Food

A summary of posts on NorthHantsMum, related to food.

10 Places to Breakfast “out” with Children in North Hampshire

Posted by Louise NorthHantsMum on in Cafe's, Children, Food, Outings, Restaurants 1 Comment

As a parent you and your family are probably up early. Why not make the most of your weekend and indulge in breakfast out. If you plan well it doesn’t have to cost the earth and gives your family a great start to the weekend. Or, you could arrange to catch up with other families for breakfast as you know they will be up too!

1. Nelsons Diner – On the way to Newbury

I love Nelsons for breakfast. They do a great American breakfast, pancakes with maple syrup. If you aren’t watching your waistline, I totally recommend the milkshakes. Totally moreish. (I may regret putting up such a raving review next time we try to get a table! :-D)

2. Dayers – Chineham Business Park

They are only open from 8am until 3pm and don’t have baby changing facilities but they are generally very quiet in the morning and do a good breakfast. They do have free wireless though, if you can juggle that and a child! It’s only open on week days for breakfast though.

3. Sainsburys – Hatch Warren

4. Debenhams – Town Centre

There is a baby room next to the Restaurant. They also offer a special children’s menu and provide baby food and bottle warming facilities, free bibs and wipes.

5. BHS – Town Centre

Breakfast is £1.99 when you buy any hot drink before 11.30am

6. Morrisons – Brookvale

7. Frankie and Benny’s

Not sure whether I should be suggesting this place because the last few times I’ve eaten here friends have been sick afterwards. It could have been coincidence as it happened twice, but I haven’t dared risk it again!

(Dec 2013 – We tried again and had the pancakes for breakfast which were yummy. No one got sick this time ;-). They have a children’s menu and baby changing facilities.)

8. The Beach Arms – Oakley

Not eaten here yet but it’s on my list of places to try.

9. Wyevale Garden Centre – Sherfield on Loddon

I would recommend signing up to the Gardening Club they have because you can also use the points for meals. They also send you deals out in the post which can often work out to be very reasonable.

10. The Harvester

8 Reasonably Priced Restaurants in Basingstoke (Meal for 2 for under £15)

Posted by Louise NorthHantsMum on in Basingstoke, Cafe's, Food, Money, Restaurants 0 Comment

Sometimes I really miss the lifestyle I had before having a family. Specifically the spontaneity of being able to eat out. We still try to eat out when we can justify the cost, which is why I’m always looking for cheaper places to eat that don’t mind children and won’t break the bank. Let me know if there is a restaurant or cafe that I’ve missed!

1. Debenhams Restaurant

There is a baby room next to the Restaurant. They also offer a special children’s menu and provide baby food and bottle warming facilities, free bibs and wipes.

The restaurant is open until 8pm most week days

2. Olivers Fish and Chips

They have an early Bird Deal at the moment.

The restaurant is open every day until 10.30pm, but check the website to confirm this.

They do have baby changing facilities and colouring and crayons for bigger children. Maybe a place to visit if you are lucky enough to have a night out alone with your partner/husband.

3. The Trawlerman, Chineham Shopping Centre

(Couldn’t find a website)

4. Marks and Spencers Cafe – Chineham

Please see a previous post HERE for details about the cafe at M&S in Chineham.

5. Sainsburys Cafe at Hatchwarren

The restaurant is open until 8pm every day except Sunday. However, I think they stop serving hot meals at 7pm.

6. Festival Plaice

I haven’t eaten here and I’m not sure if they have baby changing facilities or are very children friendly.

7. Nando’s

Open until 11pm most nights and has baby changing facilities.

8. Pizza Hut

There are two Pizza Hut restaurants in Basingstoke, one in Festival Place and one near Toys R Us. They seem to have a pretty good set up for children although I wonder how healthy the meals are.

Weaning Ideas

Posted by Louise NorthHantsMum on in Weaning 0 Comment

These are some tips that I’ve picked up from other Mum’s with regards to things you might need whilst weaning your little one:

  • A high chair – If you don’t want to spend a fortune, Ikea do some really cheap but perfectly practical high chairs. However, I recently found the following article about them…Ikea Highchairs
  • At least three soft-tipped plastic spoons
  • At least three plastic bowls
  • Lots of large, wipe-clean or washable bibs (sleeved coverall bibs are great for when your baby starts feeding themslves and make sure they have patterns on. If they are white, it may look like you haven’t washed them properly!)
  • A food processor or hand-held blender to quickly whizz up purees
  • Ice cube trays or small lidded plastic pots for freezing individual portions. See the related post below about the Lakeland Oxo tot range. It’s expensive but I found it much better than the Annabel Karmel equivalents.
  • Wipes or cloths – E-cloths are expensive but are great as you only need water and don’t have to fork out on cleaning sprays too. They last for at least 300 washes.
  • A splash mat or groundsheet can be useful for protecting the floor
  • Little pots if you want to freeze single portions. Apparently PoundLand sell the Tommee Tippee pots x 3 for £1.
  • I highly recommend Annabel Karmel’s mini ice lolly set. You can fill the moulds with fruit or even savoury mush and then freeze it. When your little one is teething they might find it easier to use the lolly’s.
  • Visit your local Farm shop to see what organic produce they have available.
  • Check out Able and Cole or Riverford for their box delivery schemes in the area. Able and Cole do a Baby and Toddler box with appropriate fruit and veg.

