Cooking, cleaning, school run, PTA mum, hair cuts, doctors, food shopping, child taxi service and so much more. Where does it stop?
Cooking, cleaning, school run, PTA mum, hair cuts, doctors, food shopping, child taxi service and so much more. Where does it stop? I don’t think it does!
The clinic is open until 7pm weekdays and 6pm weekends, after cleaning and traveling home it can be gone 9pm some days. The last thing I want to do is start cooking. The last 12 months I’ve worked so hard to lose 6 stone but I have been slipping back into old habits. When I was little we would have McDonalds 4 times a year, for each family members birthday. McDonalds weren’t local and there wasn’t one on every corner. Now a days its far too easy to get food delivered within minutes. Our local dominoes on some days can have a pizza made, cooked and delivered within 15 minutes. WOW no standing in the kitchen, no washing up BLISS. But at £35 a night take away was just becoming a very silly and unhealthy expense.
When I went on the retreat in Derbyshire, I met up with some very inspiring ladies. Nikki from Pudding and Pie was in charge of cooking for us during our stay. The first night she had made us a beautiful pizza dough from scratch which didn’t take her long in the morning. She shown us how to roll it out, and kneed it. We didn’t try spinning it unfortunately haha. We topped it with pasata with basil, some cheese and some deli meats. It took around 10 minutes to prepare and another 10 minutes to cook. It was such an easy meal, and something the kids could get involved with too. If you have a pizza oven it’s a great outside meal too.
On the 2nd night, we had all voted to make vegan curry. Im not a big curry person but with the rest of the retreat I was excited to try anything. As soon as someone says Vegan, I think a lot of people put their hands up and say NO. All vegan means is that it contains no animal products at all. Because there was no meat it was really quick and easy cooking time too. It was filled with butternut squash, spinach, coconut milk, peanut butter and curry paste. Nikki shown us how to make it by giving us a demo. It was delish. Two days later when I arrived home, I chucked a few chicken breasts in and some roasted peanuts on top and there were clean plates all round. The kids loved it. We aren’t a big fan of spicy in our house so I just adjusted the amount of curry paste to suit. Plenty of good healthy ingredients and very minimal cooking and prep. The instructions that Nikki wrote were really easy to follow and even Sean (14) managed to follow and prep it the next time we had it.
It really ignited my passion for cooking again and made me realise that I needed to plan more. I bought a meal plan board and when I got home got the kids to decide on their favorite dishes and we made a plan of our weekly menu. This helped with my shopping too and our budget.
On the retreat I got speaking to Amy. She had been trying Gousto. Now I've tried other brands of this before when they first came out and they were expensive, not to our taste and we very rarely cooked them which meant a lot of food waste. So when Amy mentioned Gousto I was very skeptical. She gave me a code which gave me 65% off and I thought lets give it ago. I also use topcashback too so I managed to get my first box for £16. 4 meals for 4 people (which stretched to 2 adults and 4 kids) I couldn’t go wrong. Our first box arrived on time and packaged really well. We weren’t in when it arrived but everything was still chilled. I also got an email to say when each meal went out of date which really pushed me to make sure I cooked them. Even Sean and Luke (9) made a meal each too. The first box we had King prawn Risotto, Spag bol, Quesadillas, and Mushroom Pasta. Nothing too adventurous for our first pick but clean plates all round non the less. Ive not had to shop, measure, everything has been so simple. Well worth the money. I have continued with the boxes and so far we haven’t had a bad meal. We choose our meals before they arrive from a wide range of recipes. Which reminds me I haven’t ordered this weeks yet **wanders off to do this before I forget** and I’m back. See takes minutes. You can stop or pause it at anytime too which is great to change things up or if youre going away.
Have a look at the links if you fancy speaking to Nikki or having a go with Gousto yourself.
Nikki can be reachable here - https://www.facebook.com/groups/puddingandpielimited she teaches in schools, online and in person too. Shes really affordable too so well worth a look.
If you fancy having a go yourself and getting 65% off your first box click my link:
https://cook.gousto.co.uk/raf/?promo_code=DANIE43193081&utm_source=weblink
And if you fancy saving some money using topcashback here. I try and use it for all online shopping, saving the money up and getting the vouchers for xmas food shopping. Each retailer offer different cashback amounts and pay it into your account.
Spag bol (I need to buy a cheese grater)
Mushroom Pasta - This was my favourite
