Review: The Morrison's Mum becomes a #Morrisonsmum

I come from a family of big eaters.  I have a family of big eaters. With three active growing boys I am constantly feeding them.  Like chicks that don’t stay in the nest, their natural inclination is to scavenge and forage in the cupboards and the fridge as soon as they get home from school.  Unless that is, by some miracle I have got myself organized (usually involving a timer oven or a slow cooker) and then, with sighs of satisfaction they fall on their food and eat until they are sated (for the next few hours).  

And it gets worse throughout the holiday period – not only are they constantly on the hunt for fruit or snacks, but so are the myriad of friends that tag along on a daily basis, and at one point during last summer, my weekly shopping bill topped £250!  And that’s without the additional loaves of bread from Tesco Express, or the odd pint of milk.  It’s an expensive business, raising boys.  I once heard of a woman who cooked a whole roast chicken every day and left it in the fridge for her boys to pull apart.  At the time I had toddlers and a strict no fridge opening policy, and I laughed at the idea.  Now it’s not looking quite so mad – if only I had the time…

And that, frankly, is what my cooking is all about.  I love to cook, but during the week, and with the long nature of boys summer sports, my food has to be quick and easy to prepare from scratch.  I very rarely buy ready prepared meals –the discrepancy between the shop’s ideas of portions, and those of my kids, would simply escalate my food bill even further.

 

In fact, I will fully admit that I am a bit of a supermarket tart.  If there’s a BOGOF at one, that’s where I will go.  If it offers a reward card, I will take them up on it.  I’ve been to all of them.  I like Lidl for the drinks and the wurst.  I like Tescos and Sainsburys for their own brands.  I like Morrisons for the veg, and when I am running late from work Asda does some mean pizzas (Friday night compromise).  I buy cheap cuts of meat from the butcher and make curries and stews. And a stock up at Costco is great once in a while for the staples such as bread, canned goods and pet food.  For some peculiar reason I like free range eggs, and a particular brand of baked beans – and on that I do not compromise. I also know that my shopping bill, for the five of us, plus pets, generally comes to between £170-£180 for 7-10 days, unless we have guests big or small.  Which we do.  A lot.

So when I was asked to be a #MorrisonsMum, in which Morrisons invited me to go and take advantage of their newly launched price cuts, I jumped at the chance.  Even though the stipulation was that I had to shop over the Bank Holiday weekend.  I detest food shopping at the weekend, let alone a Bank Holiday, but with good grace I decided to pop along to a Morrisons local to me at Southwood, Farnborough.  I used to be a regular there when it was a Safeway, as it was next to the very posh gym at which I was a member.  Needless to say, once the reality of kids hit home, costs were cut, and so the gym and I parted (no tears shed) and consequently there was no need for me to go to that part of town. 

What a difference!  Fantastic selection of veg – all on ice, a great meat section, where I indulged in some rib eye steak (5 adult portions at an eye watering price of £32) and fish (I was a little selective, as two out of my three boys are a bit funny about bones), plus the normal weekly shop.  I was checked out by a nice chatty lady called Sharon, who packed my bags for me as I fumbled to load my full trolley’s worth on to the conveyor belt.  Looking at the steak, she chortled good naturedly, ‘Taken a small mortgage out for those have you?’ pondered over the samphire that I had bought as a whim and genuinely showed an interest in me as a shopper.

Eldest and Middle Sons both have important exams this week, and normally we would have a meal out, where G would give them the benefit of his exam advice which they can then ignore as we order adult portions of steak and chips at roughly between £10- £17 depending on what restaurant we are sitting in.  Little Man can never finish his, but between the three remaining males there is never anything left on his plate.  But this time G was participating in that activity unique to 90% of the British male population during a bank holiday, that of decorating, and so we didn’t have the time to eat out – hence the bought in steak.

I have always been a fan of BBQs, and was devastated to find 16 years ago that this was not a skill that G possessed.  Not that he realised it, as he set fire to carefully marinated lamb kebabs, ensured the sausages looked like bits of charcoal, and we all chipped our teeth on the chicken breasts.  No, it’s taken a long time to dissuade him from the manly job of BBQing, and so as soon as I could, I trained the boys up in BBQ technique – which causes one less family argument!  

Two tomato salad with red onion, basil and balsamic dressing

And what a successful meal this was – the steaks were as big as the plate they are on, I made a gorgeous tomato salad out of the selection available at the veg counter, and individual meringue islands for dessert. For the two course 'special' meal plus a lovely homemade lemonade, it came to £10.50 a head.

Morrisons mini mozzarella balls, Morrisons sundried tomatoes, fresh wild rocket and iceburg lettuce

The boys just about to tuck in! 

Sparkling strawberry lemonade, recipe courtesy of <alittlebiteoflife> (The kids loved it, and G and I spiked our glasses with a drop of gin -bliss)

Homemade meringue islands -sauce with Morrisons own brand milk chocolate and double cream

Morrisons Signature Chilli and Morrisons Signature Pork sausages with black pudding. All from quick sale area at @ £1.75 a head

Trying out Morrisons version of Crunchy Nuts

Jerk Haddock with couscous, samphire and wilted iceburg

For the meal above I used Morrisons frozen haddock fillets.  They were a decent size, and can cook in the oven from frozen.  However there was one drawback - there were quite a few bones, but overall very tasty. Cost £2.75 per portion.

