The Ironing Queen Part 2 - and some home truths, thanks to Tefal

One of the things about getting older is learning and, perhaps more importantly, accepting, truths about yourself.  

Truths like I am never, ever going to be asked to present Blue Peter (why not?? I'd have been great). Truths like if you eat too much cake you will put on weight, whatever anyone tries to tell you (or you try to convince yourself of) otherwise.

Truths like, actually, the ironing does matter to me.

There. It's out there now.

But honestly, I NEVER KNEW.

Believe me when I say I'm just as surprised as you are about this. 

As I said in my first, heady post about the Tefal steam generator iron that I wrote, never did I expect to be so thrilled by an iron. Never did I think an iron would inspire me to re-write an Abba song in its honour. And, let's be honest, I would probably never have considered a steam generator iron purely on basis of cost. Having used one for 3 months ( when I can fight the husband off it ) I really think I'd have trouble going back. It really makes ironing so much easier. And while I'm never going to skip joyfully to the pile of ironing the fact that it will be over so much more quickly due to the power of the steam is a big incentive.

So here's what I like about my Tefal steam generator iron:

It has a big tank for water so you don't have to keep refilling

There's a good number of safety features including an automatic shut off - ideal if you get distracted and wander of - as I frequently do.

You get real steam - no mucking about with little puffs or splutters - this is full on crease-killing steam.

As a result, it laughs in the face of the Husband's 100% cotton double cuff shirts, yet with a couple of bursts from the steam jet - where (get this) the iron doesn't even have to touch the fabric -  it can make the creases drop out of some of my more delicate tops .

Short of actually doing the ironing for me, there's not much more I could imagine you'd need in an iron.


This is all very well, but that doesn't necessarily turn me into someone for whom the ironing matters, only that I am someone who can see the benefits certain innovations can bring to an iron, and by definition, the whole tedious task of ironing.

So, here's the thing. In July, along with the Tefal Optigrill and the ingenio pans, we were also shown a new range of  'intelligent' steam generator irons. A slightly scary, apocalyptic kind of concept of irons that can think for themselves. There's the easy use iron - one setting, no buttons or dials to fiddle with, irons everything, an 'in between' kind of iron, and a full on bells and whistles type of iron, with every setting and possible combination of settings under the sun. 

For the purposes of this post, I was sent one of the intelligent 'easy use' steam generator irons. "How can it possibly be so different?" I thought.

On the left 'my' iron; on the right, the easy use intelligent iron

Well, it can be different. The 'intelligent' iron irons perfectly satisfactorily, but just not quite as brilliantly as the one I already have. The Tefal demonstrators explained that this was the case with the easy use iron. It's really for someone who knows they need to iron a shirt occasionally, but really doesn't care that much about the extent of the ironing. It's for people who don't sort their laundry, only ever use one setting on the washing machine, and only iron when the need arises. The level of ironing is traded off against the ease of use. In that respect, Tefal have got it bang on. It is incredibly easy to use. Simply turn it on and go. No need to stress about what setting to have it on - no risk of ruining your other half's silk shirt.  There is no temperature control - it just miraculously doesn't shrivel your delicate stuff, while at the same time pretty much gets the creases out of cotton, and has the same automatic shut off features that I like about 'my' iron. If ironing really didn't matter to me, I would be singing the praises of the easy use steam generator iron. 

But it turns out that I like my ironing to be of a slightly higher level. You see - ironing apparently does matter to me. The easy use iron was OK, but for me the finish wasn't quite as good as the one I've been using for the last 3 months. The shirts weren't quite as crisp, the pillow cases just not quite as flat. But then, if I'm honest, I have been known to use different settings on the washing maching, and to take washing off the line in order (iron then non-iron - but only for the purposes of putting stuff in the airing cupboard you understand).

The ironing pile - on a good day

So would I swap? Well, you guessed it - no way. I still don't LIKE ironing, but it turns out that when I do, it matters.

You can by the Tefal Steam Generator Irons from John Lewis and Argos. The Easy Control model retails at £199, and my favourite, the Pro Express, retails at £279.99.

