Recently I was inspired by Britmums to make tasty family meals that included a jar of Dolmio. From Spaghetti Bolognese to Mushroom & Spinach Cannelloni and a Vegetable Moussaka we’ve been enjoying delicious vegetarian dishes that are simple to put together and provide really hearty family meals packed full of healthy vegetables along with Dolmio.

With a delightful array of ingredients sent to us, I was excited to get cooking. Being vegetarian I used soya mince in the bolognese which the kids enjoy (even though they are meat eaters) and the other dishes were purely vegetable based. I was surprised to learn that each jar of Dolmio provides a family of four each with 1 of their 5 a day.

Dolmio Bolognese Original 500g sauce is 100% natural. In each jar, you’ll find at least 10 juicy diced tomatoes, a dollop of tomato puree, half an onion, a tablespoon of sunflower oil, a couple of cloves of garlic, a handful of herbs including basil, a teaspoon of cornflour, a teaspoon of salt, a pinch of pepper, two teaspoons of added beet sugar for taste, a squeeze of lemon juice, a splash of water and nothing more.

Spaghetti Bolognese

We had to start with a traditional style bolognese – one of the kids favourite meals and one that the family all really enjoying sitting down to on a weekday evening.

Not being one to measure my quick dinner ingredients, I used approximately:

2 diced onions
1 grated carrot
1 diced courgette
half a diced red pepper
1 jar of Dolmio
appropriate quantity for 4 of wholemeal spaghetti
sprinkle of grated Parmesan cheese

Mushroom & Spinach Cannelloni

Now when I saw cannelloni tubes in my shopping delivery, I did think what on earth am I going to do with those? As much as I love an M&S spinach and ricotta cannelloni for a lazy meal, I’ve never braved cannelloni tubes myself. So looking at the ingredients I had and knowing the husband is rather fond of mushrooms I decided to concoct a rather simple vegetarian cannelloni with the added help of some Dolmio.

Mushrooms
Frozen Spinach
Half a jar of Dolmio
Cannelloni tubes
Bechamel sauce (made with Cheddar cheese, milk, flour)
Parmesan cheese

I lightly fried some mushrooms along with some of the frozen spinach balls.

And then came the tricky part…. stuffing it into the cannelloni! Clearly I hadn’t thought this through and as I pushed the hot mixture into the tubes they started going slightly soft.. arghh! But not to worry, a little perseverance and I soon had all the tubes well and truly stuffed! I layered a little Dolmio under the tubes then another layer on top before adding some grated cheddar and topping with Parmesan.

Thankfully the dish looked rather scrummy as it made it’s way out of the oven and the husband thoroughly approved! (Result for mummy!)

Vegetable Moussaka

I rather enjoy Moussaka and don’t really follow a recipe, just throw in any vegetables I have around.

For this one I used:

Dolmio
Chickpeas
Red Pepper
2 white onions
Courgette
Aubergine
Bechamel sauce (made with flour/butter/milk/Cheddar cheese)

I started off my slicing and lightly roasting the courgette and aubergine slices and whilst they were cooking I drained the chickpeas, lightly fried the onions and made the cheesy Bechamel sauce.

I then simply layered Dolmio with roasted vegetables, lightly fried onions, a handful of chickpeas and then repeated. To top it of I poured over the Bechamel sauce, added some grated Parmesan and black pepper and cooked in the oven until done.

Voila! One delicious, homemade, vegetarian Moussaka!

Bonus Extra Quick Cheat Meal – Kids Pasta

Having enjoyed Dolmio so much we popped a couple of jars in the trolley when we next visited the supermarket. When the kids need a quick tea between school and evening clubs we just cook up a bit of pasta with some chopped ham, cocktail sausages and grated cheese and that’s their quick bite to eat that they love.

This week however they asked me if I could put some of that ‘yummy’ sauce on it (aka Dolmio), they are a bit fussy with ‘other’ jars of pasta sauce, so I added a few spoonfuls of Dolmio to their cooked pasta, heated it up and there you go – two incredibly happy filled little tummies!!

This post is an entry for the #Dolmio #ThankGoodness Challenge, sponsored by Dolmio.

I’ve always inspired my children to look to the future and encourage them that the small things they do now can make a big difference to life as they get older. From what they learn themselves either from school or tv programmes, they are quite aware of recycling and helping to protect the environment.

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We have two bins in the kitchen and they are always asking which bin to put their rubbish in, the normal waste bin or the recycling bin. They also like to have a rummage too from time to time and turn our rubbish into a fabulous creation!

Here is Mister B’s wonderful junk model volcano!

blakes-volcano-march-2015 We also try to be helpful to the environment in other ways such as turning lights off when we can, keeping heating to a minimum and trying to avoid running taps when unnecessary! (I’m a terrible one for that when cleaning my teeth!)

We recently moved house and now have a large garden which is really lovely and within that we see a lot of wildlife such as birds and squirrels. We also have a large compost bin at the end which we try and fill with scraps with melt down and we can then use to feed the garden with. We also try to grow our own vegetables which has only been on a small scale this year as we’ve just moved in, but we had our own tomatoes and herbs which is really lovely for the children to help water and harvest.

We’d like to be more self sufficient in future years and aim to grow courgettes, beans, potatoes and several other vegetables which not only the children enjoy helping with but leads us to a better future eating home grown produce and relying on pesticide free goods.

Watch this space for our growing adventures over the next year to see what we achieve!

This post is an entry for BritMums #brightFuture Challenge, sponsored by Unilever

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