Do you have any other hints or tips that you would like to share? Please add a comment below. Thanks!

Related Posts

Top Tip 16: Oxo Tot Ice cube trays for weaning

GPW: KiddieCubes

What is Baby Led Weaning?

Top Tip 12: Weaning Food (Frozen Fruit in Porridge)

Food: Feeding our children

Online Food Shopping

My Meal Planning in 2012

Posted by Louise NorthHantsMum on in Food, Health 0 Comment

Following on from yesterdays post about the joy of Slow cookers, I thought I’d follow up with a post about meal planning.

Meal planning is one of the things that helps our family keep on track and stops us from reaching into the cupboard and eating the quickest, easiest and normally most unhealthy, food we can find. I’ve been meal planning for several years but it was more a case of buying in food for the week and choosing which meal we wanted as and when. Now I’m back at work, we have less money and we have a baby, things have needed to be planned better. We’ve started to use the concept of having a certain type of meal each evening. Ours is:

  • Monday – Vegetarian
  • Tuesday – Slow Cooker (We have activities on Tues evening so we need something very quick)
  • Wednesday – Fish
  • Thursday – Pasta with homemade pasta sauce (we have more activities on Thurs evening so need something very quick here too)
  • Friday – Takeout/Dineout/Homemade Pizza/whatever we can find in the freezer
  • Saturday – I normally put in a fancy dish that takes a bit more time if we aren’t out and about
  • Sunday – Roast

This means that I no longer need to think about meals nor do I have to constantly answer my husband’s questions asking what we are having for dinner that evening. He knows that if it’s Monday, its vegetarian (his particular pet hate, but I think we are getting there slowly! What is it about some men and vegetables? lol). If it’s Wednesday it’s fish. Sometimes we chop and change Tues and Thurs so have a slow cooker meal on a Thurs instead of Tues. He knows that if he comes home on a Tues and the house doesn’t smell of slow cooked food, we are having pasta.

We use the MealBoard Application on iTunes as we both have iPAD’s (the iPADS’s have been our one indulgence in the past couple of years!). It allows me to add breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for each day. I love this because it ensures that we don’t waste that much food and reminds me to ensure that we have healthy snacks available. It also allows me to create templates based on one or two week’s existing meal plans, so I can just copy in a template for future weeks and move things around as I like. I don’t use the templates as often as I could because I like to keep as much variety in our meals as possible. You can sync the application to other Apple products which means that my husband can immediately check what we are having for dinner on any given day, and often he will start the cooking if I’m not back in time.

The MealBoard Application works for us but there are many other types of meal planning tools that you could use.

Using Meal Board and shopping online means that I can plan our meals and shopping in about 5 minutes now. I estimate that this planning gives me about an hour to two hours a week back with my family. Meal planning also helps me to ensure that we have at least one portion of fish a week, at least one vegetarian meal a week and that we are eating as much variety as we can.

I’ve enclosed a few links below that you might find interesting reading…

Sainsburys Meal Planning and Meal Ideas (I really like this site. They have some great recipes that are quick, cheap and easy to make).

Back to the Basics: Meal Planning I love Simple Mom’s website. It’s an American site but she has some great ideas and really appeals to my planning and organising nature.

Imperfect, Flexible, Doable Meal Blueprint

The six meal shuffle: extremely simple meal planning This is also an American website but Megan has some great tips and ideas.

3 Fail proof ways to stick to meal planning An American website but still some great ideas.

 

I love my Slow Cooker!!!

Posted by Louise NorthHantsMum on in Slow Cooker 0 Comment

I realize how tragic that statement is, but at the moment, I really do love it. It’s helping my family eat healthy, nutritious meals that I haven’t had to slave over in the kitchen for hours. I believe that one of the most important things as a Mum is to ensure that your family are eating and exercising well. Both of these set your loved ones up in good stead for the future.

My Slow Cooker enables me to spend more time with my family doing fun things or going for walks and still enables me to feed them well. We had a small slow cooker that was suitable for two people but it never seemed to create enough food for a whole meal. Now that there are three of us I’ve upgraded to a much bigger slow cooker so that I can cook two meals at the same time, saving time, money and energy! We often have one half of the cooked meal for dinner and then I split the rest of the meal and freeze it to use for dinner another day or for lunch at work. We’ve also found that in the colder weather the slow cooker cooks the right kind of meals, warm and nourishing whilst being healthy and nutritious. It’s wonderful to come home to a kitchen that smells of yummy dinner.