TEFAL ingenio - and sort of Tartiflette for tea

Tefal have recently launched a new set of pans to the UK market and as a member of the Tefal Innovation Panel I have received a 4 piece set to review.

The key feature of the pans for me is the fact that they don't come with fixed handles, but with a handle attachment which can be used for all the pans. 

This handle device snaps on and off very easily, making the pans easier to stack and then store - no handles to get in the way. If storage space is a premium, this would be very useful. The other advantage is that if you're using the pans from hob to oven, you can get a bigger pan into the oven as you don't have to accomodate the handle. You simply use the handle to get the pan to the oven then snap it off.

Snap it on

Easy to snap off

To further improve the storability of the pans, the accompanying lids have rather nifty fold down handles, and the set also comes with very handy 'fridge lids' which fit the pans and allow you to store food in the pans in the fridge without fiddling round with clingfilm etc. Unfortunately, we weren't provided with lids or the fridge lids to trial, which is a shame, as this was one of the things I was really excited about when the pans were demonstrated, but c'est la vie, as they say.

 

The pans can be used in the oven as well as on the hob, and are induction friendly too. I finally got over my distrust of putting these non-stick pans in the dishwasher too, and they came out very well. 

rubbish pic, but see - there's a handle...

...and now there's no handle!

I used the medium sized frying pan to make a sort of tartiflette for dinner. Actually, any self-respecting Frenchman would probably turn in his grave at the suggestion that this is anything like tartiflette, due to a lack of reblochon cheese, but I made it in French pans (Tefal is a French brand), and I stayed true to the layering of sliced potatoes with an onion/bacon mix, although added in some chicken breast for good measure (and because it was left over).


The ingenio pan was great for the initial frying of the onions, garlic, bacon and chicken, and the pan performed well as transferred to the oven with the final dish. I also used the small pan to make up the sauce. Not only did the non-stick coating mean I didn't need to add any additional oil to the meal, but it cleaned very easily.

Hmm food on the inside...

As pans go, they are great. Not too heavy, and the handle attachment, which is supposed to be able to bear 10kg in weight, felt secure as I transferred it from pan to pan. 

If I was being picky, the one thing I would say about the handle attachment is that if you are a messy cook, like I am, and you clip the handle on to part of the pan which has food on the side, it means you get food on the inside of the handle which is a little tricky to wash off. The other thing is that I'd be worried about losing the handle attachment, although you can keep it stacked inside the pans when not in use because everything fits together.

 

The Husband thought it was a bit gimmicky - people have been accomodating pans with handles for years - but I think that in these days of smaller houses and certainly smaller kitchen spaces, these pans could be a real bonus.

Sort of Tartiflette

serves 4 at least

750g waxy/ new potatoes, sliced quite thinly
1 onion, quite finely chopped
1 fat clove of garlic, crushed
2 slices of smoked bacon (I used back because it was what I had in the fridge; streaky would be god, or pancetta/lardons if you had them) chopped small
2 chicken breasts, sliced
500ml semi-skimmed milk
3 tbs cornflour
150-175g low fat soft cheese with garlic & herbs (I used Philadelphia)
salt & pepper

Boil the potato slices till they are al dente, then drain well and set aside.

In a frying pan that you can transfer to the oven, fry the bacon on a gently heat, then when the fat is realeased, add the onion and garlic and continue to cook till softened. Add the chicken, and cook for 5 minutes or so till pretty much cooked through. 

Set the cooked onions, bacon and chicken aside in a bowl and wipe out the frying pan.

Mix together the cornflour with 3 tbsp of the milk, then pour the rest of the milk into a small pan and heat gently till just before boiling. add a couple of spoons of the hot milk to the slaked cornflkour mixture, then pour it all back into the pan and stir over a gentle heat till the sauce thickens. Stir in the cream cheese, add salt and pepper as necessary then set aside.

Put a layer of potato over the base of the frying pan, then scatter over the onion, bacon & chicken mixture, then spoon over about 1/2-2/3 of the sauce. Add another layer of potato over the top, then spoon the remaining sauce over the potatoes, grind over some salt & pepper, then pop in a pre-heated oven at around 200C for 20-30 minutes till bubbling and golden on top.

