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!! :)

Would You Like Some Peanut Butter With That?

This week, my eating has NOT been very structured! What with being in hospital until Monday, and then having decorators in...last night was the first meal in over a week that I was able to cook in my own kitchen! I made it a good one though - Mama Pea's Quinoa Pizza Casserole...

I topped mine with grated cheddar, roast peppers and basil smoked tofu, with some salad on the side...

This was sooo good! Loved by all - I had thought I'd have some leftover's for today's lunch but Liam went back for seconds and polished it all off!!

Until last night though, I have been eating more snacks than meals! I spent most of the week at my Mum's house (luckily she lives just round the corner!), we did have a few meals such as pasta with roast vegetables and pesto...

and baked sweet potato with broccoli, roast asparagus and grilled pepper Philadelphia...

the green veggies I'd been longing for!! :)

However there were also many many snacks! A lot of these were peanut butter based - I seem to be making up for the lost peanut butter time from when we were in hospital!! There were Oreo cookies, with peanut butter...

Apologies for the rubbish photo - I was too busy eating - delish!

There was also a Dairy Milk chocolate bar, with peanut butter...

A good combo, but would've been even better with dark chocolate...obviously lots more peanut butter was spread on this after the photo!

And in the same "snacking session" a banana was also spread with peanut butter...

I have also this week eaten six packs of, unpictured, Reese's peanut butter cups, less 2 cups that Mum ate, so 16 peanut butter cups total!! They were reduced from 60p to 29p in Waitrose on Tuesday so I bought 3 packs, then on Thursday they were reduced further to 19p so I bought the last 3 packs...looks like Waitrose won't be selling them anymore :( I know I can make much better quality versions though, I ended up popping these in one after the other...too addictive!!

* To avoid any possible confusion, I have clearly eaten more than the above the last week - there have even been some other meals - muesli, soup, toasted teacake out with my Grandma etc - but less photos have been taken than usual due to disrupted routine!

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Today I had it all planned out that I would get back to normality. Daughter was back at school for morning + lunch today (thank you so much for all the well wishes, she's much better now, she started improving as soon as she had the op, so we're just glad they finally realised what was wrong with her!) and I had planned to go to the gym. That was until we snoozed the alarm for 45 minutes and ended up having to rush to get daughter to school - got out of the morning routine habit! I just had no energy this morning, had been awake in the night blah blah blah, and couldn't face the gym. After taking daughter to school, I settled for a healthy breakfast instead...

This was a bit of an "eat up fruit that's been forgotten about while we've been out of the house" smoothie - 2 small overripe bananas, 2 overripe pears, spinach, frozen cherries, vanilla rice milk and xanthan gum. Topped with toasted coconut flakes and, of course, peanut butter...

this was fantastic! My smoothies can be a bit hit or miss (especially if I add protein powder, bleugh, not a fan of the texture!) but this was divine :) I have to admit it though that it pretty much just tasted of banana and peanut butter...but that's fine with me!! :)

Lunch today was a simple poached egg on seeded toast...

I was doing so well! Then Liam went to work and the peanut butter jar started calling to me from the cupboard!!

Medjool dates stuffed with peanut butter...

and then peanut butter based fudgy oaties inspired by Oh She Glow's Frosty No-Bake Glo Cakes. I simplified it down a bit, just mashing the last small overripe banana (55g), then mixing in 45g peanut butter, 20g maple syrup, 8g cocoa powder and 35g oats. I wanted a fudgy pudding so I didn't freeze the mix, in fact I only managed to put it in the fridge for 10 minutes before I could wait no longer! Topped with chocolate chips...

I shared this with my daughter for a tasty afternoon snack, it reminded me of something but I can't put my finger on what it was (annoying!) but it was super yum, lovely and gooey and chocolatey :) It also kept me going until after I'd fed the children, put them to bed and had time to make my own dinner.

The original plan for dinner was roasted butternut squash wedges thanks to Mr Waitrose...

but after spending some of the afternoon browsing Oh She Glow's Recipe Page, I found a way to add some peanut butter into my meal! Parsnips...

with yet more peanut butter, in the form of Peanut Butter Crusted Parsnip Fries...

with the addition of lemon & coriander houmous from this trio...

all cooked and put together...

this was delicious and, despite appearances, really filling. I'd been a bit worried that the parsnip fries wouldn't crisp up because the butternut squash took up a bit too much space in the baking tray, but these were perfect! I love the crunchy crust that the peanut butter formed :)

2 hours later I'm still full up, so hopefully that'll be me done eating-wise for today!

