Today is our 10th wedding anniversary. And I just wanted to say to Jason, I love you baby. You will always be my soul mate. Or rather soul meat, as that’s what I actually managed to call you in my wedding speech.
Soul Meat
Category: General
Save the Children’s Recipe Challenge eBook
Back in March, along with many other food bloggers, I entered my recipe for Roast Vegetable Lasagne into the Save the Children Recipe Challenge organised by Ruth Clemens at The Pink Whisk.
The aim of the challenge was to raise awareness of Save the Children’s Race Against Hunger campaign. It is a shocking fact that we live in a world with enough food for everyone, yet hunger is still able to kill 7,000 children every day. Save the Children is calling on governments to put an end to this hidden hunger.
All the recipes gathered have been collated and published in a beautiful Save the Children Recipe Challenge e-book, which is available online for an optional donation of £2 to raise awareness and funds for the campaign. I am absolutely thrilled to have a recipe included in this wonderful collection.
Please, please, please visit the Save the Children website to download a copy, and make a small donation if you can. The book features mouthwatering mains, such as Easy Braised Lamb Shank, Guacamole Bean Salad and Easy Baked Chicken Biryani, plus lots of tempting cakes and puds like Raspberry and Almond Mini Macaroons and Fresh Orange Cake with Citrus Buttercream.
Over the next two years Save the Children aim to help at least two million children get the kind of healthy food they need to grow up strong and healthy. The kind of food we’d all expect for our own kids.
But they can’t do it alone. Add your voice to the Race Against Hunger campaign and with your help they will:
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persuade governments to invest in getting help to the children and families who need it
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encourage companies to make sure millions more children get food fortified with the right vitamins – just like our breakfast cereals
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give poor mothers vouchers or money so they can buy the food they need before things get desperate – a form of aid that stimulates local markets so they can keep on supplying local communities for the long term.
Together we can give children a life free from hunger.
Around the world in six suppers
… my big plan is to cook six meals inspired by some of my favourite holiday destinations from years gone by, and share those recipes with you here on the blog. I have some ideas already for dishes I’d like to cook, but if you have any suggestions for recipes I should try I would love to hear them…
If I’m honest, the idea of a ‘staycation’ has never appealed much to me. For a holiday to be a proper holiday you really need to get away from it all, don’t you?
I adore exploring new destinations as well as returning to much loved haunts; sampling the local cuisine, relaxing by a pool with a good book or acting like a Japanese tourist and fitting in as many sights as I can in a single day.
Admittedly, holidays have changed quite a bit since having children. We’ve been forced to slow down and plan ahead much more carefully.
I remember our first holiday abroad with Jessie when she was just learning to walk. With another couple and their young daughter we rented a beautiful villa in Tuscany. It would have been amazing, if it hadn’t been for the unfenced pool and marble staircases and sheer drop down what seemed like a mini cliff face at the bottom of the garden, oh and all the prickly rose bushes scattered around the stunning garden. Nansi and I were having near heart attacks every five minutes as our plucky girls explored and stumbled their way around the place. Not a relaxing holiday. But a massive lesson learned on the need to check out how family-friendly your holiday accommodation will be.
Sadly it looks increasingly likely we won’t be having a family holiday this year. My husband has quit his job and is retraining in IT, and I’m freelancing part-time on a couple of projects but the income is very up-and-down. And we’ve just been stung by some rather steep vets’ bills. So a staycation it might just have to be.
But I’m not going to let that get me down. Oh no, not me. So while I might read about other’s plans to fly off to far-flung foreign destinations, I won’t get jealous. We live in lovely Somerset after all. There’s so much to do right here on our doorstep, isn’t there? How many tourists flock to this part of the world every year to get away from it all, and here we are already!
And if I can’t go off to see the world this year, well I’ll just have to bring the world to our corner of Somerset.
Over the six weeks of the school holidays, my big plan is to cook six meals inspired by some of my favourite holiday destinations from years gone by, and share those recipes with you here on the blog. I have some ideas already for dishes I’d like to cook, but if you have any suggestions for recipes I should try I would love to hear them. Even better if they appear on your blog as then I can easily link up with them too.
In no particular order, the places I’ll be visiting on my culinary world tour are:
Barcelona: when I went inter-railing with my best friend Ruth after our A-levels, this had to be my favourite city. The food, the beer, the Gaudi, the boys…
New York: I have very fond memories of visiting New York with my Mum and sister Elly when I was about 12 years old. I remember Mum bartering with a bloke on a street corner selling bangles and an Italian waiter chasing us down the street as we hadn’t left a tip!