It's quite rich, even without the Reblochon, so serve with a rocket & watercress salad.

Sweet peas optional!

The Tefal OptiGrill - a review and a perfect steak dinner

In my role as a member of the Tefal Innovation Panel (check out my badge) I have been provided with a Tefal OptiGrill to try out. 

 
This innovation was introduced to the panel at an event in London in early July. It's new to the market, and has proved very popular. Indeed, on paper and in demo, this is a very impressive product. It's a grill with 6 programmes depending on what you want to cook - meat, fish, chicken, bacon, sausages and a manual option for toasted sandwiches etc. At the demo day, there were some tasty looking vegetable kebabs knocking around. By measuring how thick the meat or fish you are cooking, using 'sensor technology', the OptiGrill can then make sure that your food is cooked for the correct amount of time- including differentiating between rare, medium and well done for your steak. Even more helpfully, the device then communicates this to you using an LED which changes colour, and a beep to tell you as the cooking is entering the next phase, or when it is done.

So there's the blurb. What actually happened when the Tefal Optigrill arrived chez Recipe Junkie?

Well, after unpacking and feeling quite excited, I texted the Husband - "Steak for dinner tonight!" - and hot (very hot, actually) footed it off to the butcher for some of his best ribeye steak. I had a quick debate with him about whether I should actually introduce the kids to the joy that is a beautiful steak, and in the end we compromised. He cut me 2 big juicy steaks for the Husband and I and 2 rather more modest ones for the kids. I came over all faint at the cost (or may be it was just the heat), but I've had his steak before and it is G-O-O-D. And it hadn't escaped my notice that in the literature that accompanies the OptiGrill, it does mention, casually, that "the results will vary depending on the quality, type and cut" when grilling meat. I felt it was only right to give the OptiGrill the best shot by making sure I bought good meat.

There is absolutely no denying that the steak we had was wonderful. I had washed the grill plates before first use, as instructed, and given them an optional wipe over with some olive oil. I fed the kids first as they wanted to go to the pool, and I will say that on the first go, I struggled with the lights and the beeping. I think I also didn't press the correct buttons because the indicator LED didn't do the thing it was supposed to do and by the time I'd worked this out, the kids' steak was definitely well done. Not disastrously so, but enough to make me worry. This may well have been due to the thinness of the steaks, and you'll be pleased to know that despite this, the meat was still tender (despite being cooked more than I had intended) and the kids absolutely loved it.


When the time came for the Husband and I to eat, I was a bit more prepared. I had already podded the peas and broadbeans while sorting out the kids' tea (probably why I got distracted), so I could concentrate on my LED and the beeps. The Husband came in while the OptiGrill was pre-heating

"Good grief! It looks like BattleStar Gallactica"

"That's the LED"


This time, it all worked. Once I put the meat in and lowered the lid, the LED did its thing and started changing colour. Pink tried to have a disco in the kitchen with it, but it was too hot to keep on dancing. She has high hopes for her next birthday party, though...

I got a little confused with the beeping, and had a moment of "When do I take it out again?" angst, but I whipped it out while the LED was on yellow (for rare), and had enough time while the veg finished off for the steak to rest a while.

It was delicious. Melt in the mouth, and as promised by the LED, rare. So a combination of great meat and a good grill. I'll admit to being a little concerned about the prospect of leaving the grill to 'tell' me when the steak would be ready, rather than using my own tried and tested method, but the fear was unfounded.

So, perfect steak dinner for 2 aside, what do I think about the OptiGrill? 

As the Husband pointed out, is it really so much easier than cooking it on the griddle I normally use? Well, no. I'm pretty confident cooking steak, and use the James Martin test (for rare steak, the meat will feel like the ball of your thumb when you hold the tip of your thumb and first finger together, getting progressivley more cooked as you use successive fingers). 

