What's Cooking at The Madhouse? menu plan 2019 week #7

Hooray hooray, we're on holi-holiday, la la la la la, la la la la la, holi-holi-day ! Sorry, we're all very excited here at The Madhouse this week as we're on half term holiday. Last week, we scrapped the menu plan for the end of the week because the kids were off school with an upset stomach, but luckily they're all fighting fit again in time for the holidays ! I've started having a Kitchen Clearout and have sorted through my spice rack, so I have lots of ends of packets and jars to use up - this could get interesting !

Monday 

lunch - Sloppy Joes with potato wedges and coleslaw (I made these before without the official seasoning ... which I have just discovered at the back of the spice rack !)

dinner - baked potatoes with leftover sloppy joes mix

Tuesday 

lunch - I fancy some fish, and I have some fish seasoning that needs using up, with some veggies - the kids can have a tin of ravioli if they prefer !

dinner - Tourtière, a Quebec-inspired pie made with minced beef, sausage meat and veg (carrots, onions, potatoes) - maybe with mash or maybe just on its own

Wednesday 

lunch - beefburgers, chips & baked beans (Pierre's choice)

dinner - Peruvian chicken braise (to use up Colombian triguisar spices) with rice

Thursday 

lunch - the Madhouse grandparents will be over so I'll probably do a roast chicken dinner, even if it's not Sunday !

dinner - we'll probably have some leftovers by now - if not, sandwiches

Friday  

lunch - spaghetti with cheese & bacon sauce

 dinner - Another Colombian recipe to use up some more of the triguisar spices - Posta Negra, marinated roast beef with veggies and rice

Saturday

lunch - kids' choice of fast food - probably the old favourite, McDonald's !

dinner - sandwiches and fridge clearout

Sunday

lunch - I have a sachet of creamy Caribbean chicken curry spices, which sounds good - with rice & veg

dinner - sandwiches and/or fridge clearout

***Click on my Menu Plans tag to see all my other weekly menu plan blogposts.***

Book review : The Geography of Friendship - Sally Piper

The Geography of Friendship follows three old high-school friends, now in their thirties, as they recreate a hike through the Australian wilderness that they last undertook over twenty years ago, as carefree, innocent teenagers. Lisa, Samantha and Nicole all seem reluctant to take part in the trek, but they nevertheless set off, as a team, determined to make it through to the end, whatever it takes.

It turns out that this is much more than just a recreation of their happy, youthful adventures though. Just as they were back in their schooldays, Lisa is a fighter, Samantha a peacekeeper and Nicole a rule follower. None of them seems particularly happy with the way their life has turned out - a bitter divorce, an unhappy marriage, unsatisfactory relations with their kids, ... - but how much of this is due to their earlier trip, and will a revisit sort things out or make things worse?

The novel uses a double timeline, revealing more and more details of what went on on that earlier trip as they make their way along the trails. As a mother of teenage daughters, I felt instantly on edge as I witnessed their carefree, overly confident attitude as they set out on a five day trip, with rucksacks on their back and no plans for keeping themselves safe. These days, everyone would have mobile phones, but back in the good old days, they were completely on their own, with just their brains, teamwork and hopefully a bit of good luck to see them through safe and sound.

This would be a great title for a book club to read, as I'm sure modern women would quite possibly react to it in a different way to the older generations (like me !). It could be seen as an important story for our time, in the advent of the #metoo movement and women’s increasing awareness of the cultural and societal forces that limit their free movement, or maybe a tale of over-confident, bolshy young girls who get themselves into trouble through their own stupidity and brashness.

It's an interesting read, either way, with characters who have a universal appeal, despite the Australian setting. It was a Women's Weekly Australia Book Club Great Read and I can see it being equally popular in the UK.

star rating : 4.5/5

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Legend Press (1 Feb. 2019)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1789550181
• ISBN-13: 978-1789550184
• Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 19.8 cm

Disclosure : I received a review copy of the book, in order to share my honest review.

