Daughter's Request for Dinner

I have had the major munchies today!!

I started off great with Une Vie Saine's Blueberry Pancake Bake...

topped with a blob of peanut butter...

This was delicious, the peanut butter went all melty and the pancake bake was sweet and filling. I think next time I need to find a smaller dish as the pancake bake was so spread out/shallow that the blueberries filled the whole depth! Not that that is a bad thing, delish! :)

Lunch was a bit rushed as we spent the morning in town and by the time we got back everyone was super hungry. A perfect excuse to have a quick sandwich - peanut butter and blueberry jam...

PB&J sandwiches are sooo good, even with cheapo bread!

Unfortunately, despite also eating half of baby's cheese & cucumber sandwich, this wasn't very filling...it wasn't long before the afternoon munchies hit...

In the end I decided to have a couple of medjool dates stuffed with peanut butter instead repeating lunch...

One of my favourite snacks, but I soon gave in to the white bread temptation with a quick crisp sarnie...

Thankfully this, finally, kept me going until dinner...hate it when I just eat, eat, eat for the sake of it...always seems to be in the afternoon...boredom? Not enough food for lunch? Gah.

Dinner was worth the wait though. Daughter had been asking me all week to cook "the thing with layers" - for those of you who don't speak "4 year-old" this translates to lasagne...roast vegetable lasagne no less, yum.

I have shown this recipe before here, but I've decided to set out the recipe a bit more clearly today, a) because Liam brought an SLR camera home from uni so the photos are hopefully slightly better, and b) because I might actually get round to setting up a recipe page on my blog some day soon! So with no further waffling...

Roast Vegetable Lasagne
(serves 4-6)

• 4 peppers
• 2 red onions (optional, I didn't use today)
• 5g coconut oil (or other oil to roast veg in)
• 500g passata
• 2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
• pack of mushrooms (approx 250g), chopped quite small
• 400g tin green lentils (approx 265g drained weight)
• 40g butter
• 40g plain flour
• 350ml milk
• 6 lasagne sheets
• 70g cheddar, grated

First up, roast the peppers (and onions) at 190C for 30 minutes, turning half way through...

While the peppers are roasting, get started on the tomato sauce. First simmer the passata with the garlic...

I used this time to chop the mushrooms - I like them chopped quite small so that they become almost indistinguishable from the mushrooms in the sauce...

When the peppers have about 15 minutes left to cook, add the mushrooms to the tomato sauce and continue to simmer...

and then add the lentils just before the peppers are ready...

During this time you also need to make the white sauce - I do this between adding the mushrooms and lentils above. First melt 40g butter...

before mixing in 40g plain flour and cooking for a minute or two...

finally add 350ml milk and keep whisking to ensure a smooth sauce...

All the hot ingredients ready for layering...

and the cold...

I won't completely bore you with step by step photos of the layers (for that see original lasagne post!) but it goes: roast peppers - tomato sauce - lasagne sheets - white sauce - roast peppers - tomato sauce - lasagne sheets - white sauce - cheese. A couple of the prettier layer photos...

and the final layer of cheese before putting in the oven at 200C for 30-35 minutes...

after cooking...

This is so tasty...

I love it much more than meat lasagne - the peppers give it more substance - you get veggies to bite into as well as the slightly smoother tomato sauce, yum!

and best of all (!!) baby was too tired to stay up and have dinner with us, so I managed to save a portion to have for my lunch tomorrow, yey!

After dinner, I fancied something sweet so decided to make Averie's Peanut Butter Cups. I tried to make these before but they were a bit of a fail - only cheap milk chocolate available when I had the urge to make them, not enough chocolate and not enough patience to let them set properly. Today was different, I had dark chocolate and I forced myself to have patience...

I'm glad to say they were definitely worth the wait...

and I made 6 of them so if I can stop myself from going back to the fridge I have more to eat tomorrow! :)

A high note to end the day with! :) Indeed, looking back at this post, I've just realised that, with the exception of dinner (and a couple of unpictured lattes), every single thing I've eaten today has included peanut butter...yum :)

Oh and finally, just to write it down, I will be going to the gym tomorrow morning, ok? I haven't been for about a month, which is just ridiculous when I pay gym membership, and Friday mornings is the easiest time of the week to go (Liam at home to look after the children) so I will charge my iPod, get out my trainers and go do some exercise! & then I can eat more peanut butter cups afterwards!! :)

Meat-free Monday

As I went to write this post, I realised that today has been completely meat-free...not deliberately but hey, it makes a good post title! :) We try to have meat-free meals 2-3 times a week, mainly for cost reasons although I like that it gives me an excuse to try out new recipes/vegetables. To be fair dinner is the only "real" cooking I've done today, so more on that later.

First, breakfast, porridge. Once Liam and daughter were off to uni/school so that I could eat in relative peace! Today I was trying out a new brand of oats and a new peanut butter...

