How Do You Get The Time?

This Christmas I made lots of homemade things, like jam, jellies, chutneys and aprons. I made about 30 jars, from October to December. People often ask me, how on earth I fit it in. Here's some of the things which help me:

Slow cooker, I love our slow cooker. Not only perfect for making curries and sources. It's also great for slow cooked chutney. (Will share my recipe soon.) What I love is with a slow cooker it can work around you.

My top tip is that when your already in the kitchen cooking, that's the perfect time to make something else. So this morning while cooking our mini people porridge  (in the times that it was cooking and cooling) I put a batch of chutney in the slower cooker. I also used the apple peels and cores to start a batch of Apple vinegar. 

What really helps, is our family living room/kitchen. We have an open family living space, so I can be in the kitchen but also still with the mini people. They can help out with cooking too :)

Have things to hand, have a really good tidy up of your kitchen every few months, do you still use that item? The top used items in my kitchen are: bread maker, slow cooker, large iron cooking pot (my Nana's hand-me-down, when ever I use it I think of her,) wooden spoon and large mixing bowl, hand mixer. 

Our breadmaker was such a great buy, brought on sale and on every day to every other. Being a family of 5 we go through a lot of bread, from sandwiches to toast. If you have bread in the house you will always have a meal! What I love is adding my own bits to the recipe, I mostly use the plain white bread recipe but add nuts, seeds or sultanas. I love knowing what's in there and wow it's so much nicer. I used to make my own bread and I know many people mange to make the time for it, but I love that I throw it all in and forget about it. 

I keep everything in jars, from flour to nuts, that means I can quickly see what am low on and also grab things quickly. Don't throw your jars out, I have a stash to hand for all my home made yummy stuff or to use for storage (not just in the kitchen!) My friends and family save them for me too :) 

I haven't brought a pasta source in over 7yrs so I do rely on others saving the odd jar for me. I will share my basic pasta source soon too. 

This was my kitchen side this morning, chutney on, Apple peels and cores ready to go to the laundry room and a bag of left over veg scraps to be thrown in the garden. All while the porridge cools. 

It's amazing how much you can fit in, when things are to hand!

X

Vegan Pâté

One thing I've always looked forward too at Christmas is all the different types of pâté you can buy. Well this being our first Vegan Christmas, I thought I would have a go at making some! 

Ingredients:

Half a cup of cashews

1 tablespoon of peanuts

2 cups of mushrooms

2 tablespoons of coconut oil

1 onion

1 apple

Blend up the peanuts and cashews. 

Till about this consistency ^

Then pop them in the oven till brown.

Chop up the apple and onion, about 1-2cm in size.

Add the coconut oil to the onion and apple and heat till the coconut oil has gone translucent. 

Blend up and then reuse the same pan to cook up the mushrooms.

Add the chopped up mushrooms, cook till really squeaky and starting to brown.

Add the mushrooms and now browned nuts, blend. Don't forget your seasoning, I added a little Rosemary and about a tablespoon of parsley. 

Pop it in a tight closing topped jar and once cooled pop it in the fridge. 

Yummy, my testers (aka family) said when cooking off the mushrooms try some red wine so will try that next time! 

X

All In Pasta

After a few days of Christmas roasts, I really felt the need of something really stodgy. So here is my recipe for All In Pasta.

It's a great way of getting rid of any left over bits of veg, what ever is in the fridge gets chucked in, within reason ;)

I had some sugar snaps and beans too use up, so I added them as well.

 

A good base to use for this is-

1 onion

1 tin of tomatoes

3 handfuls of mixed mushrooms

Half to a whole courgette

1 Apple

2 spring onions

I used a soya mince (follow the pack intructions.) 

It really is a case of what ever you have to use up, throw in:

Handful of beans

Handful of sugar snaps

Half a leek

3 handfuls off frozen pees (I love adding in frozen veg, I often have a little left over in the freezer, add after the liquid.) 

1-2 cups of red wine

1-3 tins of water (after putting in the tin of tomatoes, fill the tin with water and add to the pot.)

Herbs-

Main things you can't go wrong with having to hand is pepper, rosemary, it can add up buying all your herbs at once but start with rosemary. 

Pepper

Rosemary

Chili powder

Thyme

Extras-

Pasta (this is main part, so it depends on how hungry you are. I made it for two people, in the very hungry camp.) 

3-4 tablepoons rice

1-3 tablespoons of porridge 

I keep all my pasta etc, in large jars, air tight, easy to grab and see what am running low on. 

Seeds-

Half-1 handful of sunflower seeds

Half-1 handful of mixed seeds

Half-1 handful of sesame seeds

A quick shake of chia seeds

(This is up too you, use your favourite seeds, they will fill your dish with goodness and crunch!) 

These little jars are from IKEA, they are perfect for seeds or herbs.