Northumberland: I spent some of my childhood just outside Newcastle and enjoyed many an idyllic day out playing on the beautiful beaches, visiting the spooky castles and wandering along Hadrian’s Wall. I can’t wait to take my husband and children there sometime soon.
Penang: My Mum was born on the Malaysian island of Penang and I think it is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. And the food isn’t bad either!
Rio de Janeiro: one of my jammiest PR jollies ever was to take a group of journalists to Brazil for a tour of an aircraft factory. The tour lasted half a day but we had to stay a week because of flight availability. What a shame! We had a fantastic time in Rio and Sao Paulo and I’m desperate to get back there again one day.
Mystery destination: I haven’t quite decided on my final destination. I’ve been considering Turkey and Italy, or perhaps Bordeaux or Greece. Or how about Norway or Sweden? I’ve had wonderful times in each of these countries but whose food should I try to recreate in the final week of my staycation? Please let me know where you think I should head to!
Tipping point
This post represents two firsts for me. The first first is that has nothing to do with food. And the second is that I didn’t write it, despite what it says above.
Bloggers the world over are putting their weight behind a call on world leaders to urgently put in place a resolution to protect children in response to the hideous atrocities that have taken place in Syria. Children there have been brutally murdered. As a mother, as a member of humanity, I’ve been wondering all day what I can say on this blog to add my voice to this call.
And then I read an amazingly powerful piece by Chris Mosler on her blog Thinly Spread. Anything I try to write now would simply be an attempt to say the same thing but far less eloquently. And so Chris has kindly given me permission to reblog her post here. Please take a few minutes to read this and sign your name on the Save The Children and Avaaz petitions. Thank you.
Tipping Point – by Chris Mosler
This post is written as part of today’s coming together of the parent blogging community to share our outrage at the atrocities in Syria.
I wrote last year about the power of one voice when it reaches out and touches others, about how that voice can snowball. Sometimes it can seem hopeless, but you have no idea who it might reach and what effect it might have. I for one cannot sit here and say nothing having read Wednesday’s gruesome article in The Times.
Children have been massacred in Syria. They were not just by-standing victims caught in the cross fire. They have been put to death. They have been executed.
49 children.
I cannot imagine the fear which went through their little heads. I cannot imagine how the remnants of their families must be feeling.
This all started a year ago with Syrian people rising up, as their neighbours had done across the Middle East, in a peaceful protest calling for freedom and democracy. The uprising was crushed by Assad and his regime. The world stood back. Now the conflict is armed and has escalated to a point where men are killing children.
We stood back and allowed Rwanda and Srebrenica to happen. This time we have a network with the potential to make an enormous amount of noise and force a response. Kofi Anaan has said that Syria has reached a ‘Tipping Point’, balanced precariously on the edge of sectarian violence and further horror. This is the time to shout.
Please use your voice, those children and their families deserve it. The least we can do is make sure their deaths do not slip quietly into history and to shout loudly that this mustn’t be allowed to happen again.
Much of the world is outraged and there are lots of political shenanigans going on. In the meantime I am joining with Save the Children and signing their petition ‘ calling on world leaders to put in place an immediate and legally binding “Resolution to Protect Children” that carries the full force of international law on those attacking children and other civilians.’
While I’m at it, I’m signing this one too.
Please Make Some Noise.
What you can do
Please tweet this post out using the hashtags #Syria #StopTheKilling and #TippingPoint.
Retweet any posts you see from the parent blogger community using the above hashtags.
Share this post and others on Facebook.
Sign the two petitions I mention above.
Write your own post.
This is my first ever image free post because there is no image I could use here.
Thanks again to Chris Mosler for letting me feature her post here.
Vote for Bangers & Mash!
Did I mention I’m a finalist for in an exciting UK parent bloggers award? Well, it’s true!
I’m very, very excited. Only I feel a bit uncomfortable shouting about it. I’m hoping people will just vote for me without me having to do a big song and dance about it. That there are enough people who like what I do on Bangers & Mash.
But the thing is, I’d really, really like to win. So I’m going to have a quick shout if you don’t mind. If you like this blog, would you mind doing me a very lovely favour and vote for me? There’s only one week left til voting closes at 5pm (British Summertime) on Wednesday 6 June.
You can vote for Bangers & Mash in the Best Food Blog category of the MAD Blog Awards here. It only takes a couple of minutes. Please? Pretty please? OK now, I’m begging. That’s more than enough of that…
The aim of the MAD Blog Awards is to raise the profile of parenting blogs and bloggers, so please do take a look at the other finalists’ blogs – there is some amazing writing here – funny, helpful, thought-provoking, moving and inspiring. I’m only just realising how many incredible parent bloggers there are in the UK, and I feel very humble and priveledged to find myself in their company.