I used to eat Quaker oats as a child but have been favouring Scott's oats recently, when the shop has them in stock at least. Quaker oats seemed smaller when I poured them into the bowl. I made up my porridge with milk, tinned peaches and cinnamon...I love this combo!!

The Quaker oats seemed to make a more creamy/gloopy texture...not sure which I prefer to be honest, but they both taste great so all good!

I topped this with a simple blob of peanut butter...

I'm pleased to report that this peanut butter was much more to my taste! :) less liquidy texture so that I was able to have a blob, a nice salty taste, and the fact the it is "wholenut" made me feel it was slightly healthier...plus the flecks of peanut skin look nice with the flecks of cinnamon in my porridge!!! :-D

Mid-morning, when baby went for a nap, I treated myself to a latte and time on the sofa reading a book...bliss!!



After work on Saturday, I was absolutely exhausted so bought a couple of Innocent Veg Pots that were on offer, to save me cooking lunches when it's just me and baby during the week. Today I actually had a lot more energy, but decided to have one anyway...Italian Mushroom Risotto...

this looked lovely and fresh inside...



didn't look quite so vibrant once it was cooked but was still really tasty...

I loved the variety of vegetables in it, the green lentils being a surprise favourite. My only criticism would be that for a mushroom risotto it wasn't particularly mushroomy! Had bits of mushroom in it but not much mushroom flavour. Great general vegetable risotto though and so easy to cook - 4 minutes in the microwave and it's done - great way to increase your veg intake without much effort! :) Realise I sound a bit like an advert, oops...can you tell I really enjoyed this??!

Mid-afternoon I chopped up a couple of carrots to have with some of Tesco's Caramelised Onion Houmous...now this stuff I really do love!

delicious! If only all my snacks are all this healthy and tasty - I usually just grab whatever's near me (spoon of peanut butter, chocolate buttons etc) rather than taking the time to make something I'll really enjoy.

Dinner was something I'd been looking forward to all day :) No recipe to follow although it was inspired by a meal out I had recently - vegetable lasagne. The version I had in the restaurant was supposedly red pepper and portobello mushroom lasagne but all the vegetables were finely chopped into the sauce so you couldn't really distinguish any flavours, and the whole thing was instead covered in cheese! It also used meat-free mince which was ok, but I wanted my lasagne to be based on vegetables.

I first put 4 peppers into a roasting dish with a little oil and put them in the oven at 190C for 30 minutes...

I then started making the sauce. I first simmered a carton of passata (at this stage I realised Liam had used the last of the garlic when he cooked on Saturday, grrr, so I popped a chopped red onion in with the peppers to make up for lack of flavour) and when the peppers were about 15 minutes away from being ready I added a tin of green lentils (drained and rinsed first) and 250g of mushrooms - I did chop these quite finely so they were part of the sauce.

this is what the sauce looked like when cooked...

and the roast veg...

I also made a white sauce by melting 40g butter, stirring in 40g plain flour, cooking for a couple of minutes and then whisking in 350ml skimmed milk until the sauce was thickened and smooth...

Then it was time to layer up the lasagne...apologies if this gets a bit repetitive, I want to have a good account of this recipe so I can make it again...it was definitely a success! :) So, roast veg first...

then a layer of the lentil/mushroom mix...

3 dry lasagne sheets...

then half the white sauce...

and repeat... rest of the roast veg...

rest of the lentil/mushroom mix...

lasagne sheets...

rest of the white sauce - try to make sure you've left enough to fully cover the lasagne sheets...

and then finally top with about 70g of grated cheese...

In the oven at 200C for 30-35 minutes and it should come out smelling great and looking like this...

this tasted so good...Liam was a bit wary at first when he spotted the empty tin of green lentils on the side, but he went back for seconds! Divine...

definitely a new family favourite, so healthy and tasty too :) made enough for me, Liam and daughter plus seconds for both of them and leftovers for me and baby to have for lunch tomorrow or Wednesday :)

Today has been a really good day :) really enjoyed spending one-to-one time with the baby and, during the day at least, my food has been both healthy and delicious. Sadly, despite what the photos suggest, behind the camera there has been other food going into my mouth - a tsp of peanut butter, a handful of granola and the last square of dark chocolate whilst cooking dinner, plus a chocolate covered flapjack I'd originally bought for Liam (well I bought 2 because they were on offer, but they were both meant to be for him!) this evening, oops!

I'm having a real battle in my head at the moment - on the one hand I know I should be trying to lose the weight that I've put on recently, but I just love my food too much! I don't want to keep gaining weight though, which is what is happening at the moment...I need to get to the stage where I can maintain my weight (preferably with little or no effort from me!!) until my head is ready to start losing again. Otherwise by the time I get my head together I'm going to have a lot more weight to lose!!