Fab freebies of the week 9/2

Woohoo, it's the weekend ... and it's also half term for us, which is great news :) Let's kick things off in style with this week's round up of the best UK freebies. Enjoy !

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Head down to Debenham's if you have the Beauty card ... We know that a good lipstick is the number one handbag essential for everybody. (And what better than a cute sample size?) Pick up the latest Beauty Club sample in stores from Friday 8th February. This Make Up For Ever high-pigment formula (in shade c211) offers a super easy application lasting up to eight hours.

Check out all the great water-saving freebies on offer from Affinity Water, from shower heads and cistern bags to universal sink plugs

Give your New Year detox a wonderful boost with this prize – Qi is giving away 20 bamboo presentation boxes which have been filled with a selection of six of the finest green, white and speciality teas, renowned for their natural health benefits and cleansing properties. Fifty runners up will each receive a travel tin filled with six different tea samples, so you can find out which is your favourite.

We are looking for 30 women who are 12 to 25 weeks pregnant to join our latest MadeForMums product test and try out the new and improved Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Formula Massage Lotion for Stretch Marks, £6.00, Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Formula Massage Cream for Stretch Marks, £6.00, and Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Formula Tummy Butter for Stretch Marks, £6.25 – and give us their feedback.

Sign up for a Munchy Seeds recipe book

Caboodle Firsts: Get one of 100 copies of Alice Feeney's I Know Who You Are

Join the Purity Natural Beauty review panel and get your hands on free products to test

100 READERS TO WIN A DR. HAUSCHKA CLEANSING BUNDLE WORTH OVER £70 EACH

Fill in the form below to apply for a fungus lab for a team of five people. You could even choose to battle it out with other teams to be crowned the best fungus growers in the land!

Vileda have a washing line challenge game with lots of prizes up for grabs

Over at Caring Every Day, you can get a £5 off the NEUTROGENA® Hydro Boost Range - that's enough for a free Hydro Boost Whipped Body Balm ! They lots of other smaller money off vouchers too, which may come in handy

WIN 1 OF 2,500 TEA INDIA CHAI LATTE SAMPLE PACKS

Princes Corned Beef is a much loved store cupboard staple that has featured in family food for generations. To help rekindle happy childhood memories, each week starting 5.2.19 and ending 1.4.19, 500 lucky winners will be selected from all entries for a free can.

Sign up for Super Savvy Me's new project for Olay Regenerist Whip Moisturiser

Sign up today to receive a free single flavor variety High Meat Fillet pack for your small breed dog or cat from True Instinct

Hmmmmm grab a free pack of Nuii ice cream bars (worth £3.80) on shopmium ... or how about some Doisy & Dam chocolate?

Cadbury are giving you the chance to win an experience with a Premier League legend, plus thousands of other fantastic Cadbury FC prizes. Simply take or upload a photo of your Cadbury product to get started.

Insiders, we’re looking for 200 owners and their cat to take part in this Dentalife campaign by sharing and recording their results.

You can see previous weeks' freebie roundups by clicking here but be warned, many of the offers are only valid for a short time. Let me know if any have expired and I'll remove them from the roundup.

You may also like to enter my current giveaways :

Giveaway #710 : Win an Ultimate Eye Twisters book - closing date 9/2

Giveaway #711 : Win a Milton antibacterial bundle - closing date 13/2

Book review : Pulp - Robin Talley

Written by award-winning author Robin Talley, Pulp simultaneously tells two tales of teenage love and angst, separated by sixty years, but with a surprising number of echoes.

In 2017, Abby Cohen is having a tough time. Her ex-girlfriend, who she is still friends with, seems to be sending out mixed signals, her parents apparently can't stand to be in the same room together and she just has no motivation to get stuck into her college applications or the mountain of overdue school assignments that she needs to hand in. One project soon becomes her new obsession though : a project on classic 1950's lesbian pulp fiction and in particular, one author, Marian Love.

In parallel, back in 1955, eighteen-year-old Janet Jones has her own share of problems too. She is in love with her best friend Marie and is just starting to follow her dream of becoming a writer, secretly penning her first story of lesbian love. It may seem harmless to modern readers, but back in the age of McCarthyism, to be gay was to sin and they risked losing their jobs and even the support of their families.

