Recipe round-up for average cooks

Let's be straight from the start: This here blog ain't ever gonna be a food blog.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the consumption of food. Even more so if someone else has cooked it for me.  It's just the shopping, preparation, serving and clearing up afterwards that I don't like.

I blame my S2 home economics teacher.  "Clare tends to be rather slap dash in the kitchen," she opined on my end-of-year report. Perhaps I just gave up at that point.

In fairness, I think cooking can be fun when you have the time, the money for exotic ingredients and kitchen counters the size and cleanliness of Nigella's.  It's the daily grind of planning what you're going to eat, throwing it together, then watching your fellow diners pick at it grumpily for 40 minutes (child one) or wolf it down in 40 seconds (child two) that gets to me.

However, until I win the lottery and can afford to dine out every night, this is the reality of my situation.  And, like all good mummies, I do try.

So, for all of those average (or below average like me) cooks, here are some of my favourite "go to" dishes.  I'm a lover of recipes that are prefixed by the words quick/speedy/simple/easy, so most of these have a limited amount of  ingredients that should be effortless to source.  For any US readers who need to convert measures, there's a handy table here.

 

APPETISERS

For starters, a snack lunch or when you finally get round to entertaining...

This bruschetta recipe came to my attention via the wonderful Complete Guide To Imperfect Homemaking blog by Kelly Oribine.  Kelly now has a new blog here but she's kindly left all her previous words of wisdom in cyberspace for us to access.  What I really like about Kelly is that she seems to understand  those of us who aren't natural cooks. Her posts include lots of extra little tips to make the process of entertaining less stressful (yippee).  I also love the fact that this is a pretty healthy take on bruschetta with plenty of extra veggies hidden in there.

 

MAIN COURSES

(Apologies for the strong pasta theme folks. If I ever get around to writing another food-related post, I'll aim for a little more variety.)
 

A child-pleasing comfort dinner when you have a bit of time to spare...

My own mum's mac and cheese is super-easy and economical to make. Funnily enough, she doesn't have her own website to link up to so I've battered out the recipe right here:  Melt 25g butter and a rounded tablespoon of cornflour over a low heat for one minute.  Add just under half a pint of milk, salt and pepper and a spoon of mustard (I like to use Dijon). Bring to the boil for one minute.  Add 75g grated cheddar (take it off the boil for this part), stir and add to cooked macaroni.  Top with some more grated cheddar and sliced tomatoes. Dash around the house multi-tasking while it bakes in the oven for around half an hour at 200°C. I should probably also be responsible and suggest that you serve up this stodgy dish with some steamed veg.

 

A child-pleasing dinner that is just about palatable to adults when you have zero time to spare...

This second recipe is like a posh pasta and sauce but you'll feel ever so smug that you refrained from popping that jar of Dolmio open.  It takes minutes and is just perfect for those nights when everyone is "starving" and you're exhausted from a full day at work followed by the kids' swimming run. Vanity hint: This one always looks a little better if made with spaghetti and sprinkled with parmesan.

 

DESSERTS

These two represent my little lad's favourite hot and cold puddings: 

Delia's cheat's Eton mess involves Greek yoghurt, chopped strawberries and meringues crumbled into a bowl.  If you can be bothered, she suggests making a sort of compote by blitzing half the fruit with some icing sugar in a mini blender, then swirling it through the mixture to create a marbled effect.  We sometimes cheat the cheat's recipe (that's how low I'm willing to stoop) by drizzling over some Easi-Yo fruit squirt instead.

One of my favourite recipes in our well-thumbed edition of Can't Cook Won't Cook Leaves Home (yip, people still gift me student cookbooks) is this shortcut sticky toffee pudding. In a nutshell, you need to butter an oven-proof dish, crumble in some Madeira cake and make a sauce by melting 50g of butter with 100g of brown sugar and 150ml of double cream.  Pour sauce over crumbled cake and whack in the oven at 190°C for 10 minutes.  Serve with whichever calorie-laden accompaniment you prefer: cream, ice cream or custard.

Purists might complain that it doesn't taste like the real thing but it is incredibly sweet, incredibly fattening and tastes rather nice.  What's not to like?

 

CAKES

For an easy cake when you have a bit of time, I recommend this fail-safe lemon drizzle. And when you crave cake but have no time, try this easy chocolate microwave cake instead (I make mine using a square silicon baking tray).  I realise that Mary Berry wannabes will be cringing at the prospect of cake-making and microwaves. To this I respond as follows: It takes eight minutes - EIGHT MINUTES PEOPLE - to bake.  It's therefore a winner in my book.

 

Do you love or loathe cooking? What's your 'go-to' family-friendly recipe? Leave a comment and let me know.

 

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Shared on Works-For-Me-Wednesday (WFMW).

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Have you ever told your child that it's wrong to copy? Yup, me too.  There's no denying that you should never pinch someone else's ideas and claim that they are your own.  It is, however, perfectly acceptable to benefit from others who have greater experience and skills and who are willing to share them (thank goodness for the internet and all those talented folk who contribute to the mass of information on it).

If your cooking and crafting skills are average (like mine), there really is no need to try to do everything yourself from scratch.  Shortcuts are perfectly acceptable.

With Christmas looming ever closer on the calendar, the number of things on the 'to do' list tend to increase one hundred fold.  However chilled out you are, few of us can escape the pressure of being seen to do it all.

Like most average women out there, I want my family to have a fabulous festive season.  I would like to hope that my children will grow up with fond memories of the holidays and of Christmas day itself.  It would be wonderful to think that I could help to create traditions that my children will continue with their own children.

But - and it's a huge but - creating the perfect Christmas does not come naturally to me.  So what is an average but keen girl to do? Answer: Cut corners and copy. Oh, and recognise your limitations. I can usually tell from a quick glance at a new recipe or craft idea whether it will result in stress or success. I've become an expert at weeding out the 'easy but effective' projects.

During the last few days, I can give you two recent examples of being a copycat, taking a few shortcuts, but still feeling great about the end results.

Example 1 is the festive wreath that currently adorns our door.  For the first time, I "made it myself", however the design wasn't entirely my own idea... Having ordered a fresh wreath from our wonderful local green grocer last year, I took a snap of how it looked at the time, kept the non-perishable parts in a box all year and recreated it myself this week with some laurel and holly that, fortunately, grow on our doorstep.

My first DIY holly wreath - sort of.

So did I cheat? Will, yes a little.  But I still feel better than if I'd bought a completely new fresh or artificial replacement.  Next year, I might even embellish my imitation design a little more.  I also feel that using my existing resources was less wasteful and kinder to the environment. Dare I say it, the whole process of tackling it at the kitchen table even made me feel a little more festive.

Example number two comes via a recipe for a twist on mincemeat pies sourced from the wonderful Mortage Free in Three blog.  Although my pies didn't quite look the part of those featured in the recipe, I'm determined to try them again soon as they really tasted rather good.  When my little lad, who loves his Christmas pies, asked "Did you make them all yourself?", I nodded proudly that I had. 

Cue his next question: "But did you make the mincemeat yourself?" Well no, I had to admit.

Not so few Christmases ago, this type of comment would have tipped me over the edge into a bad mood and a swamp of feelings of inadequacy.   This time, however, I was quite happy to "fess up".  Mums, I explained, need to have time to work and play too. They can't always do every little thing themselves. This was accepted by my little lad very easily.

And the moral of the story is? Sometimes, just sometimes, the main person to blame for piling on the pre-Christmas pressure is yourself...

Have a wonderfully average festive season.

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