On the other hand, it didn't set off the smoke alarm as I am liable to do using the griddle, which in turn had the added bonus that we didn't have to eat our steak in a kitchen full of smoke. Actually we ate outside last night,  but if we had eaten inside, well, you know what I mean... (I don't burn the steak, you understand, but the griddle pan has been well -used and tends to smoke rather once it gets good and hot)

It's a pretty big bit of kit it has to be said, and I'm not quite sure where I will keep it. On the other hand, it will do toasted sarnies & paninis, coffee-shop style, which I am keen to try out. We don't have a toasted sandwich maker any more. The Husband threw it out because it was "Crap" (he doesn't mince his words). Well, may be it was, but I do like a toasted sandwich, so I'm excited to have the means to make them again.

On the demo day, the nice people from Tefal also showed us how it cooked salmon, and it really was incredibly well cooked, which is another bonus, as I find salmon trickier than steak to get right. The OptiGrill can also tell you when bacon is lightly cooked, well done or crispy - and although I haven't tried it out, I'm pretty keen on giving it a go because our bacon tastes differ across that spectrum and if the OptiGrill can make it easier, well that'll be a bonus.

As I have said, I got confused a bit by all the lights and beeping, but I'd done my usual trick of only reading half the instructions and believing that I had remembered everything from the demo. With a little more practice, I reckon I'll have the measure of it.

The grill plates detach very easily for cleaning, but they are quite hard to get fully dry with a tea towel due to the ridges. The instructions recommend paper towel, but I'm afraid I'm a tea towe girl through and through when it comes to drying up. The plates are supposed to be dishwasher safe,  but I can't quite trust that. I'm sure non-stick technology has advanced significantly, but in my experience, stuff like this just dies if you clean it in a dishwasher. This has nothing to do with the product, just my own outdated prejudices. May be I'll give it a go.

So there you have it - the Tefal OptiGrill. First impressions are that it's a pretty good bit of kit, but it may well be more for someone less confident with grilling/griddling than I like to think I am. It's quite big, and would need to offer pretty good results to warrant a space in most people's kitchens, but I think that if you eat grilled food a lot, the OptiGrill does seem to offer those results.

________________________________________________________________________________
Disclaimer: I was provided with a TEFAL OptiGrill free of charge for the purposes of writing a review. I was not required to write a positive review.

Homemade Fishfingers for Fresh Week

Reader, I have a Fresh Week confession.

So far, Fresh Week has been pretty easy for me because the meals - our main meals, at least, have come from the freezer. My own 'ready meals' if you will. 'Fresh' because I made them from scratch, but not perhaps within the spirit of Fresh Week because the effort was all last week - or even last month. On the other hand, if you are a busy working parent, I firmly believe that the freezer is your friend if you want to cook more from scratch, so perhaps it is within the spirit of the challenge after all - I leave it to you to decide and leave you with the thought that this, if anything, would be my top tip of the week: cook in bulk and freeze.

Last week, I made a vat of aubergine & red pepper pasta sauce and froze it in portions. Easy then, yesterday, to cook up some pasta, stir the defrosted sauce through, grate some cheese on top and whack it under the grill. Home cooked food. No stress. 

This evening, then, more of a challenge. Fish fingers. made from scratch. And chips.  And a play date to cater for.

Now I appreciate that I work from home which makes it slightly easier for me to get ahead, but even so, this is so easy that provided you have all the ingredients in, you can get the meal on the table in an hour. I managed it this evening including skinning the fish.

Homemade Fishfingers & Chips

(served 1 adult and 3 kids)

3 large (baking sized) potatoes

2 large fillets of firm white fish, skinned
plain flour
1 large egg
oatmeal & polenta

First, put the oven on to heat as high as it will go. Put a pan of water on to boil.

Peel the potatoes and slice into chip sizes. When the water is boiling, tip in the chips and cook for 5 minutes, then drain and leave to steam for a few minutes. Put a baking sheet with a tablespoon or two of rapeseed or olive oil on it into the oven to heat up. After about 5 minutes, when the oven is at temperature, carefully remove the baking sheet and tip the chips on to it, shaking them round so they are covered in the hot oil. Put the chips in the oven.


Get your fish ready. You need 3 side plates set up, one with plain flour on it, the next with the egg beaten on it and finally the polenta & oatmeal mixed together. 

I apologise now for the measurement fail, but I just do this by eye. And it doesn't have to be polenta & oatmeal. it can be breadcrumbs, semolina works, or even crushed cornflakes (but not for Fresh Week).