While the book will undoubtedly appeal to the LGBTQ market, I also found it fascinating as a heterosexual mum, especially in terms of historical fiction. I'd heard of President McCarthy and was aware of his campaign, ruthlessly seeking out communists and Soviets in the American government, but I didn't know that this also extended to gay people. The Lavender Scare, a term that I had never even heard of before, refers to the witch-hunt that McCarthy conducted against homosexuals in America. It must have been a scary time to have lived in, constantly wondering who would be telling tales - real or imagined - about you.

It is interesting to see how times have changed - Abby can be open about her sexuality and nobody is concerned about it, whereas Janet and her contemporaries have to live in secret or settle for a good old traditional, two-point-four-kids-and-a-picket-fence lifestyle to be happy and accepted by society - but also to realise that the teenage years are complicated, whichever day and age you live in.

star rating : 4/5

RRP : £7.99

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: HQ Young Adult (13 Dec. 2018)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 184845712X
• ISBN-13: 978-1848457126

Disclosure : I received a review copy of the book.

Madhouse recipe : Coconut chicken

This is such a simple dish that takes literally minutes to throw together and can be spiced up or down, depending on who you're cooking for. As I was catering for kids, I left out the spice, but feel free to add cumin or chilli towards the end if you want to add some heat. Delicious served with rice. I think this would be a great way of using up leftover chicken after the Sunday roast too.

Coconut chicken

ingredients :

drizzle of olive oil

4 chicken breasts

1 onion

1 red pepper

2 tbsp tomato puree

25cl coconut milk (or add extra if you have it and want more sauce)

salt, pepper

optional : garlic salt, cumin, chilli

Get all your ingredients to hand. Peel and chop the onion. Slice the chicken and red pepper into chunks.

Put some oil in the pan and heat it up, then start cooking the chicken. 

After 5 minutes or so, add the red pepper and onion. Cook, stirring frequently, until the chicken is cooked through and the vegetables have started to go soft. 

Add the tomato concentrate, the coconut milk, salt, pepper and the spices, if using. Give it all a good stir and heat until the coconut milk starts to bubble.

This used up odds and ends from the fridge, as well as a carton of coconut milk that had been lurking in my cupboard, so I'm adding it to the #KitchenClearout linky.

Daddy Hairdo with Vosene Kids (review)

Last week, the Madhouse kids were delighted to wake up and discover a pristine, white landscape outside the windows - woohoo, we'd had snow ! This involved them getting dressed and racing outside for lots of sliding about, giggling and throwing snowballs at each other before it melted. After that, there was just one thing they wanted - a nice hot bath to warm up (or a nice mug of hot chocolate as they waited for their turn to warm up !). This was the perfect time to bring out a package that Vosene had delivered to us, including three of their fruity shampoos which all of the Madhouse kids love using : Strawberry 2-in-1 shampoo, Melon 2-in-1 shampoo and 2-in-1 shampoo with Pomelo and Vitamin C. They smell gorgeous and are great for dealing with all hair types, from Pierre's cropped hair to the girls' long locks. I even use it myself as it smells so nice ! 

While waiting for Pierre's turn, we sat down with the book that was also in the package : Daddy Hairdo by Francis Martin and Claire Powell. 

We giggled as we looked at the proud dad,with his hair that was longer than his baby daughter's.

However, as she grew, so did her hair. After catching up with her dad's luscious locks, her hair continued to grow while his disappeared. Oops !

Her hair continued to grow and grow, until it started causing all sorts of problems in her daily life, giving her hiding place away when they played hide and seek or stopping her from getting in through the door of her favourite sweet shop ! 

But it was another case of Dad to the rescue - he popped her off to the hairdresser's and she got a lovely crop. He, on the other hand, remained bald - hee hee hee !

We loved the story and it was perfect for passing the time while waiting for the bath to become free. There was only one question remaining - Strawberry, Melon or Pomelo? Hmmmm decisions decisions !