I’ve done a lot of research over the past few months since falling in love with my slow cooker.  It’s amazing how many recipies can be adapted for the slow cooker.

  •  If you are cooking your meat for long enough, you don’t even need to brown it off first, just chuck it all into the pot.
  • I’ve read somewhere that in order for your slow cooker to be most cost effective you should use it on the low setting the majority of the time.

I know this sounds very organized but I think you need to be when you have children. A little bit of planning goes an awfully long way and anything that helps to decrease my stress levels is worth it!

Check out the following links which show the best slow cooker’s on the UK market and some easy slow cooker recipes to get you started…

Farm Shops in Basingstoke/North Hampshire

Posted by Louise NorthHantsMum on in Basingstoke, Food, Health, North Hampshire, Shopping 0 Comment

Farm Shops are great places to look for organic/local produce for your children to eat. Several shops sell weaning boxes at reasonable prices. April 2013 Post: Pick Your Own Farm’s in North Hampshire and Berkshire September 2013 Post: Review: NorthDown Orchard Deliveries

Local Farm Shops

Manydown Farm Shop – Worting Road, Basingstoke Family run award winning butcher, pie and sausage maker and farm shop.

  • Scrapps Hill Farm, 550 Worting Road, Basingstoke, Hampshire
  • Tel: 01256 460 068

Newlyns Farm Shop – North Warnborough, Hook Newlyns Farm is an award winning farm shop located in North Warnborough and Andover, both in North Hampshire.

  • Lodge Farm, Hook Road, North Warnborough, Hook
  • Tel: 01256 704 128

Portland Farm Shop (no website) – North Waltham Farm shop selling free range eggs, seasonal local vegetables,fruit, honey and preserves. Some PYO when fruit is ready.

  • Portland Farm, Popham Lane, North Waltham, Basingstoke, Hampshire
  • 01256 398593
  • The Wellington Farm Shop – Hook Offering the highest quality locally sourced fresh meat, cheese and produce, Wellington Farm Shop provides discerning rural residents a shopping experience synonymous with the fine food stores of London.
  • Park Corner Farm, Welsh Lane, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 0LJ
  • Tel: 0118 932 6132

Mill Farm Organic Shop – Alton We are a small traditional family run farm, farming to Soil Association Organic Standards. We have had our full organic status for 6 years now. We have two farm trails/walks open throughout the year on and around the farm.

  • Mill Farm, Isington, Alton, Hampshire, GU34 4PN
  • Tel: 01420 22331

Luxury Afternoon Tea in Basingstoke

Posted by Louise NorthHantsMum on in Food, Gifts, Outings, Restaurants 1 Comment

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For those days when you really need spoiling! These are some ideas for Luxury Afternoon Tea in and around Basingstoke.

Audley’s Wood Hotel

Alton Road, Basingstoke, Alton, Hampshire RG25 2JT

At Audleys Wood Hotel we delight guests with our traditional afternoon tea in Hampshire. What better place to enjoy this fine tradition than in the grand drawing room of this historic country house. Gaze out the ceiling high windows whilst savouring each of our carefully prepared cakes, dainty sandwiches and the finest leaf tea, served to perfection.

  • Full Afternoon Tea costs £15.50 per person and Cream Tea costs £8.50 per person.
  • Upgrade to a Royal Afternoon Tea and enjoy a glass of Champagne for £24.50 per person.

Tel: 01256 817555

The Four Seasons Hotel

Dogmersfield Park, Chalky Lane, Dogmersfield, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 8TD

Located in the Manor House, The Library has been restored to its former glory as an elegant, beautifully appointed residents’ lounge. Decorated in warm earth tones, The Library boasts an abundance of lush armchairs, supple sofas and coffee tables for relaxation and luxury.

  • Traditional afternoon tea, The Library’s speciality, is served daily from 3-5pm.

Tel: 01252 853000

Tylney Hall

 Rotherwick, Hook, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom, RG27 9AZ

Cream tea £15.00 per person –  Scones, preserves and tea (available Monday to Friday)

  • Full tea £22.00 per person – Sandwiches, cakes and scone (available Monday to Sunday)
  • Champagne tea£30.00 per person – Sandwiches, cakes, scones and a glass of Canard Duchene (available Monday to Sunday)

Afternoon tea is served from 3.30pm until 5pm from Monday to Saturday and from 4.00pm – 5.00pm on Sundays.

Tel: 01256 764881

Oakley Hall

Rectory Road, Oakley, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG23 7EL

Afternoon Tea served between 2pm and 5pm, seven days a week, either on the Garden Terrace or in the Library.

  • Afternoon tea is priced at £17.95 per adult and £8.95 for children.
  • Full Afternoon Tea with a glass of Reynier Champagne £26.95 per person.

To Book please contact reception on +44(0)1256 783350 or reception@oakleyhall-park.com

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