In the kitchen, on a budget

Read the title. These are my first two stumbling blocks.

Firstly, being in the kitchen. I live in a house where you can’t see what is happening in the living room from the kitchen. And having a 3 month old, I can’t leave Master C alone with him for long (we wouldn’t want a repeat of the ‘trying to feed baby a banana’ incident again now would we!). I also have a tiny kitchen with no space to put baby down in. So I’m either hopping around with baby in my arms, trying to stir the pot on the stove with one hand and hold baby at arms length as far away from the hob as possible with the other. Or I’m running back and fourth between rooms every 30 seconds checking the boys are ok. With the latter, the food more often than not gets burnt and this does not help the fussy eating problem. 

In any case, I have to be quick. And with my New Years resolution of always feeding Master C home-cooked nutritious meals (within reason of course, a maccy d now and again never hurt anyone) this gets tricky.

Something you should definately know about me is that I am not in domesticated in the slightest. I hate cleaning and I hate cooking even more. I am not fantastic at it and, quite frankly, I find it boring. But needs must and, with my partner working full time , it lies with me to feed the kiddies and throw some slop/ leftovers onto plates for me and the hubby. 

What makes it all even harder (I know, I know, like I haven’t moaned enough in this post!) is that everything has to be done on a budget. We aren’t well off in the slightest and there have been plenty of times where I have gone without eating for the pleasure of seeing Master C take one bite of his meal and refuse to eat anymore (but this means more leftovers for me, and I am partial to a cold fish finger!) . Anyhoo, this means that I have become better at finding good food, for a very fussy eater at a good price. 

Here is one of my favourite budget recipes:

Sweetcorn and carrot pancakes

Ingredients: 200g tin of sweetcorn, 1 small finely grated carrot, 1 egg, 30g flour, tsp baking powder

Method: Chuck it all in the blender until smooth (the blender is your friend! It hides the veggies!), heat a teaspoon of oil in a pan (yes frying is bad, but a bit better if you use olive oil and I’ve tried doing them in the oven.. Master C was not impressed), take a teaspoon of the blended mixture and drop into the pan flattening into circles until brown on both sides. 

Voila! You can hardly taste the vegetables and you definately cannot see them. If you are feeling particularly flush, a few chopped, spring onions thrown into the mix give it a bit more flavour.

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