About ME!

HELLO!!

I'm Christine. I'm a busy mum to 5 year old twins, Robin and Evie and wife to Ian. I also run a property management company. We live in a small village in beautiful, rural Northumberland. I love spending time at home with my family, running and exercising and socialising with my fabulous friends.

When I'm not busy with work, family or friends, my favourite pastimes are cooking and eating (often a combination of family/friends and food). I particularly get so much (too much?!) pleasure from making healthy, nutritious meals from nothing (well, whatever I've got in the house!), making leftovers exciting and not wasting a thing. I HATE waste. I've wanted to start a blog for a few years but time just hasn't allowed it. But I'm very excited about getting it going now and sharing my passion for food with the world!!

I'm very health conscious and want to feed my family good food, on a budget. As you can imagine, time is not something that I have a lot of so my cooking has to fit in with my busy life. Weekday cooking has to be fuss-free and speedy but I still want it to feel indulgent.

I am also a keen vegetable gardener. There is little better than creating a whole meal from produce that you raised with your own fair hands. And in the British weather, it's not always easy. It makes you appreciate it even more though! I would urge anyone to have a go at growing their own. Even if it's just a few of your favourites in pots or some herbs on the windowsill. Do it!

I'm going to try and share some of the recipes that I create and any tips that I have along with general ramblings about food and the good life!

Don't expect fine dining, just homemade, tasty, healthy and wholesome food. Always on a budget! Maybe with the odd flashy, entertaining number thrown in for good measure. The budget won't go out the window though.

I'm very new to this so please bear with me until I find my feet!!

I hope you enjoy it. All feedback very much appreciated!!

Thanks y'all!
Showing posts with label linguine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label linguine. Show all posts

Friday, 28 March 2014

Linguine with lemony prawns, chorizo and wild garlic pesto

I always have a big bag of raw, frozen prawns in the freezer for when I want a speedy meal. 


Ingredients 

Linguine or whatever pasta you have
Wild garlic and hazelnut pesto - recipe on the blog (you can use any green pesto though)
1 tbsp olive oil
Chilli flakes
Half a lemon
Hard cheese
Raw, frozen prawns 
About 1 inch chorizo sausage, sliced. 
Dash of white wine/ white wine vinegar

Method

Defrost the prawns.  Marinate them in chilli flakes, lemon, lemon juice and oil. 


Put some linguine (or any pasta you have) in some salted, boiling water. 

Dry fry some chorizo until it renders some fat. 


Add the marinated prawns and any marinade. Add a dash of white wine vinegar (if I'd had an open bottle of white wine, I would have used that)


When the prawns turn pink add a handful of grated cheese (I used grana padano but Parmesan fine too). 
Add some pasta cooking water and stir. It'll make a nice creamy sauce. Turn off the heat. 


When the pasta is cooked, stir the pesto into it.  Don't drain all the water. It's nicer if it's still a bit wet. 


Stir some grated cheese into the pasta. 


Add everything from the frying pan into the pasta. Stir. 


Top with a mix of crunchy breadcrumbs ( see tip below), finely grated cheese and chilli flakes. 


Tip:
Whenever I have bread that is going to go bad, I whizz it up into breadcrumbs. I then cook them in the oven on a low heat until they are all dried. Then I keep them in sterilised jars in the cupboard. 

They are so handy. They can be used to add to dishes to make them go further, for breading fish or chicken, fish cakes, as a topping to fish pie/ cottage pies, the list goes on... They're a great store cupboard ingredient. 

What I ate/ bought this week....

Hi,

So, I'm nearing the end of my £50 budget and thanks to inventive cooking, no waste and a backlog of ancient food in the bottom of my freezer, I have managed it! 

Here's what I ate this week!

Monday:
Breakfast
We always have cereals/ homemade bread/ eggs

Lunch
Husband (Ian) and I - sandwiches
Kids always have school dinners (i don't include those in the budget). They will hopefully be FREE from Sept! 😄

Supper
Chicken and chickpea curry
(Leftover chicken and gravy included. I also made stock from the chicken carcass and loads of soup from the stock!)


Tuesday

Lunch
Ian - sandwich 
Me - Linguine with homemade wild garlic pesto 

Supper
Everyone except me: Linguine with homemade wild garlic pesto (I wasn't very hungry so I just had a bowl of soup)

Wednesday 

Lunch 
Ian and I - leek and potato soup with homemade bread (leeks and pots from garden, stock from last week's chicken)

Supper
Toad in the hole (frozen cocktail sausages from freezer, eggs from our hens)
Strawberries (from bag of frozen), boudoir biscuits and condensed milk (both store cupboard) Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Thursday

Lunch
Ian - leek and potato soup
Me - leftover toad in the hole 

Supper
Roast lamb (tiny joint left from when we bought a lamb in march 2011, found at bottom of freezer!! I struck gold!)
With Jerusalem artichokes, potatoes (both from garden), roasted carrots and Yorkshire pudds (eggs from our hens). 

Friday

Lunch 
Out - I know it's not frugal but it was a treat!

Supper
Linguine with lemony prawns and wild garlic pesto (I always have a big bag of raw prawns in my freezer) with a crunchy, cheesy breadcrumb topping

Saturday 

Breakfast 
Remainder of the sausages from freezer
Pain au chocolats from freezer (that were free, as were going to be chucked out, from my local bakery!)
Poached eggs on toast (our eggs, h/made bread)
Cereal 
Breakfast is always a mammoth affair in our house. It's the kids' best mealtime!

Lunch

Homemade tomato soup and h/made bread

Supper
Homemade pizza with tomato base, leftover lamb, finely chopped, garlic butter, mint and mozzarella (recipe to follow - this is a new invention so will see how it turns out!!!)

What I bought this week:

2 x Milk (had some in the freezer too)
1 carton of apple juice 
2 bottles Pepsi max (my addiction)
1 cucumber 
1 bag bread flour


Wednesday, 26 March 2014

A week of speedy meal ideas

Want a week of speedy suppers? 

Here are some ideas...

Monday 
Rogan josh curry with any leftover meat


Tuesday
Linguine with pesto (I used my wild garlic and hazelnut pesto) with lots of grated cheese. Add some prawns too, if you fancy!


Wednesday
Thai prawn salad 


Thursday
Middle eastern lamb and couscous 


Friday
Baked risotto


All the recipes are on the blog and if you don't have leftovers for your lunch, there are also some lovely soups that you could make. 

For the weekend, why not make a butternut squash Thai green curry and then use the remaining squash to make a soup? 

And what about a toad in the hole in place of a Sunday roast? I'm going to sauté some leeks and put them in the batter for a little twist. 

Yum, yum, yum