Saturday 23rd to Friday 29th October

Mid-term break, which means hungry children hanging around expecting to be fed. In our house everyone fends for themselves at lunchtimes, making do with what they can find in the fridge and cupboards. However, I do have to make sure that there are the basics for them to work with. My lunch basics are wraps, pitta bread, baked beans bacon, peppers, onions, pasta, cheese, ham and mushrooms. They can usually cobble together something from that. I have to admit to buying in a couple of Pot Noodles as my youngest loves them. I think they definitely come under the heading of "naughty but nice" and are considered a treat, sadly. I even bought one of those Lloyd Grossman pasta sauces for one, mainly because it was on offer at 1 euro. Despite a love of synthetic foods like Pot Noodle, it got a thumbs down.

This week is a bit erratic, as my middle daughter was away on a school trip, but she was replaced by 2 visitors from the UK. It was also my middle daughter's birthday this week. I now have 2 teenagers, something I will have to get my head round. I made her favourite Chocolate Mocha cakes.

There are a couple of days without dishes as we were at a friend's for lunch on Sunday and our visitors treated us to dinner out one night too, so apologies for that. I took the opportunity to buy some luxuries such as smoked salmon, ready made hummus and a variety of cheeses as we had guests. Also, this week I held a coffee morning for a women's group that I belong to so I did some extra baking for that.

So here is the menu for this week:

Saturday: Curried Pasties with salad and poppadums

Sunday: Out

Monday: Chilli con Carne with rice. I used my slow cooker for this and made double so I had a portion for the freezer

Tuesday: Out

Wednesday: Sticky Pork Stir Fry and Vegetable Stir Fry with noodles

Thursday: Mozzarella cheese bake (I use a ball of value Mozzarella and one of the more expensive make)

Friday: Roast Chicken with roast potatoes, carrots, leeks, Yorkshire puddings and gravy.

Coffee morning: Lemon and courgette cake
Marmite and cheese twists