Cut your fish into appropriate pieces, then dip in the flour first, then the egg and finally cover with the crumbs, and place on another greaseproof paper covered baking sheet. Repeat with all the fish.

Now, you need to judge this a bit carefully, but the fish takes about 15 minutes (turned half way through) and the chips take about 35-40 minutes, so check the chips every so often, give them a shake and a turn over with a spatula, and when they are starting to look reasonably cooked, as if they don't need a huge amount more time, drizzle a little oil over the fish and put the fingers in to cook, turning after 6-7 minutes.

When the fish is cooked and golden, the chips should also be cooked. 

Serve with whatever you like. We had carrot sticks, roasted beetroot and salad. You can also include ketchup. I leave it up to you whether you make your own or not...

Homemade Ketchup - for people with too much time - or too many tomatoes - on their hands

OK. So I reckon we don't eat that much processed food, and I'm taking part in the Tefal Fresh Week challenge which is about cooking from scratch every day for a week. 

One of the processed foods that does feature on our table is ketchup. If you look at the ingredients label of a reputable brand, there's not too much that makes me cringe in there.Then there's all the lycopene you get from processed tomatoes, which (anecdotally, at least) is supposed to be an anti-cancer agent. That's good enough for me, so ketchup makes it on to my own personal 'approved' list.

Still, the thought occurred to me that I could try and make my own. And fortuitously enough, the Husband returned from a night of back woods cooking with the scouts last week with nearly a kilo of tomatoes - the scouts apparently preferring to adorn their wood fire cooked pizza calzone with meat and cheese  rather than anything as damningly healthy as a slice of tomato.

The oven was on for shepherd's pie last night anyway, so I halved the tomatoes, drizzled them with a tablespoon or so of rapeseed oil and some fresh thyme in a roasting tin and bunged them in to roast for an hour.

Once out of the oven, and cooled for half an hour, I pushed the roasted tomatoes through a seive and into a pan. Fortunately, tomato seeds rate highly on the chickens' list of favourite things to eat, so there won't be any waste there.

I had about 300ml of sauce after I'd mushed it through the sieve (pitiful really! The recipe I was loosely following in Veg Everyday called for 1 litre...), to which I added 4 tsp of red wine vinegar and 3 tsp of soft brown sugar along with a pinch of mace and a pinch of ground allspice and a splash of Worcestershire sauce. The ketchup results from then bubbling this down gently to reduce it by half, before adding salt and pepper. And really, this is where it all gets a bit silly. Generally, if something's going to be on the stove top for a long time, I like to be able to bob back and forwards to it, doing other things, rather than be continually stirring. This is pretty high maintenance in that you need to keep stirring to stop it catching. For about 30 minutes. An excessively long time to be tied to the cooker - unless it's for making lemon curd, for which I am always happy to make an exception.

Check out the splatter

In addition, the low water content of the sauce (or something) means that it spits quite viciously. All the way up the kitchen wall. Now I'm not the most houseproud of people, but it really was quite annoying - probably because I was in one of those 'let's be a domestic goddess' moods, and tomato splattering up the walls was not part of that plan. It would never happen to Nigella...

I persisted though, and was rewarded with a pot - a whole 159g of pretty tasty tomato ketchup. 

The proof of course is in the eating, so I served it up to my harshest critic, for breakfast this morning, with eggy bread.

 

 



The all important finger test

And the verdict?

"Mmmm, yummy Mummy"


But does it taste like ketchup?

"Well not exactly Mummy, but it's very good."

And she ate it all up.


So there you have it. Homemade ketchup, splatter and all. Tastes pretty good, and overall Pink ranked it her second favourite type of ketchup (she's a connoisseur, you know), which is praise indeed.

Would I make it again? Well, you need a lot of tomatoes to make a decent batch. You could store it, as jam, in sterilised jars/bottles too, so perhaps, if the greenhouse yields bounteously on the tomato front, I might be persuaded to. But the greenhouse has never yet yielded tomatoes in such quantities. And then there's the time. And the stirring and splattering. And you know, there's something very pleasing about squirting ketchup out of a plastic bottle...