Mummy's Spanish Fish Stew

This simple dinner can cost as much or as little a head as you like. For a dinner party I add shell on tiger prawns, clams, razor clams, even crab claws. In this instance for a cost of around £4.50 a head, I used fresh mussels from the fish counter. I have taught the boys how to clean the seaweed 'beards' from them, and most importantly how to check that they haven't died.  I also used two packs of fish pie mix from the fresh prewrapped fish and some prawns that I had knocking around in the freezer. Watch out for bones... 

I am not a chef, just a mummy who cooks, and I find it particularly hard to follow recipes without fiddling – hence I rarely bake.  But hopefully I have given you some of the ideas that I had for our meals and how much I actually managed to buy in my shop at Morrisons. Many of the base ingredients bought feature time and again in further meals. And if you wish to know how I created the dishes featured – please comment below.

Even the dog got a fresh beef bone (3 for £2)

And did the overall cost live up to the Morrisons price cuts promise?  All I can say is that my weekly shop – including that splurge on the best quality steak – came to £162.17.

Perhaps that gym membership could be on again…

I was compensated for this review by Morrisons, but please note that all views, and opinions are my own and have not been biased in any way by any third party.

Community Spirit

Remember Evie? 

 A little girl who began to show signs of illness earlier this year, a substantial weight loss, severe anaemia, and then the lumps started to appear.  Her mother told me that she knew then that something was majorly wrong.  She was right, within two weeks, a diagnosis of Hodgkins Lymphoma was made, and Evie went straight into chemotherapy.

She is eight years old.

One of the reasons why I wrote the A Story for Evie was because of a natural human urge to want to help those friends who are suffering.  Evie was in unfamiliar surroundings, but her family were in unfamiliar territory and in total shock.  At first they didn’t even understand the vast amounts of information that was flung at them, and from that faltering position they had to make decisions about treatments and locations and all the while coping with the hidden terror that comes with cancer.

One of the things that they were told was to be totally honest up front with Evie and her siblings.  Her older sister at 12, was savvy enough to realise how serious it was, and her younger brother at 4 was too little to understand the implications of the disease, but was devastated that she would lose her hair like all the other children on the ward where he visited her.  As outsiders, one can only imagine how the parents coped.  As outsiders, we all felt helpless, wanting to do something, wanting to say ‘It will be all right’ and smoothing away all the fear, the pain and the sleepless nights.

In my last post Memory Lane I wrote about how valuable old friendships are, and how we should treasure them.  But I also acknowledged that new and recent acquaintances can be just as immeasurable in the love and friendship that they offer.  Hence when I wrote the Story for Evie, which urged people to give to the Little Princess Trust, a charity who made wigs out of real hair for sick children, and Evie’s mother shaved her hair off in support, there was an outpouring of donations.  People, new friends, old friends and family just wanted to help.

And there were a number of other things that people did for charity in the name of Evie.  This little 8 year old inspired people to run, to shave their heads, to hold bake sales.  She came runner up in the Pride of Bracknell Awards, and the mummies at school decided to organise a fundraiser fun day in order to raise money for Evie herself.  This was billed as Evie’s Wardrobe of Multicoloured Wigs – and as friends we were all invited to donate any toys, unwanted gifts, our time, or just to come along and show our support.

Held at the Pines School Professional Centre in Bracknell on Saturday, I took Little Man along.  We didn’t really know what to expect.  The first thing we saw when we walked in was Minnie and Mickey Mouse walking around and greeting everyone.  And then I was enveloped in a massive bear hug.  It was Evie’s dad with a big beam on his face.  Evie’s Aunties greeted me from the stalls that they were manning – chocolate drop, bits and bobs stall, and treasure hunt.  There was a stunning cake stand that seemed to stretch for miles, and face painting, nail painting, biscuit decorating, crafting, name a bear, several sweetie stands, clothes stands and the ever popular tombola.

Picture courtesy of  Jasmine El- Mekki

And above all there was the aromatic scent of curry simmering in the kitchen cooked by Evie’s grandfather.  You could have lamb, chicken, and chickpea curry, with 2 rices, a naan, an onion bhaji and a tomato and onion salad for £3.00.  Little Man perked up.  He loves curry.  He also loved a big cuddly bear (that I was sure that we had donated in the first place), his two tombola prizes and the two cakes that he bought.  He bought raffle tickets, won some chocolate on the chocolate game and tried to guess the correct square on the find the treasure game.

I spotted Evie and her mum, both of whom gave me a hug.  Evie was serene, seemingly unfazed by being the centre of attention and being smothered in the outpouring of love that came her way whenever someone new walked in.  She asked me if I liked the bracelets that she had made, and were up for sale.  Little Man and I watched as she showed us how to weave the little elastic bands into these colourful rubber bracelets.  She had made them all whilst undergoing her treatment in hospital.  I asked her to choose me two, and I put the money in an already over flowing pot.

