Basa with Tomato Dressing

I bought a basa fillet for my lunch on Friday and I was inspired to cook it in the most simple way possible.  My herbs in the garden are still at their verdant best and the tomatoes in the greenhouse still managing to produce the occasional (but delicious and sweet) fruit.

Chopped Salad with Sticky Glazed Pork Belly

A delicious chopped salad with glazed pork belly.  Fantastic both hot and cold, in fact, it's worth making a little extra as I did to have the leftovers in a salad the next day (wait for jealous looks from your colleagues).

How to fit in exercise as a busy parent

As many people reading this blog will know, nearly 4 years ago I didn't exercise at all.  I tell a lie, my only exercise, which is significant, was pushing my toddler in his push chair, mostly thinking "please have a nap!"  I was busy, recently having returned to the workplace, I had a blog, Mamacook all about kids food.  Life was just work, son, more son and everything surrounding my son.

Gradually over those years I've taken myself from someone who would baulk at the idea of getting sweaty to someone who is almost in tears that I can "only" run three miles at the moment due to injury.  Injury is another story however, (physio pending) but despite this I keep exercising and now, working 4 days a week in a much more demanding job which often results in me travelling for meetings, I still fit in 4-6 exercise sessions a week.  So here I am to convince you that you can too.  Try for 3 times a week to start with, a time commitment of only 90 minutes or less than 1% of your week.  Some tips will work better if your child is in school or preschool or if you work part time but I promise you that something will help even if you have no childcare and no support.

A week of healthy lunches

We forget sometimes when the kids go back to school that it's not only kids who deserve a decent lunch.

Lunch is the meal of the day where it's easy to buy a floppy sandwich (at great expense) or end up with a less than nutritional meal.  Last time I bought a lunch from my work canteen, the choice was 100% brown or beige, not a green vegetable to be seen.  I'm not sure about you but that's not just unhealthy, it's uninspiring!

Lunch is not just about sustenance either.  Lunch is a break from the working day (even if you eat at your desk).  It's a change, it's something different to do for a while.  Even if you don't take a proper break, a proper lunch can make it into a proper break.

Now look at these 5 meals and tell me you're not inspired?

The box is a simple £1 lunchbox from poundland.  I hadn't noticed until looking back at my week how little meat there is and no wheat.  This isn't deliberate, it's just what I like to eat, a lot of fruit, a lot of vegetables, not masses of starchy foods, some fish and occasional meat.  Sums it all up really!

I've not listed these as individual recipes on my blog because, apart from the Frittata, it's really only assembly which is great if you're a bit bleary eyed in the morning and the frittata is so great as a leftover that my suggestion is you make it for your tea one day and then have leftovers for lunch.

Provencal style sandwich

This is inspired by a pan bagnat which is a sandwich filled with layers of beautiful ingredients similar to a nicoise salad.

I however, have made it my own so purists, look away, this is not a pan bagnat but it is a sandwich filled with delicious ingredients.

Goats Cheese and Courgette Tian

This is the time of year when courgettes (zucchini) and tomatoes are at their best but at the same time it's easy to get that "glut" feeling.  This was an attempt at a very different type of dish with the most seasonal of ingredient and, do you know what?  It was a delicious delight.  In fact, it was so lovely, I'm going to make it again this week.

You need nothing more than some crusty bread to make this into a meal as it sops up the lovely juices but it could also be a rich side dish.

What does 5 a day mean?

"5 a day" has been the advice given to UK consumers for over 10 years; that is, for optimum health you should eat a minimum of 5 different fruits and vegetables a day.

This came from world health organisation advice that we should eat 400g of non starchy fruits and vegetables daily, this is because insufficient intake of fruit and vegetables causes deaths.  Yes, you read that right.  If a drug was this effective, it would be the new wonder potion and people would pay a fortune for it.

Different governments have interpreted this differently but in the UK the government broke this down into five 80g portions.

But this is the thing; it is a minimum not a target and sadly it's not worked.