Slightly Spicy Mushroom Chard & Chickpea soup

So today didn't get off to a hugely auspicious start, what with being woken at 4.30 to the dulcet tones of Blue throwing up. Never a good way to start the day, let alone the week. I was supposed to be having a 5:2 fasting day, but due to excessive amounts of partying at the weekend (well, excessive for us - 2 dinner parties - practically unheard of social activity for us these days) I was still feeling slightly jaded (shall we say) and not in the mood to face a pink grapefruit, or to forgo milk in my coffee.

Bearing that in mind, for our first 'Fresh Week' breakfast, Pink and I had porridge with stewed rhubarb from the garden.

Blue had some Diaorolyte and the Husband absolved himself from involvement in Fresh Week due to the impending trip, and finished the Weetabix. Not such a hot start, then.

I'd misunderstood when the Husband was leaving for his jaunt to the desert too (he leaves this evening, after tea time), and Pink then decided she didn't want to go on her usual post-school arrangement because Blue wasn't going and the Husband would still be home (understandable really). The usual sort of non-serious muddle that I often find myself in. More importantly, I ended up from planning to feed only myself this evening, to having to find food for all of us.

Cue extraction of a handy shepherds pie from the freezer I made a couple of weeks ago with the leftovers from Blue's 'last meal'. It isn't yet topped with mash, and I used the last of the potatoes up yesterday, so it will be swede and carrot mash. The freezer really is your friend if you want to cook more from scratch. Make things like shepherds pie in bulk and freeze in portion sizes. It might seem like a stress, but it's really not.

Given that everything seems to have spiralled from order to chaos in a matter of moments (does this happen to anyone else? It seems to happen to me frequently), I decided I needed a decent lunch and turned to the last of the veg box and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for inspiration.

I love chard, and I had a bag of ruby chard - dark green leaves, pinky red stems.

I don't know if you can buy it in supermarkets - we usually grow it so I never look for it, although there's none in the garden ready yet. Swiss chard with white stems, 'bright lights' with orange and yellow stems, ruby chard as from the box. I'd be lying, though, if I said my kids love it - or frankly, that they even tolerate it, with its earthy taste - so this was always (happily) destined for me.

This soup is inspired by one in Veg Everyday "Chickpea, Chard and Porcini soup", but as ever I adapted it to suit what I had - fresh mushrooms rather than dried porcini, and where Hugh uses rosemary, I wanted something a bit more robust so reached for the harissa paste for a chilli kick. You could add more as well - mine was quite subtle.

Slightly Spicy Mushroom Chard & Chickpea soup

rapeseed oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic. crushed
1-2 tsp harissa paste
400g chard or spinach, leaves and stalks separated, stalks finely chopped, leaves shredded
100g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
400g tin chopped tomatoes (Fresh Week or not, these will always be in my store cupboard!)
400g tin of chickpeas
500ml vegetable stock (yes, you could make your own from scratch but I used Marigold veg stock powder)
Salt & pepper

Heat a tablespoon or so of rapeseed oil in a large pan and sweat the onions for 10-15 minutes along with the garlic. Chuck in the chopped chard stalks

and the harissa paste for the last 5 minutes, then add in the mushrooms and cook for a few more minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes, chick peas and stock, and bring to the boil, then simmer for 15 minutes or so before adding the chard leaves, and simmering for 5-7 minutes till the leaves have cooked down.

Season with salt and pepper and serve.

 

 

 

I've taken the Tefal Fresh Week challenge to cook fresh food every day from 13th-19th May. You can still join me and make the pledge for a chance to win a Fresh Express Max and a Riverford Organic Veg box. You can read more about that here, where you can also find out how to sign up yourself.

 



Fresh Week: the Meal Plan (ish). And thoughts on processed food

So, yeah, you know, we've pledged to give up processed food for a week, but that's like, so easy, because we don't eat any processed food anyway.

Hmm.

I had an interesting conversation with the kids yesterday. Tefal Fresh Week runs from 13-19th May, and I have pledged my support. You can read more about that here, where you can also find out how to sign up yourself. 

