A lighter way of eating….

Welcome to ChilternEats and to this my second blog.

The blogs aim is chart my family’s adventures in food.  There are days when we have plenty of time to prepare and cook and other days which are more of a juggle.  I attempt to cook quick healthy meals most nights and this blog will chart my successes and failures!  A further aim is to eat local, sustainable food whilst reducing food waste.  I hope that you will join us on our journey to a better way of eating.

The children are off school this week so we plan to visit Peterley Manor Farm shop which is close by.  Our experiences will be recorded here and via our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds.

Whilst there will no doubt be some changes as I get used to blogging the basic format will follow this one; a menu for the week and a short discussion piece.  As I will generally not have cooked many of the weeks meals by the time of writing I will publish supplementary blogs during the week covering specific recipes.

Following a chocolate fuelled Easter weekend at the grandparents in Devon.  I feel the need this week for a lighter menu involving a lot less chocolate and cake!  I am also trying to eat in a more sustainable way sourcing local ingredients and reducing the amount of packaging on the food I buy.  With these new goals in mind I visited my local Farm Shop, Peterley Manor on Tuesday.  It’s a fantastic place with many tempting things to buy in the shop and the fabulous Wild Strawberry Cafe.  It being near lunchtime, we stopped for lunch, it would have been rude not too!

On Tuesday I cooked a simple asparagus and new potato frittata using the fresh asparagus from the farm shop.

I’ve also bought some rhubarb, after a lot of thought I have decided to go down the savoury route and cook braised pork in an aromatic, asian inspired rhubarb sauce.  As I write this is an idea only in my head so I will share this recipe only if it works!

On Thursday I plan to cook a warm chicken, bacon and asparagus salad with a honey and mustard dressing.  I am going to use Chiltern cold pressed rapeseed oil for the dressing.  Watch out for a blog with the recipe on Thursday!

Friday is pizza night.  The children love pizza and it’s an easy thing to cater for different topping preferences.  My children love plain and simple ham. mushroom and mozzarella where I like to experiment with the contents of my fridge!

On Saturdays my children take turns to choose the menu and cook with us.  This works well, the children learn to cook, we get to spend time together and all of our culinary horizons are widened!  I will cover what they cook on an adhoc basis only as quite often sporting fixtures take over the main event….

I hope you have enjoyed this blog and will come back to look at the rest of this weeks recipes posts.

Thanks ChilternEats