Meal planning Monday: the wholly disorganised edition

It's that time of the week again already. I'm lucky to be having a long weekend so have tomorrow off. However that doesn't exempt me from meal planning. Although M did cook sausage casserole for tea tonight so aside from a loaf of sourdough I've had pretty much the day off from cooking. 

Friday night was a bit of a baking marathon; snickerdoodle blondies and jam & peanut butter bars for our Division working day yesterday. It's a wonderful day regardless of the weather. One of the things that make me proudest to be a Guiding volunteer is the way that other leaders give up not only their free time for the girls, but unselfishly for projects like maintaining our campsites in the understanding that you can't just take the good things, be they cheap camp fees, beautiful bluebell woods, or pretty much unlimited wood stocks - you must give back and not just monetarily, of yourself and your time. I suppose I'm a huge believer that you get back of life what you put in, and I must say that a day brambling at Cherry is so satisfying in terms of what you can see that you achieve really does make me feel better about the facilities I take for granted as being available to us throughout the year. 

Anyway, back to meal planning - this week I'm training all week again, and then we're off to see M's parents next weekend for the bank holiday. 

Breakfasts: last week they were yoghurt and fruit for me, but as we're out of both it'll be weetabix until we get to the Supermarket!

Lunches: Salads for me again, and I think this week they'll be with smoked mackerel

Dinners: 

Monday: The pot roast beef I meant to do today, roast potatoes, carrots and brocolli

Tuesday: Leftover roast beef with baked potatoes

Wednesday: Cottage pie with peas

Thursday: Leftover cottage pie and vegetables

Hopefully if I can pick up a brisket at the butchers when I'm out on my travels tomorrow, I can slowly pot roast that and it should do enough leftovers for the week. I say that with fingers crossed of course. 

So, that's my week - how's yours shaping up? Be sure to head on over to At Home with Mrs M to see what everyone else has on their meal plan. 

Meal planning Monday: I'm on the train

Outdoor cooking with the Guides

What do you do on an unexpectedly glorious spring evening? Enjoy a glass of wine? Be brave and test out the BBQ? Light 4 fires and teach 24 girls how to cook on them?

Guess which I chose?

Summer term is when our Guides hit their stride, we're outdoors as much as is humanly possible. Some nights we play rounders, others we borrow the Brownie parachute and have a whale of a time playing games some might think we're too old for, we have a campfire, s'mores and singing, and whenever we can, we cook.

Patrol cooking from a leader's perspective is sometimes a bit tricky. You have to let go, not control it, and to a certain extent let the girls make their own mistakes.

We start, as soon as it's light enough by collecting punk (or kindling) in old sweet tins. These tins are refilled each time we cook so that there's always enough dry material to start our fires.

We cook on metal crates, with metal trays on top of them so that we don't burn holes in the grass (not least as we share our hut with a nursery) Once you've got your punk lit, the girls add more and more bigger sticks and pieces of wood until they have good fires going. It takes a while for them to understand that we rarely cook over flames - no matter how pretty they look, but need the fire to die down so we can cook over the white hot embers.

This week was an unheard of universal success, some fires were lit with one match, others took a few more and the only injuries were a burnt finger (mine) and a stabbed toe (another leader's) In terms of safety, both for the girls and ourselves we have a few systems in place to try and keep us all healthy

• Metal water buckets by each fire
• No more than 8 girls working around each fire
• Hair tied back
• Long trousers
• Closed in shoes
• No one turns their back on their fire
• We have heavy pot stands, oven gloves and tongs for the girls to touch and work with hot pots and tinfoil parcels
• Stop. Drop. And roll is reiterated
• Each girl is taught to light a match both confidently and safely
• We work with the girls throughout the year using candles and campfires to chase off any fire based fears

The biggest boon to safety is confidence - not cockiness - but the knowledge that as long as you respect your fire and follow the safety rules you will be safe. We also try to maintain a ratio of 1 leader and 1 older guide per Patrol/fire.

This week we made Cheese dreams and camp bananas. Neither warrants a recipe as such, but I couldn't help but want to post them

Cheese dreams - ingredients

1 egg per girl plus 1 for luck
2 slices of bread per girl (we just use white sliced)
Grated cheese
Butter/ margarine

Equipment

Large bowl
Fork/ whisk
Tin foil
Table knife
Cheese grater
tongs
Pot stand
Oven gloves
Paper plates napkins

