May help if the boyfriend was inclined at all to help with this but nope that is asking a bit too much. So last night I had the side salad etc and he just had a bowl of pasta. I asked if he was sitting at the tablet and nope he sat on the sofa while I sat at the table.

Aha! A stealth relationship counselling thread! Bin the lazy bastard!

somafunk – Member
Tell him to pull his bloody finger out

Nooooo! Think of the mess!

Sounds like you both have a very dodgy relationship with food, especially if roasting carrots is an effort (EDIT: Now i understand, apologies ignore the above!)

Tell the other half to get off his rear and help, cooking shouldn’t be a chore at all, it can and should be fun 🙂

A few thoughts:

– For me it’s not about healthy food, but rather good food which tastes great. Knowing that what I am going to eat will taste really nice (to me), is what motivates me to put even the most basic effort in when required to make something (as opposed to always using something pre-prepared in a packet or a jar).

– Many pasta sauce recipes can be cooked in little more – or even less – time than it takes to cook the pasta. This is an advantage of not batch cooking something like a tomato sauce, since the quantity of tomatoes in a serving for one or two will cook much more quickly than a large batch which may require half an hour or more to reduce. This means if you have a reasonable repertoire of pasta dishes and store cupboard ingredients, that you can be very spontaneous and decide at the last minute what to have that evening (including deciding some evenings that you can’t be bothered and getting out a frozen pizza).

– I recommended the Diana Henry books ‘Cook Simple’ and ‘Simple’ above. She wrote these because when she had a baby and then young children, she found that she just did not have much time to spend preparing and cooking. I’ve only tried a few of the recipes, but I think she strikes a good balance between quick/easy to make and very nice. Lunch today for me will be huevos rotos, which is basically just potatoes and an egg or two. If you google you should be able to find other of her recipes from those books, e.g. linguine all’amalfitana.

May help if the boyfriend was inclined at all to help with this but nope that is asking a bit too much. So last night I had the side salad etc and he just had a bowl of pasta. I asked if he was sitting at the tablet and nope he sat on the sofa while I sat at the table.

You’ve just decided to take up a new hobby and you are a bit obsessed with it (like many of us are when we get into anything new, whether it be a sport, a hobby or anything else). Although eating more healthily will benefit him as well, you cannot expect him to be as interested in the subject and as enthusiastic as you. Sometimes people who talk about healthy eating can be very tedious, and some of the food writers can be the worst. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s ‘Veg Every Day!’ for example has a marked evangelical, proselytising ‘worthy’ tone, and it’s counter-productive. If someone were to try to make me eat healthily, I would not simply fall in line, and eventually would react against it and instead have a ready meal, chips or a take-away just to be contrary.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, so think – and especially talk – less about eating healthily, and more about eating really nice food. Food and drink are something to be enjoyed, not agonised over or the source of domestic friction, and eating together and at the table should be a relaxed, leisurely and pleasurable ritual. Have a glass of wine with the meal, and a starter (it doesn’t need to be anything fancy – some nuts [salted even!] or some olives etc. One of Diana Henry’s suggested starters is simply some fresh french radishes: eat spread with a bit of unsalted butter, a pinch of sea salt and a piece of baguette), and have a dessert or something to finish like a piece of fruit or some cheese and biscuits. All this will help to make eating good food at the table a pleasurable ritual.

And to state the obvious: no TV, tablets or phones at the table.

I don’t mind either way if he gets onboard or not really, he doesn’t cycle at all and I manage to keep that going independently. He’s a champion snacker and only he will reaise his waist line is getting bigger and bigger haha!

Again I know its not difficult but its procrastination!!! I’m aware and that’s part of the thing I’m trying to change 😉 See don’t forget I also then need to go and buy a roasting tin and find somewhere to store it when not in use, dont make me take photos of the already full cupboards too! Maybe my job for tonight while it’s cooking is to go through the pans etc to see if we can slim down and check what we definitely have.

Tactic for tonight is I’m going to prepare the sweet potatos so that OH can have the oven on and those in while I’m finishing off on the turbo then once I’m out the shower I’ll take over finishing off the rest. I dunno how people with kids cope with all this juggling!

Keep the roasting tin in the oven

dont make me take photos of the already full cupboards too!

