Recipe Monday: Roasted Vegetable Soup

I know full well that I am not eating enough vegetables so I seized the chance today to remedy that as I had a colourful array of vegetables waiting to be eaten:

I chopped up some of each colour carrot, a few parsnips and the red onion and tossed them in olive oil with some of my flavoured salt:

A healthier summer

With the school holidays starting on Friday its time to knuckle down and try and get the whole family's diets a lot healthier! This half term we seem to have done a lot of rushing around and we have all eaten far too much rubbish. I need to get us all to eat a more balanced and nutritional diet without dieting. Also if I am going to be a student in September we need to all enjoy simple and inexpensive home cooked meals. 

My son is the fussiest eater of the two and is reluctant to eat his food groups mixed together. This has made it hard to serve up stews and casseroles. So one challenge is to try and get him to branch out more and be adventurous. Not an easy one as he is pretty stubborn and would rather go hungry than eat something he doesn't like! Hopefully as he gets older this will peter out...

My daughter will eat a wider variety of foods but will suddenly announce one day that she no longer eats something she used to love. The most recent one of these is chicken! I think if she had her way she would eat bolognaise, lasagne and cheesy pasta in rotation... 

I would love for them to eat more vegetables than they have been doing. In the summer salads are so quick and easy but only one child eats cucumber and no other salad vegetables are liked. For myself I rustled up a 3 colour salad today but my children would never eat it:

Change4Life: Week 2 - How are the kids?

Last Saturday I set out the challenges that the Change4Life campaign suggested I should try to get my kids fitter and healthier. So how has it gone this week?


Up and About


Limit TV/Computer time to 2 hours:
Some days we have had virtually no TV at all. My daughter is finding this harder than her little brother and I have come back into the room to find she has switched the TV back on! They are finding ways to entertain themselves without resorting to just sitting there watching CBBC/Cbeebies. I have to admit that when I am trying to get chores done with the 4 year old home alone the TV was on for longer.


Have an activity day chosen by kids:
Unfortunately with me being unwell I haven't felt up to being too energetic with the kids! I did get them signed up for weekly swimming lessons at L.I.F.E.

Change4Life

Many of you will have heard of the UK government's Change4Life campaign to get our children healthier following concerns that the younger generation is fatter and less fit than it should be. I know that my children need to do better when it comes to a healthier lifestyle and it's up to me as their mum to point them in the right direction. So I signed up on the web site and filled out a questionnaire which resulted in an action plan arriving through my door yesterday. I have also signed up as a volunteer to help promote the campaign so we can all keep out children healthy and help them live longer more active lives.


The key 8 good habits we need to encourage are children into are:

1. meal time: try and make time for 3 regular meals a day
2. me size meals: remember kids and grown ups don't need the same amount of food
3. cut back fat: keep fatty foods like burgers and sausages to a minimum
4. sugar swaps: swap food and drink that is high in sugar to no added sugar versions
5. snack check: limit unhealthy snacks
6. up and about: active play is much better for kids than vegging in front of TV
7. 60 active minutes: kids need at least 60 active minutes a day
8. 5 A DAY: make sure they get a variety of at least 5 portions of fruit and veg a day - fresh frozen, canned, dried or juiced

Hope's for the week ahead

Well all my plans for the year so far have just about to come to nothing thanks to the snow and in fact somethings have got worse so I need to knuckle down and start over and really get cracking. So I will put down what I need to, what I would like to do and what I can save for the future...

I need to

Get at least the home blessing hour done and keep up with the housework.

Complete my tax return

Get kids to all their clubs & medical appointments

Do 2nd last week of my day job

Sort out the laundry backlog and get it all away..

Get closer to the 5 fruit & veg a day into both myself & kids

Recycle the 3 month back log of glass!

Keep the habit of having a clear kitchen at bedtime


I would like to

Get the sitting room company ready so I can have people over

Help kids get their room somewhere approaching a space they can play in

Have the bedtime routine sorted so I stop having issues of bed returns & arguments


On hold for the future

Clearing dining room

Sorting out the soon to be ex's abandoned stuff into bin it, sell it, use it


Let's see how I actually get on!