Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup.

I love soup, especially when it's cold, it's a great way to use up those odds and ends that are kicking about taking up space. Soup is so quick and easy and a great way of packing lots of different veg into one dish.


You'll need:
1 Butternut Squash
1 Sweet Potato
2 Med Carrots
3 Sticks Celery
1 Onion
1 Garlic Clove
2 Veg Stock Cubes
Ground Coriander, Black Pepper & Nutmeg to taste.
Serves 4. 40p per serving


Method:
Preheat the oven to 190C, cut the squash in half lengthways and scoop out the seeds, place skin side up on a baking tray and roast till the skin begins to shine and the flesh is soft. This makes the skin just peel off and roasting it adds flavour.

Finely chop the garlic, onion and celery and fry off gently in a large pan. Meanwhile peel the skin from the squash and chop into large chunks, peel and chop the sweet potato and carrots and add to the pan, cook for 5 minutes then add the squash.

Crumble the stock cubes onto the veg and pour over enough water to nearly cover, put on the lid and leave to simmer until everything is nice and soft.

Once everything is soft, turn off the heat and leave to cool slightly before blending, once blended stir in the spices to taste.

Serve with some crusty bread.

Tasty Wholewheat Loaf.

I love bread, there's nothing better than on a cold day tearing up a slice of bread and dunking it into a thick soup, however I do not love what is in bread, shop bought bread to be exact.

Here are what's in one of the top selling UK brands of wholemeal bread.
Wholemeal Wheat Flour, Water, Kibbled Malted Wheat, Wheat Protein, Yeast, Sugar, Vegetable Oil, Salt, Malted Barley Flour, Vinegar, Soya Flour, Emulsifiers: E471, E472e; Preservative: Calcium Propionate (added to inhibit mould growth); Flour Treatment Agent: Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C).

Here's what's in mine.
Wholewheat flour, Water, Yeast, Olive oil, Dark brown sugar, Salt.

Yep, that's it, 6 ingredients, you can also completely omit the salt if you want to. It's taken me a while to get this recipe right, we've had dry bread, soggy bread, crumbly bread, sunken bread and finally we have this lovely soft bread and best of all it only cost 88p!

You'll need:
16floz Lukewarm Water
1.5lb Wholemeal Flour
3 tbps Olive Oil
2 tsp Dried Yeast
3 tsp Brown sugar
1 tsp salt
50g Seeds (optional)

I was given a bread maker and it's fab, if you don't have one I can highly recommend getting one if bread is something you eat a lot of, if you do, throw it all in and set it to "quick" (the booklet will tell you to only do white bread on quick, but I've tried on the wholewheat setting and it's turned out horrible and heavy every time.

Dont have a breadmaker?
Don't worry you can still make this.

Put your dry ingredients in a bowl and make a well in the middle.
Add the oil and most of the water and mix into a dough. (add more water if necessary)
Kneed on a lightly floured surface for a good 10 minutes, until smooth and elasticy, put in a bowl and cover with cling film and leave in a warm place (I use my airing cupboard) until doubled in size.
Pre heat the oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas mark 7.
Turn the now double in sized dough onto a floured surface and kneed again to knock the air out.
Shape the dough into rugby shape and put in your loaf tin.
Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rise again in a warm place for 30mins.
Bake the bread for 15 minutes then reduce the temperature to 190C/fan 170C/gas mark 5 for a further 30 mins, the loaf should sound hollow when "tapped on the bottom" *snigger*

The bread will last for 3 days (yeah right!) in a air tight container.

Enjoy your tasty bread.

New Years Resolutions.

Happy New Year!

I've never really been one for new years resolutions, I kind of just go with the flow and don't give much thought ahead to the coming year, but now I'm a grown up with my own house and child, I don't think that would be the brightest idea to just wait and see.

#1. Plan ahead.
Especially meals, I started to meal plan at the end of last year when money was tight, I sat here, cupboards bare with £12 in my pocket, 3 mouths to feed and 2 weeks until pay day, I pulled everything out of the cupboard and listed everything I had, to my surprise I managed to make 16 separate dinners and was able to easily make my £12 stretch for lunches too, I won't lie we ate a lot of pasta that week, but we ate.

#2. Cut the crap.
Food wise, sometimes when you're skint it can be all to tempting to buy crap, over processed, packet mix, tinned everything, I cook mainly from scratch so we don't have many dinners that come out of a packet, but when it comes to chocolate, breads or refined carbs, we do eat a lot, which is something I'd like to get away from. So we'll be swapping regular pasta for wholewheat versions, baking our own breads, replacing regular treats with a small treat once in a while, cut down on refined sugars and try to completely cut out anything highly processed and eat much less meat.

#3. Move more.
I won't lie, I'm a lazy Badger, I'm a fan of staying in where it's snug and warm and like to save adventures for when it's nice and dry, so I'm going to buy myself a mac and some wellies and brave the storm whilst reducing my carbon footprint.

#4. Be a gentler person.
Sometimes in life I find myself being a little harsh or a little thoughtless, whether that be to others, the earth or even myself. I often catch myself after a using a harsh tone, throwing out something that could of been recycled, criticizing myself and think to myself  "why did I do that?" It doesn't take much just to me that little but more mindful.

So these are mine, now what are yours?