Earlier in the week I chopped some onion, courgette and red pepper and left it in a box in the fridge. I also made a load of pizza dough in the breadmaker, froze 2 boxes and kept 1 in the fridge. I had some chopped cooking bacon to use up aswel. So with half the prep already done earlier in the week I decided on a batch baking/cooking session to use it up and make some home-made 'ready meals' for the rest of the weekend and beyond.
bacon, red pepper, onion and courgette fried off in a pan, and I put a pan of rice on to boil.
I set aside 2 bowls of the veg/bacon mix to make a quiche and top a pizza. The rest stayed in the pan and I added 3 eggs, some black pepper and 5 spice.
Once the rice had boiled I added that and mixed in a couple of teaspoons of soy sauce.
Tipped it into a tuppaware box and its now sitting in the fridge waiting to be eaten for lunch or possibly tea tomorrow.
Pizza dough made up earlier in the week.
Recipe from the booklet that came with my breadmaker:
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 1/2 tblsp olive oil
4 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 tblsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp dried yeast
Tip it all into the breadmaker and switch to the dough setting. This is enough to make 3 12" bases, so I divided the dough into 3 old margarine tubs, froze 2 and kept 1 in the fridge.
For an easy pizza later in the week!
Tomato sauce was just passata reduced down with herbs and garlic, I did a batch earlier in the month and froze it in ice cube trays, popped them out and kept them in a freezer bag. Ready to take a few cubes of pizza/pasta sauce out when I needed them.
top the sauce with a little cheddar and mozerella, add toppings.
Mine was obviously one of the bowls I set aside of the courgette, pepper, onion and bacon mix.
Add another sprinkle of cheddar and mozerella. I added a bit of parmesan too, just because I had some in the fridge in need of using.
Pizza tucked away in the fridge ready to bake for either lunch or tea tomorrow. Whichever we don't have for lunch we will have for tea, lol.
Last bowl of 'the mix'. A packet on 'just add water' pastry mix from approved food, yay! These were 25p a pack and I use half a pack at a time.
Add water and form into a ball, makes life so much easier!
Making pastry from scratch is not that difficult but with a half hour window at 7pm after a very busy day, it DOES make life easier!
Line your flan case and blind bake for 5-10mins, if you want to, if not then you can skip it.
If you wondering how I managed all of this while juggling young kids:
Yay for BBC bitesize!! lol. Although once the cake mix came out they were all about making muffins with mummy instead. But I got a good head start!
I don't use fresh milk in cooking anymore. Powdered milk is £1 per kilo at approved food and I have a stock of it to use for cooking. 4 tablespoons make a pint of milk. Whereas £1 of fresh milk will buy 4 pints. I keep the fresh milk for the drinking/eating and use powdered for cooking/baking. So, 4 tblsp milk powder = 1 pint of milk.
I don't usually add this to quiches. But its in the fridge and needs using up. I added it to my last quiche and was well impressed! It added a lovely flavour to the egg/milk mix and I used a lot less grated cheese.
This one has garlic and herbs in it, so a couple of tablespoons of that, plus 4 eggs, and some fresh black pepper.
Added 'the mix' and spread evenly-ish.
Add the egg/milk mix.
And I sprinkled a tiny bit of parmesan over the top.
So from a few ingredients I prepped earlier in the week, 3 meals :) The quiche is tucked away in the fridge ready for lunches through the week with some home-made coleslaw. I have some sun-dried tomatoes and parmesan that need using in the fridge. So will probably make a loaf of sun-dried tomato and parmesan bread in the breadmaker to go with it.
I won't switch the oven on just for 1 quiche its a complete waste of electric when I have 3 shelves in my tiny oven! Although I can only use 2 at a time, it is that tiny!
Kids joined me to make some treats for the week:
I ordered 2 of these in my latest approved food order. 3.5kilo plain muffin mix - £1.99. you can just add water or a mix of oil and water, I went for the oil and water. I had a muffin mix previously with just water and it came out for too dry.
I used 500g of mix to make 12 muffins.
And added 2 handfuls of frozen blueberries!
12 blueberry muffins in with the quiche.
The flapjack tray I'm working on the right recipe for, it still needs tweaking, but I stuck a tray of them in too.
The oven is retired for the day! 2 lots of munchies, 3 meals all stashed away for the rest of the weekend/week, using very little ingredients really! I think there was 1 red pepper, 1 courgette and 1 onion in 'the mix' and about 200g of chopped bacon, and It went between 3 meals. There will be sides of veggies to go with them to get more veg in the family. I have a HUGE raised bed full of rocket, lettuce and spinach :) invested a whole 49p in a cucumber today to go with home-grown salad. I have a lot more growing but that is another post for another day ;)