This also coincides with the first week of a 3 week stint of single parenting as the Husband is conveniently buggering off to the Middle East on Monday. Not only that, it is Pink's much awaited 7th (yes, 7. How did that happen?) birthday on Friday, and the Husband will still be away for half term. Not that I'm making a note or anything.

There has been a reasonable amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth about this (not least from the Husband who isn't necessarily looking forward to the prospect of 3 weeks sitting in a desert) so I thought the challenge of Fresh Week would be a good distraction, for me and the kids at least.

"Next week, we're going to stop eating processed food. What do you reckon?"

"What does that mean? What's processed food?"

"Well, it's when food has been turned into something else." (hastily looking for an example) "Yes, like those" (points at sugared cereal purchased in moment of weakness, and the subject of much self-loathing & inner recrimination since). "And ketchup. Ketchup is processed."

"Is cheese processed?"

"Well, yes"

"And marmite?"

"Yes, marmite"

"What about chutney?" (Blue always has chutney in his sandwiches)

"Well, yes it is processed, but I made it from the fresh ingredients, so it's less processed than shop bought chutney. That would be OK."

"But will I be able to have cheese?"

"Hmm"

You get the point, Even though I like to think that we don't eat processed food, the reality is that it's really hard to avoid all 'processed' food unless you only eat meat and vegetables. 

Looking around for some definitions, what it seems to come down to is that  food processing is any deliberate change in a food that occurs before it's available for us to eat. Frozen peas. Dried pulses. Boiled eggs. They have all been processed.

To exclude everything that has been processed seems to me to be taking things too far and not actually within the spirit of Fresh Week. We're not being asked to limit our diet simply to fresh vegetables, and meat, and to eat them raw (cooking, after all, is a 'process'.) It's about cooking from scratch, rather than opening a packet and shoving it in the microwave. It's about chopping your own carrots and grating your own cheese (did you know that those who package pre-grated cheese actually add potato starch in to it - I have no idea why. I mean, really - why would you do that?? And is it really quicker to buy it like that?). About starting with raw ingredients and getting your dinner on the table that way.

That said, having had the conversation with the kids, I realised that we do use more processed food than I would perhaps like to admit, albeit that I have mentally sanctioned them as 'OK'.

So here's where we're going with this in the RJ household. Cheese, milk and natural yoghurt are definitely in. So is dried pasta during the week (for my own sanity), although we are going to try making our own at the weekend (the hours are going to fly by...). Home made chutney and jam are in. Maltesers - selected by Pink as the desired decoration for her cake - will have to be in. But only for birthday cake. Within those parameters, as far as possible, I am not going to use anything with 'additives' (artificial or otherwise) - although I may well add seasonings and flavourings as necessary from my spice cupboard. 

Wine. Is. In.

In agreement with the children, breakfast will be porridge, toast made with homemade bread, or eggs. Eggs and bread can be combined into eggy bread (Pink's favourite) or as boiled eggs and toast soldiers. 

Eggy bread. And Ketchup.

Home made bread

There is also homemade jam (a freezer fail on Thursday meant I had to process a whole load of fruit that was in the freezer, so I made raspberry and blackberry 'fridge jam', courtesy of a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall idea in River Cottage Everyday). 

Jam, jam and more jam

We will be eating proper butter rather than the organic butter/sunflower oil spread we normally use. Fresh fruit will be available as usual. Also cooked rhubarb. The garden is full of it. 

On Friday, the 'big birthday' day, there will be breakfast pancakes (providing I can get myself organised - watch this space).

Lunches - well, packed lunches will be as they usually are. Sandwiches (homemade bread - allow me to polish my halo). Blue will be able to have his beloved cheese and chutney combo - after all, I made my own chutney. Tomatoes, cucumber chunks, carrot sticks (peeled and sliced by my own fair hand - no purchased pre-sliced sticks here, thank you very much). Cheese will be sliced from a block of organic cheddar. Hardboiled eggs & cold cooked pasta will feature.  

I have no idea why this photo is upside down either

There will be cake, although the cake for the week has yet to be determined. I'm thinking a lemon drizzle using swede puree which also features in the Harry Eastwood Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache book I got the orange & rosemary cake from. 

