meal we will eat it for.  You can't even get a meal in a Toby carvery for that!

So we're having goose but even if we have turkey I always make stock a day or two in advance.  I've been warned though that although you get masses of fat (great for roast potatoes) juices can be a bit thin on the ground with a goose so I'm making some stock.

Stock is stupidly easy to make.  Think about it as bones and water and you get the idea.  At other times of year I make stock from left over roast bones (especially chicken) but for Christmas it gets a bit special, albeit not expensive.

How I decorated my Christmas cake (and I'm rubbish at this kind of stuff)

I'm no sugar crafter.  You will see this from my results but although an amateur, I am quite pleased with how my cake turned out this year and the big secret was, it was so easy.

There is no hard stuff here but I'll give it to you with all the short cuts...  You don't even need an icing bag!

Vegetable fritters - great for babies and toddlers on finger foods

After making my sweetcorn fritter recipe; I was determined there must be a good vegetable fritter recipe in me.  Look, I know courgettes (zucchini) aren't terribly seasonal at this time of year but they are still available in the shops and I'm sure you could substitute for another ingredient if you prefer.

This made a lovely, soft, pancake like texture which would be great for babies first finger foods, either alongside traditional weaning or as part of baby led weaning.