Finally if you fancy a laugh, here’s a great video put together by the MAD Awards organisers, featuring many of the finalists – including me. I’m the one in the hammock, paddling pool and trampoline! The theme of the video is parenting isn’t perfect – but blogging it can be.
Thank you very much!
I need to say thank you to lots of people today but I don’t know who they are exactly.
I found out yesterday I’m a finalist in the MAD (Mum and Dad) Blog Awards 2012 in the Best Food Blog category. I was supposed to be working at home yesterday but I guess I was looking for distraction and found myself on the MAD website. When I saw a little screen shot of the Bangers & Mash blog on the MAD finalists page I literally started shaking with excitement and disbelief. Really? Me? But I’m not a proper blogger. I can’t compete with the big boys (and girls) – can I?
I was supposed to do so much work yesterday, my one day at home all week, but that all went out the window.
I called my Nana Barbara straight away because I had to tell somebody. Oh yes, I did call one of my best friends before her but that went to answer phone and I left a very silly garbled message involving lots of squealing. And then I called Nana because I knew she’d be in and because she is one of my food heroes. She’s probably the only person in my family who knows how to bake, and I love our conversations about food. And her reaction was just perfect. I’ll always be the little grand-daughter who loves to make her Nana proud.
But back to saying thank you. People had to nominate the Bangers & Mash blog in order for it to be considered for a MAD award. However I have no idea other than my closest friends and family members who actually did this, so I want to throw a big thank you out there and hope that if you did nominate me this reaches you.
Why oh why though, when I try to think of ways to say thank you, do I come back time and time again to this corny advert from the British 1980s TV vaults? This was an ad for Cadbury’s Roses chocolates and I know it’s cheesy but somehow it remains the perfect way to say thank you.
Those ad men in the 80s knew how to make an advert that would remain with you for the rest of your life didn’t they? My children embarrassingly know the words to the Finger of Fudge (a finger of fudge is just enough until it’s time to eat) and Club (if you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club!) songs, despite never having seen the original adverts. And only last week I was having a nostaligia-ridden conversation on Twitter remember lyrics to the Um Bongo and Ki-Ora adverts. Ah, they don’t make ’em like they used to ‘eh?
But as ever I’m waffling on. Thank you whoever and wherever you are for nominating me for the MAD Blog Awards. If you happen to want to show me some support yet again you can now vote for me to win the whole blooming category. But considering I’m in the last five from more than 130 nominations, I’m really rather chuffed with how far I’ve got already. I’ve got a posh awards ceremony in London to go to in September with cocktails and a three-course meal and everything, so to be honest I couldn’t be happier.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Fair and square: free school meals for all children in poverty
As regular readers of this blog will know, it’s important to me to feed my family well but I don’t want to spend a fortune in the process. Quite simply, I can’t afford to. As a self-employed mother whose partner works as a teaching assistant, we don’t have a huge budget to spend on food.
However I still have considerably more money to spend on food than many families in the UK today.
According to the Children’s Society there are around 1.2 million children living in poverty in this fine land of ours who are probably not getting a single nutritious meal all day.
This statistic makes me feel sick to the core. How can we as a civilised society allow this to happen?
The Children’s Society has launched a campaign called Fair and Square, which aims to ensure that all children in need of a free school meal receive one. Free school meals are a crucial entitlement for families living in poverty, ensuring that children from the lowest income families get a least one warm and nutritious meal in the middle of the day.
When I was at primary school, I was a free school meals kid. I didn’t realise it at the time, but these meals were a real safety net.
Staggeringly, around a third of children in poverty are not entitled to free school meals (around 700,ooo children) because their parents are in paid work. Children of parents working 16 hours or more a week are not entitled to free school meals – regardless of how little their parents earn. This is shocking.
And another 500,000 children don’t take up their entitlement to free school meals. This can be for all kinds of reasons, including the quality of the meals themselves and issues around teasing and bullying.
I remember getting teased about being on free school meals when I was little. I found it so embarrassing. At the start of each week, our class teacher would call out our names and those who had to pay would take their dinner money up to him. When he got to my name, and the names of others in the same position, he’d announce “FREE” in the most derogatory of tones I’d want the ground to swallow me up. So I can see why people would rather avoid going through that public humiliation.
I am urging everyone I know and who reads this blog to get behind the Children’s Society Fair and Square campaign. Please join their call on government by signing their petition and spread the word any way you can to ensure that our poorest children get the free school meals they need to survive.