Disclosure : We received a package of shampoos and a book from Vosene - many thanks !

What's Cooking at The Madhouse? menu plan 2019 week #6

One more week until the holidays - pheweee ! - but sadly, it's an extra long one, with parent-teacher evenings on Tuesday and Thursday - boo ! That means I'm adding in some simple dishes like frozen pizzas that Sophie or Juliette should be able to prepare, in case I get back too late to cook. Roll on, the holidays - I think we could all do with some time to chill out !

Monday 

dinner - coconut chicken stew with rice & maybe some extra veggies

Tuesday 

dinner - frozen pizza, as I'll be in late

Wednesday 

lunch - potjevleesch, which is a Flemish dish made of cold meats (chicken, rabbit, pork, ...) in jelly, that you eat with chips to melt the jelly (there's a jar in the fridge that needs using up, but I'm the only one that likes it - Madhouse Daddy bought it before he died so it seems weird eating it, but it's just taking up space otherwise !) - with chips and salad - I'll do some nuggets for the kids, if they don't want to eat it

dinner - shepherd's pie

Thursday 

dinner - tomato and mozzarella pasta (or maybe leftover shepherd's pie, if there is any)

Friday  

 dinner - pork risotto

Saturday

lunch - kids' choice of fast food - probably the old favourite, McDonald's !

dinner - sandwiches and fridge clearout

Sunday

lunch - chicken, rice and veggie fritters

dinner - sandwiches and/or fridge clearout

***Click on my Menu Plans tag to see all my other weekly menu plan blogposts.***

Book review : A Friend In Deed - G.D. Harper

The opening page of A Friend In Deed tells us that the story is set in London, a few years from now. This immediately had me feeling nervous, as I was expecting the impromptu appearance of power-crazed robot leaders or hordes of marauding werewolves or zombies, but my unease turned out to be unfounded - the only difference between now and then is that a new populist political party, Act Now!, has taken power in Britain. 

Duncan Jones, a political journalist and blogger, finds himself pushed out of his job at a national newspaper and turns to investigative reporting instead. On one of his regular visits to an art gallery, Duncan bumps into a beautiful, young Ukrainian woman called Tanya and a friendship develops. Still working as a freelance, he links up with a hacker to uncover some big stories that he can sell to the papers, and Tanya ends up helping him out, unwittingly giving him a lead for his first story, then helping with translating. As he follows the story through, uncovering that Act Now! has been funded by the Russians, he comes into contact with various sources in Russia, taking a particularly nerve-wracking trip there to uncover some new leads. He soon discovers that nothing is as he first thought.

It's a tense read, with the reader never really knowing what will happen to Duncan if he uncovers too many uncomfortable truths. The world of politics seems to have gone crazy lately, with Trump and Brexit throwing up so many notions of impending world doom and uncertainty that secret political unions and betrayal seem quite possible, if not probable. The scary stories going on on Russian soil in the book seemed overly dramatic - I found it hard to believe that such things still go on in this day and age - but maybe that's just wishful thinking ! The characters are quite complex and imperfectly perfect, which helps make it all quite believable.

This is the second book in a trilogy, with the first part - Love's Long Road - set in the 1970's and telling the story of Duncan's friend, Bobby. Bobby does put in a few appearances in this novel and there are a few references to past events, which were presumably the content of that first novel. However, the book can be enjoyed as a standalone novel too. The third part of the story, Silent Money, will pick up on another character who puts in an appearance at the end of the book (and, presumably, in the first novel too) and will focus on life as a crime lord in 1970's Britain.

It's an original and enjoyable book series, that will appeal to fans of crime fiction, political thrillers and a damn good read !

star rating : 4/5

RRP : £9.99

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing (18 Oct. 2018)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1789016800
• ISBN-13: 978-1789016802

Disclosure : I received a review copy of the book.