Go on… Dare you!
How many cupboards do you have?

find somewhere to store it when not in use,

The oven! If you are not cooking in the oven then the things that you use in the oven can be stored there! I have even been known to store beer in an oven when running out of space.

And it isn’t ‘juggling’ – there is no reason to panic about this stuff. Have a go, get yourself some new staples (ie, ones you like and are easy to do) then expand your repertoire little by little.

We have kids, both my wife and I work full time, we go to the gym/pilates/classes etc, my wife volunteers, we ferry kids around etc but only very rarely do we do convenience food (my wife has a soft spot for pizzas) so she sometimes has a frozen one if I am batch cooking something else for myself (like a really hot curry). However we normally make pizzas from scratch too.

If you are storing pans in cupboards, I would suggest you consider whether you could install a wall or ceiling mounted rack made by the likes of Hahn or Masterclass. Being able to reach up and grab the pan you need is much better than having to rummage around in a cupboard, and with extra hooks you can hang other things from the rack like utensils, colander, grater etc., all of which will free up valuable space in your cupboards.

As for juggling, the more you do it, the more efficient and quicker you will find yourself becoming, including how you organise things in your kitchen. It will also include making your own choices about short cuts, e.g. the recipe says finely chop half an onion – you decide you are going to use frozen chopped onions instead.

OP here’s a great resource, they do a fantastic job of helping others learn about cooking and planning meals from economical and healthy ingredients

http://www.youcancook.org.uk/news/category/you-can-cook-recipes/

Thats it, standby for pictures of the kitchen and cupboard selection later so that everyone can appreciate it. When the house was chosen by my OH the priority was it had a garage. He only ever cooks an oven pizza or pasta and sauce, he’s branched out since I’ve been with him and now can master a pasta bake!

The oven! If you are not cooking in the oven then the things that you use in the oven can be stored there! I have even been known to store beer in an oven when running out of space.

If you do start storing stuff in the oven, make sure they are the things you can use in the oven! At some point you will switch it on without checking first!

Caught my MiL storing plastic stuff in my oven, fortunately noticed in time…

May help if the boyfriend was inclined at all to help with this but nope that is asking a bit too much.

Just start cooking only for yourself.

At some point you will switch it on without checking first!

true – I’d put a load of pizza dough balls in there out of the way to prove for some Uuni pizzas we were making later on that day for my daughter’s party.

Wife decided to roast a chicken that needed using up, and turned the oven on.

We had an unexpected batch of supersized dough balls, and had to switch suddenly to flammkuechen base.

Pics of the kitchen! We want pics

Please don’t be demoralised by the notion that your kitchen is too small, you don’t need a large kitchen or acres of worktop space to prepare and cook meals for yourself from scratch – this is my tiny kitchen and all the food preparation i do is carried out in that small area to the right of my cooker whilst my ingredients are usually laid out to the left but you do need to be organised and have everything to hand beforehand. I figure you are probably a bit demoralised by viewing the immaculate huge kitchens as shown in TV cookery programs (and from some of the kitchens as posted by fellow STW’rs) – i know i am and whilst i’d love a huge kitchen i doubt the quality of my cooking would improve very much. Remember – size ain’t everything 😉

It will take you a good while to organise yourself but persevere with it and before too long you’ll be experimenting with how to chop/prepare veg/meat etc so it all cooks together in the same time.

Practice…practice…practice, then practice some more – one of the greatest achievements (and a nice ego boost) is preparing a meal for those you care about and clearing up spotless plates afterwards 😉

I reckon you’ve actually got a bigger kitchen than us, you have a fair few appliances on the side and sauce bottles etc. which if you moved off would giv eyou mroe room. I carried on busy int he kitchen etc until 9:15pm last night redoing all the cupboard shelf height so that I could stand up a big tub of flapjack oats and get squash inside a cupboard to clear off counter space. Impressed myself with a wave of genius and hooking pan lids on the back of the pan cupboard 😆

It’s actually quite good having this thread and writing down what i plan to have each day, almsot like a confessional! This morning was overnight oats again, one less tablet wahoo then off to the hospital for 5 vials of blood!! Lunch is a ham salad sandwich on multigrain bread. Tea tonight because I don’t finish til 7pm is just going to be two rounds of multigrain toast with a boiled egg on each and then I’ll jump on the turbo again.

I’m planning tomorrow on making the leek and bacon pasta for tea so that’ll my first ever experience of cooking leeks… what can go wrong!

