Pasta & Patchwork
  • Home
  • About P&P
  • Patterns
  • Recipes
  • Projects
  • Product Reviews

Now where did I put my mojo?

3/18/2014

4 Comments

 
It does funny things with you, motherhood. I used to be super-organised, never-late, ultra-ambitious. These days my attitude towards work is often lacklustre, the flat is a perma-mess and I can never find my keys (although my toddler swiping them might have something to do with that). Worst of all, I feel like I’ve lost my cooking mojo. When half of your blog is themed on food, that ain't good news. 
Picture
Lack of sleep has an awful lot to do with it. First we had weeks of teething and illness keeping us all awake. Now we all seem healthy again (shhh don’t jinx it!) but the Bean is still sleeping badly. For the past week he’s been awake at 3am every single night, bouncing up and down with excitement for up to an hour. I’m finding it rather hard to share the sentiment. Especially when he's then raring to go at 6am. Whatever juice he gets, I want me some. 

I’m hoping it’s another phase, and have resigned myself to spending my days propped up by tea and chocolate biscuits. In other aspects of my life, however, I feel I could do a bit more to help myself. I get to decide my own hours, forchrissakes. 

So here’s what I’m going to do: batch cook. 

Batch cooking is a good idea for all sorts of reasons. You have to plan it so you waste less food, save time, and have a better chance of making nutritious meals instead of reaching for any old crap when you’re knackered and out of ideas. And hopefully it will also help me get to bed (even) earlier in the evenings.

The first thing to do was to plan the week’s meals:
Asparagus soup, to eat together with Sunday’s leftover roast chicken
Pasta with butter bean, courgette and rocket pesto
Filo pie with feta, rocket and almonds
Aubergine and beef curry
Mushroom soup, to eat with poached eggs and toast
Pasta with pancetta and broccoli
Then yesterday I:

made the asparagus soup
made a start on the pesto
cut the massive hump of stewing beef I found at a reduced price into chunks and froze them (half will be used in the curry)

And today I:

finished off the pesto and froze 2 portions for another day
made the mushroom soup and froze it (half for Friday, half for another day)
chopped, steamed and froze the broccoli (it was threatening to go yellow)
mixed up a batch of muesli (so we stop eating expensive and overly-sugary cereal)

The first two meals have gone down a treat, and it's been great to have time to do other things before bed. Like, erm, blog. Hand me my mojo and my smug-mum badge!
Picture
Asparagus soup
Picture
Three portions of pesto, one to eat fresh (with Parmesan and olive oil added in) 
and two for the freezer (Parmesan and olive oil left out)



In the hope that I'll stick to this, I'm linking up with At Home With Mrs M's Meal Planning Monday. And maybe next time I'll actually manage to post on a Monday.
Picture
4 Comments
3yearsandhome link
3/18/2014 03:24:47 pm

Get you, all organised! I don't batch cook but I do meal plan. I order all the boring stuff online and then go to the local farm shop for meat and veg. It's shopping but fun shopping because the boys love going there and seeing (and eating but don't tell them that) the animals.

Reply
Eline @ Pasta & Patchwork link
3/19/2014 01:42:16 pm

Yes get me, though let's see how long it lasts! I'd love to have a farm shop nearby. M would love it, he's currently obsessed with animals! Our local markets are a pretty good second-best though - no animals but he always gets a free clementine ;-)

Reply
Anne link
3/19/2014 09:57:46 pm

That asparagus soup looks SO good! Thanks for sharing your meal plan for the week - it's nice to see what kinds of thing others are making. I feel like we get stuck in a rut a lot!

Reply
Eline link
3/20/2014 01:52:31 pm

I know exactly what you mean, I've felt very stuck in rut recently. I'm really hoping that planning our meals in advance will stop me from always reaching for the same boring old stuff when we go shopping! That, and the pressure of keeping up these meal plan posts ;-)

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Hello! I'm Eline, and I've recently moved to a new corner of the internet: 
    www.emmyandlien.com/
    ​
    Do come and say hello!

    Read more:
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013


    Hookin on Hump Day
    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.