 

I will treasure those bracelets.

We left as Evie and her family posed for the local newspaper.  All around them was the protective sea of pink T shirts of all of the volunteers.  The love and support emanating from them was palpable.

 

And as we got into the car, Little Man turned to me and said

 ‘That Evie, she must be really famous, to have all of those people raising money for her.’

  ‘No darling’, I said, ‘She’s just a normal little girl, but she and her family are very, very loved’.

Evie's fundraising day raised a large amount of money for her and her family, and so they have asked that any readers who are touched by her story and wish to donate, please give to The Little Princess Trust, a charity who provides wigs free of charge to sick children undergoing treatment.

Book Worm

I love nothing better than a good read, and have found the invention of the Kindle to be a godsend to me.  It means that in the many activities to which I ferry my kids, I can sling the Kindle into my handbag, where it rattles around happily with the plasters, sachets of Calpol, odd bits of loose change, a crumpled but clean tissue, several very sticky Chupa Chups lollies, a biro without a lid and a lipgloss.  Out of this little haven it emerges, at every possible moment – you know, the times you find that the most annoyingly competitive mummy has set up her chair next to you at cricket training, or when it is bucketing down with rain and you are in the car watching your child sloshing around unhappily at football training or when you have just half an hour of dance to wait for and so you are sitting in the corner of the room unobtrusively.  Often I wish I could take it out during the actual matches, but that simply wouldn’t be cricket (or football, or rugby… you get the gist). 

But it is amazing how much you can read, when you put your mind to it, and because I dabble in writing, it is one of the most common questions that I get asked ‘What’s a good book to read?’ ‘What’s your recommendation for a holiday/plane/recovery from operation book?’  Bearing this in mind, I have decided to write a couple of bi-monthly reviewlets (I’ve coined this phrase as I would hate for them to be seen as pukka reviews, but merely my take on the books, and not to be used against me…) These books have not been forced on me by the authors, nor have they been given to me, merely selected by me from the smorgasbord on offer at Amazon.  I find it extremely difficult to abandon a read – but on the odd occasion it has had to be done, and if it happens from henceforth, I will be honest and tell you why…

The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak

Set in World War II Germany, it is a moving story of an orphaned German girl who goes to live with a foster family, whose grown up kids have moved out of home.  I found it initially very difficult to get in to, and this was probably because I started it at the beginning of the Easter holidays and was dipping in and out of it.  This is not a dipping in and out of book.  The storyline is fairly dark, with some hilarious childhood moments – a bit like Anne Frank meets The Railway Children.  I was probably 20 or 30 pages into it before I was totally hooked.  And you can see why it has been snapped up by Hollywood and is already into Oscars territory.  It is written in a concise and matter of fact way, but every sentence is carefully positioned and well thought out – from the pale seemingly insignificant characters like the Mayors wife to the supposed cruelty of the foster mother, the vindictiveness of the Hitler Youth and the gentle passiveness of a hideaway Jew. Events unfurl, and as a reader you are powerless to stop it, and the narrator, who is Death, jumps tantalizingly back and forward over timelines, pulling you unwillingly with him as you desperately hang on for dear life (no pun intended). The children grow, people die, villages are raised to the ground, and yet there is the human capacity for hope that makes you switch off the Kindle at the end with tears rolling cathartically down your cheeks.  Absolutely highly recommended – although possibly not for a plane read unless it’s long haul and you can blame your puffy eyes on the travelling…

The P45 Diaries by Ben Hatch 

Totally different in terms of style, but a great read nevertheless.  This is from the view of a laconic and slightly annoying 18 year old male who floats in and out of jobs, trying to find and justify his way in life.  I say slightly annoying because there is a part of me that is like his frustrated and recently widowed, heavily drinking father that wants to simply shake him and tell him to get his s*** together.  But it is only at that point that our antihero (rather like a wannabe Citizen Smith he rants against society) becomes more human, he falls in love, and we realise that actually he is still coping with his grief, and that of his family, for his deceased mother - with whom, it turns out through his diaries, he has a poignant and close relationship. There is a very real and touching affiliation with his young brother whose struggle to come to terms with the changes in his family is reflected in moments of OCD.

Rather weirdly, I’ve actually done (and walked from) some of the dead end jobs that he dips in and out of – the Ad Sales Company, the Financial Sales Company, all replete with mantras and office characters.  So true and so funny.  And a priceless bit involving a trouser press. There are elements that made me think of my own childhood, but knowing teenagers now as I do from a mum's perspective, there was a distinct lack of use of mobiles and social media, which was a little at odds with the present setting. That not withstanding, this book is riddled intelligently with elements of both old and new -Death of a Salesman, Catcher in the Rye, Bread, The Inbetweeners and Miranda.  It makes for both laughter and tears in equal force. It is a romping read and a great book for your holiday!  Highly recommended.

Next time I will be reviewing The Expats by Chris Pavone and another (suggestions welcome).

Please feel free to comment!