I’m also planning on cooking up a batch of flapjacks with mixed fruit as I’ve done before but I know it has a lot of golden syrup and butter in it so I’m wondering whether there’s a better option. I generally just use them as cycling snacks so it’s not like I’d be consuming it on a normal day.

Also the spray oil, do you have to buy the ready packaged bottles or can you fill it yourself from a normal bottle of virgin olive oil?

Bought some onions and garlics yesterday for future concoctions and a few people have been telling me to think about getting a hand blender so that i can make some soups up.

well organised! ditch the big biscuit tin, loads of space for a fruit bowl there!

Loving those pan handles on doors, such a good idea!

Think you have more cupboards than we do in our kitchen, same amount of workspace. We have one cupboard dedicated to the Mrs’ baking stuff and another one for baby stuff.

Just cleared out the old larder of our boiler (moved into the coalhouse) so we can use it for all the pans we have. Didnt free up as much space as i though >.<

Edit – cook the leaks with the bacon for awesome tasting leeks, or just fry them with a small amount of butter over a low heat, treat them kinda like onions in terms of cooking them. That’s how i do them anyway 🙂

I’m planning tomorrow on making the leek and bacon pasta for tea so that’ll my first ever experience of cooking leeks… what can go wrong!

If you’re frying them, keep the heat low and take it slowly, it’s very easy to end up with black bits otherwise. (This is generally good advice for all aliums). If you’ve got a steamer that’s a great way to prepare them too.

I’m also planning on cooking up a batch of flapjacks with mixed fruit as I’ve done before but I know it has a lot of golden syrup and butter in it so I’m wondering whether there’s a better option. I generally just use them as cycling snacks so it’s not like I’d be consuming it on a normal day.

I’ve seen honey and apple juice used as sweeteners in flapjacks before.

Also the spray oil, do you have to buy the ready packaged bottles or can you fill it yourself from a normal bottle of virgin olive oil?

I have a refillable spray bottle and just fill using a bottle of oil.

Your kitchen isn’t any smaller than mine. Don’t let that hold you back from cooking anything.

my first ever experience of cooking leeks… what can go wrong!

They are basically just like onion and (as said above) you just need to avoid burning them as it effects the taste.

You need to move the veg away from the radiator though – they won’t last long there.

And avoid buying bagged multiple items – you are short of space and it will take you an age to get through that much garlic if you are just starting out with your cooking. A good alternative to fresh garlic are the jars of minced garlic such as Nishaan .

organic raw agave syrup instead of treacle. sweeter than treacle so you use less too. its perfect in flapjacks- you cook it at lower temp though.

The jury is out on whether agave is actually better for you but its lower GI.

leeks are gorgeous. we have ours often wok fried in a little sesame oil with a piece of salmon on top

Never really properly cooked onions before either….. I think I’ve seen mum do them to go on her burgers before though haha! 😆

‘Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Add the leeks and 2 tbsp water, and cook for about 10 mins until very soft. Add the bacon, turn up the heat and fry until cooked.’ I’m guessing a sort of medium heat and once they’re kind of soft then they’re done! I’m sure they’ll be nice in the pasta but not sure I fancy tasting one just to see if its done 😆

The veg trolley is in the garage and that radiator isn’t turned on ever. Previous owners were going to convert the garage into an extension with a kitchen so they had it installed.

I read a few recipes and it said a clove of garlic which I’ve assumed is a full garlic so I figured I’d use them up…. they’ll last a while at least!

Leeks are best oven-cooked in butter and a little salt.

I read a few recipes and it said a clove of garlic which I’ve assumed is a full garlic so I figured I’d use them up…. they’ll last a while at least!

LOL – a whole garlic is a bulb!

That would put you off garlic for life!

I’m guessing lower GI is a good thing? I know it’s glycaemic index.

I read a few recipes and it said a clove of garlic which I’ve assumed is a full garlic so I figured I’d use them up…. they’ll last a while at least!