Anything I buy in a jar, I keep the jar, always come in handy. 

Chop onions, celery courgette and leak all to the same size about 1-2cm big. Fry onions first, adding courgette celery spring onion leaks, beans and sugar snaps. Add mushrooms and once starting to really heat up and turn golden add the rest, add a clove or two of garlic too if you like. If am just cooking on the hob, I only add one tin of water per tin of tomatoes added. (Add the tin of tomatoes, then fill that tin with water and add.) If am going to pop it in the oven to slow cook then I at least double the water per tin. In this case I added 3 tin fulls of water for one tin of tomatoes. Make sure you add any frozen veg after the liquid. Add rice and half cooked (half boiled) pasta. Brill to a quiet boil. Then pop in the oven. 

Depending on when you want to have dinner, as to time and temp. I cooked on a low heat of 125, for about an hour and a half-two hours. If you need to wait three hours cover and lower the temp. The first thing to go is the liquid. You don't want to lose all of it, so keep an eye when your get over the first 45mins. 

 

A real stodgy filling meal, our 18ms old love it too! 

X

Vegan Christmas

I was quite worried about our first vegan Christmas, I have always cooked a chicken and a duck for Christmas and never ever a nutroast! 

I was so proud of us, sticking with it even for our Christmas meal. It's the first Christmas meal where I didn't feel like I needed a 3hr nap and had a painful tummy after.

I did use a few pre-made shop brought nutroasts, but I did cook my own on our Christmas mk2 for the other side of the family a few days after Christmas. 

I roasted for an hour or so, covered in tinfoil a whole cauliflower. Cooked in red wine, herbs and a little chili. Then cooked with the tinfoil off till roasted. It was yummy and a bit of a showstopper for the table.

After lots of research and help from a lovely vegan Facebook site, I gave making my own nutroast a go. I used cashew nuts walnuts and peanuts, in the blender, added mixed seeds, sunflower and sesame seeds. Two apples and lots of mushrooms, chopped up and then throw in the blender. Mixed up like a cake and added to a cake tin. I used far to big cake tin and it needed to be cooked much longer. I cooked it with tinfoil over the top for about an hour, in a large cake tin. I will work on this one and update once I have got it perfect. I then cooked without the cover to brown off the top. 

I then added pre-made puff pastry, first covering the roast whole, then laying out strips over the top leaving the same size gap as the strip. Then added on holly leaves cut out of the extra pastry. I lightly painted on oil, to stick on the extra pastry and to cover all showing pastry. Returned it to the oven till golden brown. 

It was yummy. Merry Christmas! 

Welcome to the Seaside Housewife's blog.

Welcome!

First you have to know, am not what you would call a 'good' housewife, my poor husband is often running around trying to find a sock....or climbing over a huge pile of washing to get into the sitting room.

I have the image of a 1950's perfect housewife in my head, dressed, make-up on and children playing quietly in a beautiful clean and tidy house. 

Then I remind my self that my house is chaos, children running a muck, and am still in my pjs......I thought I would share the few tips which help me to get a good homemade meal on the table.

We are a family of 5, living on the southcoast of England. We have three mini people under the age of 6.

One of the biggest thing we have done, is to changing our diet. Am of Italian, Scottish and Welsh descent, with a bit of everything else mixed in and this has always reflected in my cooking.

You would say am one of those 'fed you up Italian cooks!'

The dishes I was know for was Lemon Chicken, (Roasted in lemons and wine) so to now be heading down the path of becoming vegan it's a huge change for us!

I have my whole life been a meat eater, humans are meat eaters, but not the crazy amount we consume. The meat Industry is responsible for the biggest cause of environmental damage, we need to make a change if our planet is going to be around to feed our children, let alone our children's children.

This is before we take into account how we treat animals, the affects to our Heath as well. We started on our Journey in Sep 2015, our children sleep better (cows milk is full of 'wake up your hungry' hormones, antibiotics and is highly addictive) I have more energy and feel so much better that am no longer standing by and letting such terrifying atrocities happen for me to eat. Having breastfed my babies I can't look at cows breast milk in the same way again, we don't need it, it's made for baby cows not humans. 

Being a young family, we always have to think about our budget. That and am a hoarder and love anything homemade or passed down. My 3yr old Bear is currently tearing past me pushing my old wooden walker, 30 odd years and three crazy kids crashing it into the wall etc...it's doing well. (I lucky had my Grandpa on hand to fix it once too.) 

So I will be sharing some homemade tips, from making your own jams, making the odd thing and up cycling your hand-me-downs.

Also, there is Daisy. Our 1969 Bluebird Caravan. When we brought her, she was full of rot, dirt and holes.....

So if retro/vintage, food and tips is your bag, your in the right place!

Seaside Housewife x

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