The problem is, this current situation could get worse under the new Universal Credit benefit system, which the government is introducing from 2013. Some families may be worse off if they take on more hours or get a pay rise as a result of the loss of free school meals. Analysis by the Children’s Society indicates this could affect 120,000 families with 350,000 school-aged children.
Sign the petition to ask the government to change the criteria for free school meals so all children in poverty get them. They’re much more likely to listen if they see how many people think the situation is unfair and needs to change. It only takes a couple of minutes and we all get behind the campaign this could add up to a big change for our poorest school children.
Giving children in poverty a free school meal makes sense on every level. They can help children stay healthy and learn. And they can help families escape the poverty trap faced by parents trying to move into employment by making sure that work always ‘pays’.
Free school meals on average are worth nearly £10 a week or about £370 a year. The prospect of losing this benefit creates a massive barrier for parents if they want to move into work or take on additional hours, particularly if they have more than one more child in school. (The Children’s Society ‘Fair and Square’ campaign report)
So once again, please do sign the petition and help spread the word. I am one of those kids who once needed free school meals, and I want to help make sure that the children today who need them are also given that right.
For more information about the Children’s Society’s Fair and Square campaign please visit http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/fairandsquare.
Food Glorious Food!
This pretty much sums up how I feel about food…
Oliver! is one of my all-time favourite films. I love musicals almost as much as I love food. I’ve always wanted to be in one, but it doesn’t really help that I can’t sing or dance.
But now my seven-year-old daughter Jessie is learning lots of the songs from Oliver! in her Musical Youth club. So this song is heard a lot in the Bangers & Mash house at the moment. Very tuneful, I’m sure…
Anyway, thought I’d share it with you – enjoy! And do sing along!
The Versatile Blogger Award
It seems awards are a little like buses. Nothing for ages and then three come along at once.
In the last week three wonderful bloggers have nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award. I knew all the yoga and pilates would pay off eventually…
So thank you to Gary at The Greedy Fork, Terri at Terri’s Kitchen and Nicola at Cooknote for adding me to the VBA roll of honour.
The Bangers & Mash blog has only been going three months and I’m just starting to find my feet. So to receive this award was a bit of a surprise. But a very lovely one.
I haven’t won anything for quite a few years. As a child though I was really quite competitive, forever entering some competition or another.
The first competition I remember entering was when I was about five. It was a painting contest at my local youth club and I won first prize. I was so excited to find out that my prize was a voucher but when it arrived a little while later in a small envelope I was absolutely gutted. I had completely misheard you see, and thought my prize was going to be a vulture. Why on earth a five-year-old child would want to win a vulture I really can’t explain but to this day I can still recall that bitter feeling of disappointment.
There you go. A random fact about me. According to the rules of the Versatile Blogger Award I must tell you seven random things about me. So here are six more…
- As a child my favourite TV programme was Blue Peter. Over the years I won four Blue Peter badges.
- I always wanted to be an actress. My first stage role was the Angel Gabriel in my primary school nativity. I was taller than Joseph and therefore denied the role of Mary.
- I studied Drama at Bristol University where I finally got to play Mary in our modernisation of From Creation to Nativity, a medieval Passion play, in which Mary ‘won’ the Baby Jesus as the star prize on a game show hosted by the Angel Gabriel!
- My parents invented my name. Well reinvented it. They liked the name Vanessa and discovered that Jonathon Swift created the name for his poem Cadenus and Vanessa. It was a pseudonym for his ‘squeeze’ Esther Vanhomrigh. My folks decided they preferred the combination of Van and Esther rather than Essa, so that’s how my name came into being. I’m forever having to spell it as you can imagine and most people call me Ness for short.
- I am allergic to kiwi fruit and avocados.
- When I am drunk I can speak fluent German.
Now it’s my turn to pass forward the award to 15 of my favourite bloggers. Ahem. Drum roll please…
Feeding Boys and a Firefighter
The Diary of a Domestic Disappointment
So now it’s your turn.
Add the award to your blog.Thank the blogger who gave it to you.Mention seven random things about yourself.List the rules.Award to 15 bloggers.Inform each of those 15 by leaving a comment on their blog.
Why bangers and mash?
A few people have asked why I called this blog Bangers & Mash. So here’s a sophisticated diagram to help explain.
Quite simply Bangers & Mash sums up the kind of food I like to cook and eat.
Simple and unpretentious.
Terrible if you use cheap sausages or don’t put butter in the mashed potato, but when you use quality ingredients it just can’t be beaten.
And that’s the kind of food you’ll find me talking about in this blog.
Bangers & Mash 