Fab freebies of the week 2/2

Hands up if you've got snow ! I'm currently writing this on Friday, as I'll be at work on Saturday morning for our school's open day, and we had snow overnight. There are still dribs and drabs about but it's pretty much melted already. I got a phone call at work to go and pick up Pierre, who wasn't feeling well, and as I travelled across town, there are some areas that still have a few centimetres. No idea if we're due any more over the weekend - time will tell ! While we wait, here's a new round-up of the best UK freebies to keep you busy !

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Treat yourself to 6 issues of Woman’s Weekly for £1

Sign up to H Samuel's Chamilia Club to get a free £10 voucher - they have bracelet charms reduced to £10, which you can pick up for free instore (or have delivered for £2.95)

Join Friends of Krispy Kreme today and get exclusive access to all of the benefits below plus much, much more. -Includes free doughnut just for joining)

This month's Debenham's Beauty Club freebie went live yesterday - you can pick up a Free Peel Off Face Mask from Shiseido

@myvapebox

British-made – we offer a range of 12 fantastic flavours for you to enjoy. Try our e-liquids for FREE – https://buff.ly/2LV63Sz (UK & 18+ only) #myvapebox #freetrial #freebie #clouds #vaping #eliquid #vape #vapingproducts #ejuice #ecig #vaper #vapeon

Grab a code for a free Glossybox in Simply Be's Perks section

Grab a sample of Lancome's Advanced Génifique

Ooh this likes a nice freebies for the men - APPLY FOR YOUR CHANCE TO BE ONE OF THE 80,000 BRITS TO TRY THE HYDRO 5 SENSE RAZOR! Answer 5 quick questions & you could receive a Hydro 5 Sense™ razor – free!

Caboodle Firsts: Get one of 100 copies of High-Rise Mystery for young booklovers

Grab a free bottle of Vita Coco Coconut Milk with Shopmium

You can see previous weeks' freebie roundups by clicking here but be warned, many of the offers are only valid for a short time. Let me know if any have expired and I'll remove them from the roundup.

You may also like to enter my current giveaways :

Giveaway #710 : Win an Ultimate Eye Twisters book - closing date 9/2

Giveaway #711 : Win a Milton antibacterial bundle - closing date 13/2

#KitchenClearout January roundup and February linky

OK, where did January go? It only seems a few days ago that it was the Christmas holidays and now, it's only a week until the February half term holidays. No complaints about that, but nevertheless, time is going shooting past lately. Ah well, that does mean the summer is getting nearer, with some nice sunshine and lazy days on the way - that sounds great to me at the moment !

So, this month, what have we all been clearing out of our kitchens?

Galina from Chez Maximka started things off with some Flatbread made with Brine - a fabulous way of using up the brine from a jar of pickles, which, I must be honest, is something I usually throw away. Definitely worth trying out, as it looks delicious !

On to a sweet recipe next - Brownie-style cookies were a very tasty way of using up some brown sugar and cocoa powder from the baking cupboard. I have everything I need to make these again so the kids may be in luck this weekend !

I wasn't sure how this would turn out but it was actually very nice and made a nice change from the usual cottage pie with minced beef. Fish finger pie, with potato-topped fish fingers, baked beans and red peppers,  was very popular with the whole family and used up some leftover boiled potatoes. Perfect !

You can't go wrong with Chicken Stir Fry - it's always a great way of getting the kids to eat veggies without complaining if you give them a pair of chopsticks each ! This was a great way of using up some leftover roast chicken, a pack of noodles from a recent Degustabox and all sorts of veggies from the bottom of the fridge.

Hogslop is not a very encouraging name for a recipe but it turned out really nice and was a great way of using up some cooked potatoes (again - why do I always seem to cook too many ?!). This was inspired by a #readcookeat recipe from a book, which is always great fun too.

Feeling inspired and fancy joining in? Have a rummage through your kitchen cupboards, spice rack, freezer or fridge and see if there's anything that needs using up, then come and share your creations with us. Or if it's way past its sell-by date, throw it in the bin and come and tell us what you found ! It would be great if you could add my badge and a link to this post for anyone else who wants to get involved.

Right it looks like inlinkz's free link-up tool is working again, but if there's ever an issue, just leave a link to your post in the comments section :)