Corned Beef Bolognese - Princes Recipe Challenge

I was recently contacted by the wonderful people at Princes who were looking for bloggers to take part in a recipe challenge. As a mum I am always on the look out for quick and simple meal ideas which are equally affordable yet healthy. I was eager to take part and received some samples of Princes 3 new corned beef flavors that are now available. Corned beef with Chilli , mustard and onions. Typically when cooking with corned beef, people usually do a corned beef hash or stew so I was eager to try something different. The rules were simple, to cook up a quick and tasty dish using only the corned beef samples and other ingredients costing only £5 or less and it had to be done in 20 minutes or less.

So I decided I was going to make a super simple corned beef bolognese. Yes, different I know and not what you would normally associate corned beef with but if you never try new things you will never know if you like them!

So I went with the corned beef with chilli as I like a little kick to my meals. Here are my other ingredients used:

I make that a grand total of just £2.14 (loose onion cost 20 pence) for all the extra ingredients.. Even the seasoning!! 

Method:

Start by gently frying the chopped onion and a few crushed garlic cloves.

When they start to soften and brown, add in the corned beef (roughly diced)

Gently fry the ingredients until the corned beef starts to soften and cook.

Add in the chopped tomatoes and a dash of herbs and leave simmering for 10-15 mins stirring once or twice.

After 10 minutes add spaghetti to a pan of already boiling water.

Once pasta is cooked drain and serve immediately with the bolognese mixture on top.

Then simply enjoy!

This meal was a big hit with my fussy eater and has been requested for dinner again and given that it cost so little I will gladly oblige! 

All these new flavors will are now available in Sainsburys stores nationwide at £1.99 rrp.

*I was sent a sample pack including various flavors and a gift card for the purpose of purchasing ingredients. All thoughts and recipe ideas are 100% honest and my own.

Center Parcs Family Blogger Club - #CPFamilyBreaks.

Center Parcs has always been a place I wanted to visit, In particular their Sherwood Forest village. There is just something magical about that place! With all the activities you are able to do at a Center Parcs resort I know it would make for a perfect holiday for Aalliyah, who likes nothing better than activity and adventure. Which is something I love too! But I fear I may enjoy the spa just a tad more :) Well I need to relax somehow after all the non stop action throughout the day. Bike rides, nature, sports... Fantastic!

We would love to become an official Center Parcs Family Blogger and have made a video showing how we like to have fun as a family. This is our entry into the Tot100 Center Parcs Family Blogger Challenge which you can find out more about by clicking here.

What ways do you like to have fun as a family?

Bringing The Outside In

I would say the only thing I miss about moving from a house to a flat is my old garden. It was huge! Granted it was some what over grown in places and needed work but that didn't matter, we loved it all the same. I am lucky as I am in a ground floor flat and because its such a small block we do have a decent sized outdoor area, both grass and paved. So when were sent out a fantastic little gardening kit and asked to take part in the #KidsGrowWild Challenge, we happily agreed. 

Sadly the garden area has been flooded and needs some essential maintenance so we were unable to get outside, but that didn't stop us! We decided to make the most of a bad situation and bring the outside in and make our very own little garden on Eden. Aalliyah loved the idea of growing things that we could eat so we came up with ideas on what we could grow. It was a struggle as our garden was now a "windowsill" but nether the less we came up with some great choices. Granted some of them should be grown outdoors, but I've seen many a fine pepper or onion grown on a windowsill so thought why not give it a bash. 

Armed with her gloves and trowel Aalliyah was keen to get planting. 

We decided on some sweet strawberries, mini sweet red peppers, mixed chilies, tomatoes, rocket salad leaves and even a lucky shamrock plant. I wont say no to some good old Irish luck.
Aalliyah had a blast planting all the different seeds in their pots. We even made our own propagator lid using freezer bags, which Aalliyah simply sellotaped to the pots. Once the seeds were planted Aalliyah cut out the handy little labels which were included and wrote out her different plants so she could keep track of what was growing where.

 All that was left to do now was water them which Aalliyah had been itching to do the from the start, so she filled up her funky new watering can and gave them all a sprinkle. I could see how proud Aalliyah was of her efforts and know she must have felt a real sense of accomplishment. She is eager to watch how they grow and if our garden of Eden will bear any food.

This post is an entry for BritMums’ "#KidsGrowWild Challenge"