I got a little behind on posts, so this will be a roundup! On Thursday I had a sandwich at the gym, as I hadn’t packed a lunch. For dinner, we had steak with left over baked potatoes, reheated. I cleared out my kitchen cupboards and found a truffle  I brought back from Italy so we ate some of that with the steak. We are not a vegetarian family, however I aim to have meat free days two or three times a week as I know that this is a more sustainable lifestyle. We also mainly buy organic meat.

On Friday we had our planned supper, lamb tagine and couscous. We still haven’t eaten our beetroot and cauliflower, do these need to be cooked today, and I am also going to try and pickle the fish!

What have I thrown away this week? A third of a loaf of bread which had gone mouldy, some grapes that had gone brown. I think this is definitely less than usual and menu planning has helped. It has made me think strategically about what needs to be eaten next and I think I have saved money by sticking to my list.

I have also been round to my mother’s house and was given two pots of her home made jam! I would love to make jam myself so once I have tackled the chutney, I am going to try this. Personally, I love cooking but find certain areas (baking, preserves) a bit challenging, perhaps because they involve measuring ingredients. Learning these skills would be fun and perhaps would tempt the children to try some new recipes!

We had fish pie last night using my mums recipe (she is the author of the Paupers Cookbook and taught me all I know about food!). This used up our home grown tomatoes and some frozen prawns which had been lurking for a while). I fried the beetroot leaves in butter with peas, they are delicious cooked this way).

Tonight we are having a frittata, essentially a fat omelette you cook in the oven. I substituted the grated courgette in Abel and Cole’s recipe for rocket which I had in the fridge and was getting close to its use by date. I also left out raisins, as I don’t think they would work.

I have discovered some frozen sardines lurking in the freezer so am going to try pickling them and have bought some pickling vinegar. I am also going to try and make chutney from some unripe green tomatoes from our home growing efforts so I will be using vinegar for that as well. Recipes coming soon!

This is last nights macaroni cheese, plus some sustainably sourced scampi that needed to be eaten by tomorrow. Not many veggies today but they have had some grapes!

Treehugger have mentioned us on their site talking about 5 Organic Children’s products for the Fall. “The clothes are cute and made for kids but look like they could be found on the back of any indie guy or gal walking down the street, which is what Tabitha Potts, owner, was aiming for with her “environmentally aware modern design for children” they say, along with lots of other nice things!

We came across a fantastic new trike, the Trikidoo the other day: it’s a great idea, a trike for adults which will allow you to cycle your kids to tea, or to school, or to a class in safety, comfort AND style. You can take two kids on the back (yes please!) and there’s a place at the front to put a baby in a special baby carrier, it’s got storage space for changing bags/sports kits/school bags etc and it’s narrow enough to fit through your front door, so if you’ve got hallway space there’s no need to leave it outside! Our mum says it’s so green, but actually it’s pink or navy, our favourite colours.

Love Mimi and Myne

Hi, we’ve teamed up with New Consumer to give away a free t-shirt with a picture of one of us on it! Visit the Competition page to read more about it.

Love Mimi and Myne

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