One day a week, they have a school dinner.

For me, well, it will be the usual - soup, salad, made fresh depending on what's in the veg box.

Dinner/ tea/evening meal - This will depend a little on the contents of the veg box that I get delivered on a Tuesday evening from a local small holding. That aside, I'm planning realistic meals that reflect what we usually eat, hoping to show that it is easy as a working parent (which I am, although I do have the advantage of working from home) to cook fresh every day. 

There will be a vegetable pasta bake. 

There will be real fish fingers and homemade chips. I may yet make my own ketchup, but don't hold your breath.There will most definitely be an egg based dinner (on that day, there will be no eggs for breakfast) given that with the improvement in the weather, the chickens are laying like mad, and there's only so much cake I can make. Pink has requested chicken fajitas at some point, and to make an occasion of it, we'll make this meal together at the weekend, using our own spice mix and including making the tortilla/flatbreads. And in an attempt to think of another cooking based activity for the weekend and avoid us sinking into the doldrums, the kids and I are going to make our own pasta. 

Puddings - well, I'm guessing rhubarb will feature. Natural yoghurt with jam or honey. That sort of thing.
 

Blackberry & apple with natural yoghurt, anyone?

  So what do you think? Is this unprocessed enough? Is this fresh enough? Are you taking the challenge? 

I'd love to hear how you get on - and if you take the pledge you will be in with a chance of winning your own Fresh Express Max and a Riverford Organic Box. We've just heard that there are 2 more packages available to win before 19th May. Can't be bad.

And if you want more inspiration, keep reading, and check out my fellow Tefal Innovation Panel Bloggers as they take the pledge: Madame Gourmand, Boo Roo and Tigger Too, Mother Geek, Jacintaz3, Emmy's Mummy, Red Rose Mummy, Romanian Mum, Seasider in the City, Crazy with Twins, Attachment Mummy and The Mad House .

Get fresh for Fresh Week

So as I was saying a few days ago (I was - were you not listening?), I am one of 12 bloggers selected to form the Tefal Innovation Panel. 

The panel has been set up in conjunction with Mumsnet Bloggers and I attended a launch event in Windsor on 18th April where a number of Tefal products were demonstrated, we ate a jolly fine lunch and had some good chat.

During the course of the day, the idea of Fresh Week was introduced to us.

Fresh Week is a rather splendid idea from Tefal to encourage people to take a pledge (no, not THAT pledge - you can still drink gin) to cast aside processed food and cook fresh, unprocessed food for your family, for a week, from Monday 13th May until Sunday 19th May. And eat it.

If you read this regularly, you will know that I pretty much cook from scratch everyday (bar the odd fish finger, the puff pastry, the custard powder and - well, you know what I mean), and it's something that I feel pretty passionate about. Is making this pledge really such a challenge?

Well, perhaps not - but I am aware that there is a (mis)-conception that cooking from scratch takes too much time, so I am going to concentrate on what we as a family eat day to day for a week, rather than cake or the 'special' food. And I promise to include all the groans as well as any cheers that I get from my kids (and the Husband), and probably some of my own virtual swearing when things go wrong in the process. Time is tight for me at the moment - there's a lot going on in the RJ household - so I hope that I can convince you that fresh is just as easy - and defintiely tastier - than processed food, even when the (homemade) chips are down.

In order to help me on my way, I have been provided with a Fresh Express Max and a box of organic fruit and veg from Riverford Organics, which is all rather exciting. For those of you who haven't come across it before, the Fresh Express Max is a worktop electric chopper/grater.

You too can sign up to take this pledge and be in with a chance of winning your own Tefal Fresh Express and a Riverford Organic Farms basket.

So - I have taken the pledge - you can join me, for a chance to win your own Fresh Express (and Riverford box) by signing up here and let me know how you're getting on.

You can also see how my fellow panellists are doing with their own Fresh Week challenges: Madame Gourmand, Boo Roo and Tigger Too, Mother Geek, Jacintaz3, Emmy's Mummy, Red Rose Mummy, Romanian Mum, Seasider in the City, Crazy with Twins, Attachment Mummy and The Mad House .

Right. Where are those vegetables...