This weekend has the potential to be a bit food-filled - today is Liam & I's anniversary, but he has to work (boo!) so we're going out for dinner tomorrow night. Then Sunday is Mothering Sunday and I'm baking a cake to take round to my Mum's in the afternoon...details will be shared once made if it's a success!! I must just try to eat as healthily as possible - I feel so much better when I do - not sure where peanut butter falls in that though - it seems to have replaced my old addiction to Nutella!

Hope you're all looking forward to the weekend! It's going to be quite a busy one here - as well as the foodie occasions mentioned above, I'm also meeting a friend for coffee tomorrow morning, and going to see daughter (she's well enough to be in it, yey!) and my little sister in a dance show in the afternoon. Should be a good one :)

Hospital Stay

This has been my bed for the last 4 nights...

not so comfy...

Turns out our daughter didn't have torticollis at all - when her neck didn't seem to be getting any better, and in fact was more swollen and red, I took her to the doctor for a second opinion on Thursday morning. He sent us straight to A&E! Poor little girl was so brave, she ended up having general anaesthetic for them to drain the abscess on Friday morning, and then Saturday morning they discovered one of the nasties in her neck was Strep A so we had to be moved to a side room and she was only allowed to leave it to go across the corridor to the toilet...she was so bored! We had hoped to get out last night but her neck drain was still oozing, she finally had it taken out this afternoon and we made it home just in time for dinner.

Anyway, this is a food blog so on to the food - apologies if it gets repetitive!! I was very glad that I'd followed my porridge craving for breakfast on Thursday - cocoa porridge topped with peanut butter...

luckily this kept me going as with all the waiting around to be seen in A&E, I didn't get to eat again until 4.45pm! By then I was starving...I gobbled down this egg mayonnaise baguette with crisps added to it...

I have eaten a lot of bars the last 5 days. I won't bore you with details of exactly when I ate each one but let's just say they often counted as "breakfast" and occasionally "dinner" - Liam visited as much as he could - our families were great with looking after the baby so he could visit - but when I was on my own I didn't want to leave daughter, especially as we seemed to spend most of the time waiting for Drs to visit to take blood/change cannula/remove plastic pipes from neck etc...all of which most definitely required her to be sat on her Mummy's lap whilst screaming the ward down!! :( Anyway (I feel this post is going to have many off-track rambles - sorry!!) these were some of the bars I enjoyed...

Liked the dark chocolate in this - shop didn't have any in stock after I bought this one though :(

This was breakfast one day - strange after-taste

Really tasty, although very sticky from all the honey & glucose syrup!

My favourite - full of sugar again, but also lots of big chunks of almonds and brazil nuts, yum...I had lots of these!! :)

I also managed to escape to the canteen on quite a few occasions when Liam or my Mum were there to look after daughter (and no doctors were due to visit!) I drank many many lattes (with 3 white sugars in each, oops!) over the last 5 days, plus some food - mostly covered in stodgy cheese sauce, bleugh.

A scone and a latte mid-morning on Friday with my Mum whilst Liam spent time in the playroom with daughter and baby...

Lunch only 1.5 hours later whilst daughter was in theatre - had to grab food when we could! Sweet potato with salad from the salad "bar"...

This was really nice but unfortunately I didn't spot sweet potatoes in the canteen again, sad times!

A latte and a carrot cake muffin on Friday afternoon before Liam headed home - we'd wanted to take daughter to the canteen as well as she was really chirpy after her op, but the nurses wouldn't let her off the ward to be on the safe side...she was really irritable and wanted to stretch her legs!!

This muffin was really tasty and it was good to have a little bit of time away from the ward before the night ahead of me - the first 2 nights were really hard going as not only was I woken up when daughter had to have her antibiotics drip at 2am, but I was also woken up whenever anyone else on the ward was seen by the nurse...and the Mum in the bay next to me (seperated by a curtain) thought it was acceptable to chat noisily, on a children's ward, until 10.30pm until a nurse came and said they were trying to quieten the ward...grrr!! We got more sleep once we moved to a side room for Saturday and Sunday nights - at least then it was only my own daughter keeping me awake!

On Saturday I experienced the first of the "cheese sauce meals" for lunch - this one supposedly had cauliflower in it - but you had to look hard to find any!!

It was basically stodgy cheese sauce with lumps - there weren't many meat-free options around!! Part of the problem was that I was eating whenever I had the opportunity, not necessarily traditional meal times, so I usually missed out on baked potatoes etc and had to eat from the self-serve hot food that had been sitting around since the last proper meal time...nice(!!)

