Pie and Mash

When a flaccid lunchtime sandwich isn’t hitting the spot – I have been turning to Eat and chomping down their pie and mash. They are a little bit skimpy with the gravy but its just the right amount of stodginess to see me through the day. Another comfort food is the noodle and dumplings – a little mean with the noodles but I guess you don’t want to over-stretch your guts when sat at a desk.

These are things I could possible make and warm up in the microwave in the staff kitchen. My excuse is finding the time to do it. Since working part-time and having 3 tots to attend to when home, I have enough on my plate. It’s such a huge effort to make a home cooked meal each evening for D and me. I managed a few weeks ago, try out Martha Stewart healthy Shepherds pie recipe; using turkey mince and adding natural yoghurt to the mash instead of butter. It was surprisingly tasty – the recipe said it made enough for 8. So I halved the quantities and put the extras in foil trays and consigned to the freezer. I have yet to take one out to re-heat. My freezer is full of good intentions, homemade meatballs (I got excited when Curly Haired Beauty once ate one – I made my own, only for her to say she didn’t like it – was it too much oregano?), Fish goujons (a home made alternative to Birds Eye fish fingers – that CHB refuses to eat as its not the right shape or colour – I used Japanese panko breadcrumbs). There was no fooling her, what’s a mother to do? I even tried to duplicate my own version of tinned pasta (ghastly invention but they do know how to market it to kids with Bob the Builder, Disney Princess, Tweenies etc on the tin. I added mascarpone cheese to a tomato sauce base to get that orangey colour and Annabel Karmel Alphabet dried pasta shapes. She did not go for it. Didn’t even taste it before refusing point blank.

Please don’t let Thing 1 and Thing 2 be as fussy – once we can all sit round the table together (twins are currently fed in the kitchen) I am going to be strict and we shall all eat the same thing. No separate menus – I have heard such horror stories from my friend F who starts cooking from 4pm, 4 different types of meals to accommodate her husband, son and daughter. She microwaves the grown up meals once the kids have gone to bed. That’s not living that’s being a slave to your family. Although saying that I am way too lenient with CHB eating habits since the twins arrival. I have indulged her marmite sandwiches at lunchtime for too long. But the new childminder has made a break through recently with a ham sandwich – OK it doesn’t sound like much but really it’s been over a year of eating the same thing, every day….

On another note, I once out of curiosity looked up the Heinz website 57 varieties – there was a recipe for Spaghetti meatballs, it all sounded lovely until you got to the bottom and it said add a can of tinned spaghetti! Now how hard is it to cook your own spaghetti? Why go through all that effort to make your own from scratch only to dump a can of orange over-cooked sloppy pasta on top? That’s shocking. Although what’s even more shocking was hearing Iceland stock frozen sandwiches. Why would you buy that and not make your own? D nearly made a faux-paux at a party once. He and the hostess (wife of uni mate) both from the same area Oop North were talking about the terrible brown party foods you can get in Iceland. The adverts dominated the commercial breaks during X-factor. She said her mother used to freeze her sandwiches for her school lunch. I guess slummy mummy’s existed back in the 70’s and are not a 00’s invention.