My reward for sitting on a wooden "school gym" bench for an hour watching her? A trip to Waitrose afterwards, for the first time since Liam started his new job 4 weeks ago! Best find...pumpkin!! They didn't have any tinned pumpkin on the shelves, but Liam asked one of the staff and they found it downstairs. I stocked up with half a case!
£1.39 a tin, but hopefully these 12 will last me a while!
As well as shopping, I have also eaten some tasty food this weekend. Breakfasts are always great. Yesterday's breakfast was a delicious mini version of Averie's Microwave Bluberry Banana Oat Cake, topped with peanut butter...
and this morning was French toast topped with strawberries and peanut flour sauce (peanut flour, agave, milk)...
Amazing! We normally have French toast with sliced banana and golden syrup, but this strawberry and peanut flour sauce combo was definitely a winner!
Lunches have been pretty standard (fried egg sandwich yesterday and leftover root veg with avocado and houmous today) so I won't bore you with yet more photos of those. Dinners have been good though! Last night I made a meal from the latest Waitrose magazine. I'd been planning to make it on Friday, but when I realised how much slicing of veg prep work it involved, I decided to wait until Liam was home to save my fingers! The meal was worth (his) effort though - garlicky baked mushrooms, and root veg boulangere...
It's so annoying that the dark evenings keep ruining my photos. It probably doesn't help that more than half the light bulbs in our kitchen have gone as well, oops! This was really tasty though - the root veg bake was meant to be celeriac, parsnips, carrots and potatoes, but I accidentally picked up a swede instead of a celeriac so we used that instead. It worked really well though, my favourite bit was the crispy potatoes on top! A bit like a lighter version of potato dauphinoise - this just uses veg stock instead of cream to cook.
I followed this up with some dessert from the freezer - Averie's Caramel Apple Bars - I was too impatient to wait for them to defrost before taking a photo!!
Love these. I've only got a couple left in the freezer so will have to make some more soon!
Tonight's dinner was a simple one. Simple but delicious, the best option for Sunday nights. I picked up some fresh gnocchi from Waitrose which gave me a head start on a quick meal. Combined with cream that needed using, tenderstem broccoli I picked up cheap, and a little cheese - a quick dinner that was ready in no time...
This was tasty, but I cooked way too much. I always forget how stodgy and filling gnocchi can be!
Another highlight was this afternoon, when Liam decided he was "craving" chocolate and "needed" us to bake. I tried to sway him towards cupcakes or cookies, but in the end we went for something that would give us quick, but great, results - Averie's Fudgy Nutella Brownies. I made them without Nutella or frosting this time. They are so quick to make and are absolutely delicious. The only thing I would say is make sure you use dark chocolate. It doesn't need to be great quality (I just use Lidl 74%) but it does need to be dark - Liam made them last time with milk chocolate and they just ended up being big squares of crystallised sugar!! These ones were much more successful though, love the cracked top, always a sign of a good brownie I think!
Yum. I've "only" had two so far, but I think another one will soon be in my future! This is the 3rd time I've made these brownies and my favourite end result. Batch #2 was not so good because of the milk chocolate, batch #1 were great, but a bit too rich for me with the icing. These are perfect. I reduced the sugar from 450g to 400g - still loads, but now the brownies are chewy round the edges, but soft and dense inside. Love. I think these definitely win the "best brownie ever" title, and so easy to make too! I gave a couple to my Mum and sister this evening and, as I'm writing this, my Mum is sending me texts saying these brownies would make great Christmas presents...we definitely have some brownie fans in our family!
Edited to add: I've just remembered I made this batch of brownies with gluten free flour (Dove's I think?) as I'd run out of regular plain flour. As you can probably tell from the above praise, it seems it worked just fine!!
What have you been up to this weekend? Any particular highlights? The weekend always seems to go so much quicker than the week, but this one has been a nice relaxing one. Izzy only has school Monday-Thursday this week and then it's half term. Yey. No school run = more relaxed mornings = more time to make breakfast special! :-D