I had a second cheese sauce meal on Saturday - an early dinner of mushroom & herb pasta bake...

this was actually quite nice...I was pleasantly surprised!! :)

Sunday lunch was the worst of the cheese sauce meals - we'd been waiting all of Sunday morning for a Dr to visit, and whilst Liam was there, we were hoping the Dr would remove the neck drain (she decided it wasn't ready to come out in the end) so I didn't want to leave daughter. I gave up on getting lunch about 2pm and made myself a couple of slices of plain buttered toast from the parents' kitchen (the only food we had access to) and of course the Dr turned up as soon as I'd finished eating it! So as I then wasn't hungry for lunch, Liam went to the canteen and had carvery. I eventually went to eat at 3.30pm so this had been sitting around on the hot plate for a while...a big serving of cheese sauce with soggy cauliflower and broccoli in it...

this was enough to put me off eating any more hot meals in the canteen!! Luckily I did stock up on the yummy nut bars :)

I did make one more trip to the canteen - this afternoon when Liam was packing up the room and we were waiting for paperwork to be filled out - I had a major headache so a latte and the cake that has been tempting me all weekend was needed - Dime Bar cake...

this was so yummy - a layer of cake, topped with caramel, peanuts and chocolate...

Yum, this almost made up for the fact that I didn't have peanut butter the whole time we were in the hospital - a tiny jar of bog standard pb cost £2.49 in the shop!!

Luckily, to counteract all the stodge, I have also had some nice food brought in by relatives. My Mum sent a delicious fruit selection in on Saturday...

daughter and I shared most of this on Saturday afternoon, then I polished off the leftovers at 10pm whilst waiting for the Dr to (eventually) turn up to change daughter's cannula and take blood...poor child was so traumatised to be woken up for that experience - both nights since she's been tossing & turning and shouting in her sleep :( the fruit was nice though (!)...

I never thought I would crave fruit and veggies so much! Not surprising though - I failed to find any vegetables (except salad) that was not over-cooked beyond recognition, and the only fruit available were apples and bananas. Healthy cravings also probably amplified due to the over-consumption of chocolate - every visitor seemed to bring daughter a box of Thornton's chocs, many of which were sadly consumed by me!!

Back to the healthy stuff though...my Grandma & Grandpa visited yesterday afternoon and brought with them a welcome gift of food from Marks & Spencer...

My Grandma, unfortunately, spends a lot of time in and out of hospital so obviously knows what type of food would be welcomed! The egg sandwich and (amazing!) lemon curd yoghurt served as last night's dinner, and I had the fruit salad for breakfast this morning...

much better than the leftover cold toast I've been eating from daughter's breakfast tray the other mornings!!

As I said, we did finally make it home today :) the doctor came round to look at daughter this morning but he felt her drain was still oozing so much, so he came back about 3pm and luckily decided it was ok for us to come home. He had to first take the drain out of her neck though - this was horrible to watch - she was already traumatised by the doctor's visit on Saturday night, so she started screaming before this doctor even touched her. In the end 2 nurses had to hold her down on her bed while the doctor pulled the drain out, my poor baby! :( She soon bounced back though and packed up her stuff ready to go home, I'm hoping she's young enough to forget about the more horrible aspects of this experience!

When we got home, we were all too tired to cook! Liam and daughter ate ready meals - spinach & ricotta cannelloni and macaroni cheese respectively - both too stodgy and cheese-sauce filled for me! I had the same thing I'd eaten before all this started - cocoa porridge (this time with banana in) topped with peanut butter...

I missed my porridge even more than fruit & veg I think!

Phew! I hope to get back to more interesting food soon - can't wait to start cooking again! As if staying in hospital for 4 nights wasn't enough, on Friday I got a phone call from our landlord's brother saying he'd be in at 8.30am Monday morning (today) to re-do the bathroom and paint most of downstairs...was meant to be done a week ago but they got held up. Our bathroom currently has a toilet but no sink or bath (these will be put in tomorrow but we won't be able to use them the bath/shower until Wednesday) and for at least the next 2 days the house will not be very baby friendly...Liam has to go back to uni tomorrow but I'm planning to spend most of my time at my Mum's house round the corner - daughter can recuperate and watch TV in my Mum's bed and I can do my best to entertain the baby!!

Right, this post is nearly over - I need to catch up on some sleep! I hope this hasn't been too dreary or dis-jointed, I'm so relieved that daughter is ok - being in hospital has been really boring and at some times pretty miserable, but it has also made me realise how lucky we are - at least our daughter will make a full recovery and just be left with a little scar, some of the other children in there won't be so lucky :(

To end on a brighter note, the main thing that kept us sane was our visitors, in particular my Mum. She did her best to give me a break and keep daughter amused - one of those ways was by making fruit faces...I'll leave you with a fruit smile...good night!