A Really Easy Toastie Twist!

Fed up with unimaginative cheese on toast? Here's a way you can jazz it up, with very little cost or effort! This lunchtime recipe is super-simple to make and can be adapted to use up all kinds of left overs you may have languishing, unloved, in your fridge. It's a straight forward twist on classic Cheese on Toast. All you need to start you off is grated cheese and tomato puree, the rest is up to you! Here is how I made mine, but you can add or remove ingredients to suit your taste and budget. You can also use french bread, or pitta bread, which makes it more like a pizza.

Bolognese Pitta Pocket!

Quick recipe for a delicious lunch! A recipe involving my favourite ingredient, leftovers!

If you enjoy a homemade Spaghetti Bolognese, you probably, like me, make far too much. I don't know what it is about anything involving mince, but I always overdo the portions. It may be because it's easy to forget how filling it is. No matter how scrumptious and lovingly created it is, you can still only cram in so much. Fear not, though, because I have a suggestion that means you can relive your favourite meal, as a delicious lunchtime treat!

Corned Beef Hash

Corned Beef Hash is one of the first recipes I ever learned to cook and is brilliant if you are lacking fresh ingredients, but craving something home cooked. This is another recipe that is fun to do with children, as there's a lot of messy mashing and mixing involved and it all helps towards encouraging children to try new things and be confident around food. It's not the cheap staple it used to be because, unfortunately, corned beef has shot up in price over the years, making this dish far less budget than it used to be, but it is very convenient as home-cooked dishes go and it does fill a useful gap in the menu if you ever get snowed in!

Easy Spelt Biscuits

This recipe uses Spelt flour, which is an ancient grain, containing a different type of gluten. Some people find spelt flour easier to digest, easing the irritation that some people suffer from eating gluten-based products. It is, however, still very much gluten for the purposes of Coeliac disease, so should be avoided by sufferers. I found these needed icing, as the flavour isn't as strong as with other flours. If you prefer, you could substitute for wholemeal. I love the rustic texture that these create, they seem to taste a bit healthier and more wholesome than white flour biscuits!

Easy Peasy Cake for Baking Emergencies!

We have all encountered a baking emergency at some stage in our lives, it's a thing. I'm not making it up! These are the kind of emergencies I mean; 'Mum, it's bake sale day at school tomorrow' 'Don't forget it's the husband's/sister's/dogs birthday on Saturday', Happy Anniversary, Darling!' That kind of emergency! Or, there's the other kind of cake-based drama, which is a more hormonal kind; BRING ME CAKE NOW!!! Either way, this cake is low on ingredients and high on efficiency, so you can have your cakey fix quicker than ever!

Lazy Eggs Brunch

My son is very interested in cooking and has been helping me in the kitchen for quite a few years now. It has always been quite important to me, however, that he learns about cooking more complex recipes and actual meals, instead of just making cakes. So when he suggested this easy ham and egg recipe, I was very keen for him to have a go. I want him to learn that cooking meals can be fun and doesn't have to be difficult, just like making cakes. The beauty of this recipe is that he can make it more or less independently. It's very cheap, with just four ingredients, so would make a perfect nutritious meal for a student who is learning to cook.

Quick and Easy Homemade Pizza!

I've been talking to a lot of different people lately, about saving money. It seems that whatever your walk of life, these days we are all watching the pennies. When I'm trying to save money, I really start to notice how much food we waste. Half a tin of this, a bag of forgotten that, it's hard to keep track of what you haven't used, before it turns into half-frozen mush at the back of the fridge (or is that just my fridge?). The problem is, it's easily done, we're all busy parents so it's not always easy to think of recipes to use up what's lurking in the fridge, when all you really want to do is run to the nearest takeaway!