I made that mistake once. As a kid I never tasted garlic as it was verboten in the house. Decided to treat and impress GF one day by cooking gazpacho soup. Book recipe called for ‘5 cloves of garlic’. I too thought a ‘clove’ was the whole ‘bulb’. I bought 5 bulbs and minced the lot. The soup was quite as expensive as it was inedible 😳

Yes, usually. GI is a measure of how quickly the carbs in something are absorbed. Low is better cos it trickle feeds your body nice and steadily, high is worse* because it slams your bloodstream with loads of glucose, meaning your pancreas has to work hard and dump a load of insulin into your blood which means all the glucose gets absorbed into your muscles OR if they are already full, made into fat. Then the insulin hangs around a little too long, too much glucose is absored, your blood glucose get a bit low and you get hungry.

This is why you hear people saying they can go all morning without breakfast comfortably, but if they eat something they are starving by 10am. And if you eat loads of high GI food all the time, your cells become tolerant to insulin (like you do with alcohol or caffeine) and your pancreas needs to produce more, which makes the cells more tolerant, and you end up with insulin resistance, and your pancreas has to produce so much that it gets knackered and you end up type 2 diabetic.

BUT

The GI is a measure of purely how fast carbs are absorbed. So some things (like parsnips) have a high GI because they would make your blood sugar go up; but because they have very little carbs a normal serving actually has a small amount of carbs in it. So even if they are absorbed quickly they don’t have a big effect on blood sugar and insulin. So a better measure of the impact a food has on you is called Glycemic Load or GL which measures the effect a normal portion has on your blood glucose.

Broadly GL and GI correlate, but not always. Some things have a higher GL because you tend to eat more of them – potatoes for example go down really well and traditionally we get big portions of them, which makes the GL high. Likewise pasta has a relatively low GI for a starchy food but a higher GL because you tend to get served a plateful. GL is a better measure.

* unless you are exercising for a long time at higher intensity, because you’ve used up your muscle carb stores and need them replaced asap with minimum effort from your gut. Hence sports drinks etc for racers.

‘Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Add the leeks and 2 tbsp water, and cook for about 10 mins until very soft. Add the bacon, turn up the heat and fry until cooked.’ I’m guessing a sort of medium heat and once they’re kind of soft then they’re done! I’m sure they’ll be nice in the pasta but not sure I fancy tasting one just to see if its done

That sounds a poor recipe, you’ll end up with horrible watery, soft bacon. Cook bacon on a high heat first, then turn down and do the leeks as it says. Much more flavour off the bacon caramelising too.

That sounds a poor recipe, you’ll end up with horrible watery, soft bacon.

I don’t think you would (especially if using good dry-cured bacon) as the leek/sauce will have reduced quite a bit in the 10 minutes of cooking. A recipe I do quite a bit (to use left-over chicken from family roasts) requires some leek to be cooked with a similar amount of white wine in the same way – and after a few minutes the liquid has been absorbed – then you add the chicken.

first ever experience of cooking leeks… what can go wrong!

you could fail to wash them properly – peel of the outsides and then wash in a sink of water. Then cut up and wash them again. Dirt and grit seems to get inside the layers and spoils the eating experience….. and while a bit of mineral is good for you, you can’t ‘overwash’ leeks IME.

+1 to getting high quality bacon, worth the extra and where you aren’t paying for all the water content in cheap stuff I’m not even sure that on cooked weight it’s actually any cheaper. But if you do get cheap stuff, precook in the microwave and then drain onto kitchen paper and get shot of the horrible white scummy salt water.

GolfChick, that’s not a small kitchen. From your description I was expecting to see a galley kitchen of the size in many boats. Your kitchen looks ideally sized in many respects: everything is conveniently within reach. If you read articles on designing kitchen layouts, they always emphasise the importance of the work triangle, which should be kept small. Your kitchen is much more efficiently and better laid out than mine (and cleaner and tidier).

The pan lid storage on the cupboard door is a good idea, but I would be worried that the lids could too easily come off the screws from which they are hanging, and break the glass lids. In fact those screws on the door were probably used to fit a door pan lid holder like these which would be much more secure. If you have room for a ceiling or wall mounted pan rack, you can often store the lids of the pans by sliding the handle of the lid over the handle of the pan (providing the lid has a handle, not a knob, and subject to the shape/width/depth of the two handles), like this:

In my kitchen I have installed this pan rack immediately in front of the window: the window reveal makes it possible to hang large frying pans which would touch the wall if the rack were mounted on a blank wall, and the pans are low enough for 5’10” me to reach (I don’t use the shelf above) and don’t significantly obscure the window.

