If I Knew Then What I Know Now

As some of you know, I volunteer at Faithworks Foodbank. Faithworks has many facets to it and one of them is an amazing initiative called SMILE. SMILE provides support, activities and friendship to lone parent families, whose goal is to create a community of families who support each other and live everyday to the full. SMILE is made of three types of support: VIP sessions with other lone parent families, SMILE Plus with other community groups in churches and an online community.

Over the summer holidays, Smile collaborated with Dorset’s Cooking and Food Education Charity, The Friendly Food Club and put together the Yellow bag Initiative. This comprised of 4 yellow recipe bags that were delivered on a weekly basis by volunteers, to our doorstep. Each bag contained a recipe and all the ingredients needed to cook that meal, from scratch. I was one of the lucky lone parents to be able to take part and what fun it was!!!!

The first Yellow bag to arrive on our doorstep was the Mac & Cheese bag. I LOVE Mac & Cheese. My kids not so much but I knew that by getting them involved, they would be more prepared to try it and so the challenge was set, for them to cook dinner for me for a change 🤞

The kids started with boiling the macaroni and then moved on to grating the cheese and getting everything ready for the sauce mix. I have to admit, it took a lot of self control not to go in to the kitchen to facilitate but I didn’t, much to the kids delight.

They checked in with me every once in a while to make sure they were doing it right and it was wonderful seeing how confident they became when I checked in with them, if they needed any help. They didn’t.

When putting the assembled dish in the oven, I have to admit, it smelled amazing. We had a bag of spinach in the fridge so chopped that up and added it to the mix. Nothing wrong with getting the token ‘green item’ into them while we were at it. I am happy to report that everyone enjoyed their home made Mac & Cheese. The kids were even more pleased at how easy they found it – to follow the recipe and make a wholesome hearty meal at home! Result!

The following week, we received our second Yellow Bag which was – ‘Quick Rainbow Pizza Faces’.

Wow!!! was what the kids said when they emptied the bag. All the different ingredients made them quite excited and made me happy, seeing their eagerness to get stuck in to cooking dinner again. My SEN child doesn’t usually partake much in the kitchen but this recipe bag brought her in to the kitchen. It got her helping with making the dough and layering up her own pizza. It was lovely to see and even more so because this meal became a whole family experience, spattered with lots of talking and laughter.

First things first…. the base needed making. I’ve got teenagers now and didn’t expect them to be quite as happy as they were, making, squeezing, squishing, rolling and slamming the dough mix 🤣 . They are at that age where pretty much any ‘chore’ is met with moans and groans. But not this time, they couldn’t wait to get stuck in. They took turns making the dough and once done they ‘dressed’ their own pizza. It was amusing hearing them checking out each others toppings alongside the odd complaint that one had taken more cheese than the other.

The result? 3 kids + 3 homemade pizzas = 3 happy and stuffed kids!! It’s funny, no matter how old the kids get, the delight on their faces when they see a finished meal that they have prepared from scratch, always makes my heart sing!

I went a bit rouge and added a load of other ingredients that I had left in the fridge, to my pizza. It tasted delicious and I hate to say but I felt a bit miffed that the kids wanted to try some of mine too 😂

Next up, we received our Fish Cake Yellow bag. Now I absolutely love a fish cake and home made ones are the best.

This was a team effort and true to form, us being a foodie family, we couldn’t help but tinker with the ingredients. We added some turmeric, some cumin powder and a fish stock cube. We do like to spice it up here. The pounding of the sweetcorn and the subsequent squelching of ingredients together in the bowl, brought no end of joy to my lot.

The recipe called for home made sweet potato chips but having potentially overdosed my lot on sweet potato when they were babies, normal potato chips were requested and I obliged. I made a small cucumber and red pepper salad to go with it and we had a super tasty dinner that night. This was probably one of the most labour intensive meals from the yellow bags so far but the effort was so very worth it. The fish cakes tasted delicious and were a great way to get a variety of foods on one plate.

Finally, the last recipe bag arrived on week 4. This one was a sweet potato and chickpea curry. Now, we are curry aficionados in this house and cook them quite regularly. We were keen to discover what this would end up like and got to it with gusto.

The kids were somewhat dubious because of the sweet potato but were prepared to give it a go. Again we added a bit extra garlic, ginger and turmeric and while the curry simmered on the stove we made our home made naan bread (which the kids enjoyed making but me not so much because of all the flour everywhere 😮)

The naan bread ended up a bit flatter than we had hoped. They still tasted spot on and the curry though delicious, didn’t go down so well with the kids. They found it a bit too sweet. However that meant I was able to portion up and freeze the remaining for another day when time for cooking would be tricky. Another definite win for me!!

All in all the collaboration between SMILE and The Friendly Food Club was a brilliant initiative. There were 39 other families that took part. We were able to work together via a What’s app group where we shared our issues, photos and successes. I felt this made the whole ‘event’ a much more enjoyable experience because it felt like we were part of a team, a wider community and that is the essence of what SMILE is all about. So thank you for giving us this opportunity to take part and for giving me a few nights off from cooking dinner 😉👌❤️