KITCHEN BLITZ AND PLANNING

Hi all,

This week has been clearing out the fridge and freezer of any bits and bobs and frozen 'half' dinners so that I have a fresh freezer to fill with baking and all the final leftovers have been used. I try and do this at the beginning of most months, but definitely at the beginning of December as there will be cakes, extra bread, Christmas Day meat, pastry, biscuit dough and all the other extras that will be needed over the festive season, although I'm sure that some of it will be still there in January.  Also the kitchen itself gets a winter clean with cupboards and drawers cleared out of 'stuff' and washed down along with double checking on cleaning tiles and those hard to reach corners.  Why I do a winter clean I don't know, but it's become traditional for me to do a pre-Christmas blitz.

So after a mega blitz, Monday's dinner was a big moroccan spiced 'stew' made from a fairly large, already moroccan spiced, veg dish I found in the freezer, last week's sweet potatoes, tomatoes and carrots, quorn pieces, lambs lettuce (in place of spinach) and more spice.  This was basically shoved in the slow cooker all afternoon whilst I cleaned the kitchen.

Stores cupboard (left side)

Stores cupboard (right side)

Tuesday was breakfast with a friend I hadn't seen for a while, bit of shopping, posting a parcel and some Xmas cards and then work in the evening.  I have to admit that after a very large breakfast I wasn't that hungry before work, so I passed the responsibility of dinner onto my partner and requested he bunged a pizza in the oven for me for when I got home.  Sainsbury do a rather good gluten free pizza and I do tend to keep a couple in the freezer for those days when either I really fancy one or when the boys are having them themselves; normally a Saturday when it's partner's turn to 'cook'.

Mushroom 'risotto' on Wednesday as I had a tonne of mushrooms in the fridge.  The risotto is in quotation marks as I didn't have risotto rice so used quick cook long grain rice instead.  After frying off some onion and the tonne of mushrooms in some olive oil, adding plenty of fresh thyme from the garden and a twist or two of black pepper and salt, I added this and a large mug of rice to an oven proof casserole dish, then added two mugs of boiling water, gave it all a stir and put in the oven, covered in foil, for 20mins on 180C.  Another stir and more boiling water, about another mugful, and back in the oven for another 10mins whilst I grated a largish piece of parmessan and a big chunk of cheddar.  Out of the oven again, check to see if rice cooked and then stir in all of the cheese.  Check seasoning, add a little more water if dry and back in oven for another five mins to melt the cheese.  Voila!

Thursday was another slow cooker day as it was son's weekly group trampolining lesson and then back to work a couple of hours later.  This time it was an 'anything goes' stew, meaning leftover roast veggies from the weekend, couple of spoonfuls of mashed potato which thicken the stew, sweetcorn, any veggies that were found in the bottom of the fridge, tin of tomatoes, tin of beans and some water.  Plenty of salt and pepper and herbage and I've finally got rid of all the odds and sods.  Hoorah!!

Friday is my first day of not cooking dinner, so after a private lesson in trampolining for my son, it was home to wade through a pile of cookery books with a cuppa and plan out some menus/dishes for the next couple of weeks so that I don't have to think too hard about what to cook whilst I get on with baking, present wrapping, decorating and card writing.  Shopping lists written and I can relax for the weekend. Although I actually did a fair amount of visiting, shopping and a rather lovely amble around a Christmas Fair where I bought a rather ingenious bowl that folds flat when not needed, so not a huge amount of sitting and relaxing, but was a well spent weekend.

Chicken Bowl

Chicken Bowl flat

Do you think this lot will fit in the bowl??