Good luck with your leek and bacon pasta. I would cook the bacon first in a little oil, remove the bacon when crisp and set aside, and then soften and cook the leeks in the oil and bacon fat (for more flavour), i.e. in the same way that another BBC Goodfood recipe says to do for leek and bacon risotto. If there were any brown or burnt bits stuck to the bottom of the pan, I would remove the leeks when cooked and ‘deglaze’ the pan with a splash of white wine and knock off the burnt bits (a.k.a. fond) with a wooden spoon (don’t remove them: they’re the most flavoursome bits). This also makes cleaning the pan afterwards much easier. Once the alcohol has boiled off, add back in your leeks and bacon, and then add the cheese.

Thanks for those suggestions, I may start doing the leeks and then just see what happens with the liquid amounts and whether most of the water cooks off. Want to stick to the recipe as much as possible before then going adventurous. Part of my proble, with recipes is that I stick to it for fear of having to bin the whole lot. I think if I stick to it first I can atleast then modify it a little as I go on. Just wondering what I should have along side the baocn and leek pasta rather than just a whole plate of pasta. Is the bacon in the recipe enough protein in take, maybe I should do something to go along with it. Is there a pretty good home made garlic bread maybe…

golfchick why not use MyFitnessPal app? As long as you tap in what you are eating into the diary it automatically shows you how much protein, carb , sugar etc you’ve eaten in a given period. It’s v easy to use.

Funnily enough am just going back to it today after a long hiatus – and Xmas/NY eating habits need breaking 😳

The MFP diary really does help me monitor what I eat, which also helps me plan meals. It’s not an exact science but a handy guide.

For ease of prep and protein I make a lot of simple dark green lentil dishes along with rice. ie

http://ameliafreer.com/puy-lentil-stew

Make batches and freeze then microwave as required. Simple.

Is there a pretty good home made garlic bread maybe…

For the effort required to make versus the cost to buy, I would suggest just buying a garlic baguette. Baby steps.

madness johndoh I tell thee. chopped garlic, butter, mash it. slice a baguette (not all the way though) stuff the butter in (about a teaspoon in each bit), wrap in foil bung in oven 200c 15 mins. piece of the proverbial . you can get fancier with an oil7butter mix, parsley, grated parmesan , removing foil at the end for browning etc but butter plus garlic plus bread =win

hope the leeks go well

howsyourdad1 – beat me to it! It’s about the easiest thing you can possibly cook!

Want to stick to the recipe as much as possible before then going adventurous. Part of my proble, with recipes is that I stick to it for fear of having to bin the whole lot.

This is definitely a good idea, nothing wrong with it. When you get more confident you can start modifying them. Be aware that sometimes recipes are wrong – if you’re using recipes off the internet make sure you read the comments, a lot of the time you’ll find people complaining it was too watery / salty / flavourless / whatever, so even if your meal didn’t turn out great it might not be your fault!

madness johndoh I tell thee. chopped garlic, butter, mash it. slice a baguette (not all the way though) stuff the butter in (about a teaspoon in each bit), wrap in foil bung in oven 200c 15 mins.

I know it is easy to do but I am writing my opinion for the benefit of the OP, not a seasoned home chef! Let them sort the main out without the added stress of doing a side seems good advice to me. 😉

yeah, but you’ve still got to buy the baguette.

Pizza base is dead easy* and there’s great satisfaction in making your own bread, then cover that with your garlic butter mix and bake on a tray in the oven. Cheese and caramelised onion marmalade even better, although you will be susceptible to vampires.

* 250g white flour, 150g water at 37C (give or take), splash of olive oil, pinch of salt, 4g dried baker’s yeast.

You get the water at the right temp by mixing 100ml tap water with 50ml fresh boiled. Add in the yeast and stir and then leave for 15 mins to hydrate. Then in a big bowl add flour and salt, and then add the water and oil and fold in with a spatula / wooden spoon until it’s sort of together and then get it out and knead for a couple of mins until it gets smooth and elastic. Back in the bowl, cover with cling film and then leave all day. Then in the evening knead it back together, split into quarters and allow to rest and rise again. 30 mins or so. Then roll out (or learn to hand stretch, it’s not hard) and bake in a hot oven with topping of choice for as long as it takes for the base to crisp up and the topping to colour and bubble.

edit – agree with Johndoh though – baby steps. But making your own pizza is great….. and might entice him into the kitchen too.