Cherry Ripple Ice Cream with Chocolate and Cherry Sauce

I'm sat writing this at the weekend as the sun has just gone behind a cloud.  Although the sun has been glorious, the strong wind is a taste of things to come.  Mid way through tomorrow, temperatures will have plunged along with most peoples desire for ice cream; but I will soldier on!  After all if Haagan Dazs can make a fortune from people buying ice cream all year round, I will assume people may still be eating it as the weather cools.  Just imagine in winter, warm chocolate brownies with cherry ice cream and chocolate cherry sauce... are you thinking my way yet?  Oh yes!

This was inspired by Black Forest Gateau, that 1970s creation of chocolate sponge, cream and cherries.  I have to admit I loved it when I had it as a child in the 80s and 90s and would still happily eat it now but baking a sponge cake for one feels like a bit too much effort on a lazy weekend day so I made ice cream instead.

I would suggest serving this with some extra fresh cherries if you have any, unfortunately due to bad planning I had none when I came to photograph it.  Obviously the sauce is optional but it is delicious and very easy to make.  I would suggest keeping excess sauce for later and I wanted to see if it went too thick (as it could easily serve 2) but I ate it all.  It was blooming lovely!

The amount here is a bit better sized than my mocha ice cream which, although delicious, felt like I was eating it for weeks.  You could easily double the mix though and it might be nice to make two different flavours, a conventional raspberry ripple might be nice or try my coffee and chocolate ice cream.

So your child is starting school?

It seems like yesterday my son started school but amazingly nearly a year has passed.  My son attends a huge but fantastic primary school of nearly 600 children but the change and growth in him has been amazing.

I thought I'd share some top tips with nervous parents approaching this for the first time.

Goats Cheese Stuffed Chicken

This used to be an almost weekly dish in my household but due to not eating as much meat recently I've not eaten it as often but when I was thinking about alternative Sunday Lunches for one, this seemed ideal.

Having it again was a delight, I will have to make it more often!

Broad Bean and Soy Salad

This is an inspired and super healthy lunch containing two of your five a day.  This drew jealous stares from colleagues as well.

Assiette of Tomatoes

Tomatoes are lovely at this time of year, the perfect combination of sweetness, a touch of acidity with the perfume of summer.

My home grown tomatoes are finally at their fragrant best.  Resisting the urge to just eat them as they are or with the merest drizzle of olive oil and vinegar (delicious though that is), I decided to get a bit poncy.  Sorry, but I love tomatoes so much I decided to make myself an assiette of some of the most delicious ways to eat them.

Quinoa and Grape Salad

I am a recent quinoa convert.  This isn't out of any health kick but purely because it tastes nice.  I'm not keen on food which is purely eaten for health reasons.  You will not get me supping on any wheat grass juice any time soon.  But the surprise I had was that quinoa actually tastes nice (I know! Who knew?)

Salads with fruit have featured a lot for me recently and grapes were an idea with the lemon juice to mimic the flavour of verjuice, the colour of the grapes is also beautiful.

Stuffed Courgettes

I was trying to use up the ingredients in the fridge the other day and I had a courgette.  It occurred to me that lots of people might be facing a glut right now and, although I like courgettes and eat a lot of them, occasionally they can slip into the "no I don't fancy that today" category.  Chorizo though makes them the star of the show.

Peach Breakfast

It feels like months since I started eating yogurt for breakfast, not in a bad way, but it would seem very unusual for me now to grab a bowl of cereal or toast most days.  Now I start my 5 (or 7) a day with the first meal of the day.

Sadly though it won't be long before the days are noticeably shorter and strawberries are already disappearing from the shelves or harder, less sweet fruits are being sold in decreasing punnets for increasing prices.

Moving with the seasons, we are in prime peach time for the UK.  I'd never tried doughnut peaches before but with their almost perfumed flavour, this is a delightful way to start the morning.  You could substitute regular peaches, nectarines or other stone fruit.