Beat the eggs in the bowl using a fork/ whisk
Put the bread in the bowl to soak up the egg mixture (as you would for eggy bread)
Sprinkle as much grated cheese as you want between 2 slices of bread and sandwich together
Heavily butter a double layer of tin foil (enough to wrap your sandwich securely)
Wrap your sandwich up and put it in the fire - the white embers
Cook until the outside is blackened - we found about 15 minutes was enough
Remove from the fire using the tongs
Using either the oven gloves or a leader's fingers (did I mention I got burnt?!) open the tin foil parcel and messily eat from a paper plate

Camp bananas - ingredients

1 banana per girl (and leader)
Chocolate buttons
Marshmallows

Equipment

Tin foil
Table knife
Napkins
Tongs
Pot stand

Slice down the middle of your banana so it opens up (not completely, you don't want it to break in half)
Fill the slit with chocolate buttons and/ or marshmallows
Wrap in a double layer of foil
Place in the fire - again in the embers
After about 15 minutes remove from the fire using tongs
Carefully open the foil using either the oven gloves or a leader's fingers
Enjoy, once again messily

As we cook through the summer, I'll try to post what we do - for many units they'll have been making these for years. But as I'm historically a Brownie leader who fell into Guides, 7 years ago I hadn't and appreciated help from any and all sources.

If you want to see more photos like this - on an almost live basis no less. Why not follow me on instagram?

Guiding and Social Media part two

Hopefully you've seen part one of this series, extolling the benefits of using Social media for your Rainbow, Brownie, Guide or Senior Section unit. This is the write up of the intermediate session run by Rosie from CHQ - again if you've not had this training locally please do direct your local guiders to this post. 

So, lets work on the basis that you're tweeting. You have your unit facebook page up and running and are using it to keep in touch with friends and family. You might have a closed (or secret) group for your Rangers and it's all working well. 

What now? How can you extend your use of social media and  most importantly make it work for you? 

Ultimately of course that's the main question. We're all volunteers - we don't want to be attached to our laptops and smartphones any more than we have to be. I don't know about you but I didn't volunteer as a leader to add a few extra hours each day sweating over Twitter. We need to make our social media channels work for us, not the other way around.

The power of social media lies in it's speed, and the way it encourages engagement. If we're going to campaign we can make use of those strengths to create and sustain a buzz around our message, reach a larger audience over a longer time and ultimately strengthen our message. All in all this means that we increase our impact. 

The starting point of any campaign is the end point. Identify what result you want and work backwards from there. 

• Be specific - is it more volunteers you want? Or in fact do you want 2 new Rainbow leaders?
• Will you be able to tell you've achieved your goal? Make it measurable
• Are you being realistic? Is having every unit in your County fully staffed at all achievable?
• When do you want this to happen by? By being time bound we give ourselves a framework (Again, be realistic!)

The next thing to think about with your planning is who do you want to target? And which social media is appropriate?  Personally I'm a twitter fan* as I feel that you reach a wider audience. Facebook's new(ish) policy whereby you pay to promote your page means that actually your reach is hugely reduced. I've got 100 'fans' on the Penelope's Pantry facebook page, yet my last status update reached 6 people - especially annoying as that was for a competition I'm running giving away a £50 Sainsburys voucher. 

Twitter has no limits like that and as I mentioned before the national Girlguiding page actively follows units and RTs campaign tweets - be it recruitment, event publicity or just #weekendguiding activities. Also with twitter you can schedule tweets using a programme like Tweetdeck so that your message goes out at different times during the day so catches people as the Twitter audience changes. 

When you're developing your campaign, think about it in three stages:

1. The build up... you want to raise interest
• Hook people in by making it interesting. Use a call to action or question in your tweets. Sound enthusiastic - no one is going to be excited if your status update reads "Going to camp on Wednesday. Dreading it. Weather's awful. Guides are stressed" I hate to sound PRish, but spin that fear, why not tweet "Guides and leaders nervous about camping in this terrible weather! Anyone have any suggestions for surviving torrential rain on camp?"
• Encourage engagement. 
• Answer people's responses to you
• Use hashtags # or link people using handles (their twitter name, which starts with the @ symbol - mine is @penjy) to involve others. 
2. The event itself
• Encourage attendees to participate. Ask people to post what they're up to, and to share what you're doing - don't limit yourself to words, use pictures, videos - anything that tells the story. Offer a prize - best picture tweeted on the day wins a Middlesex east thermal mug! 
• Nominate someone to tweet during the event - set up a hashtag and tell people what it is -  it could be something simple like #guidecamp or something really specific like #MEGA2012 
• When you can, try and make sure there's somewhere accessible with wifi or 3G coverage so that attendees can join in with their media
• Make use of other media like Instagram and again use hashtags and handles in those feed to involve others
3. After the event
• Encourage people who attended to again share their updates, pictures, videos (ensuring that relevant permissions have been obtained)
• Curate the event - if you've had a lot of coverage and want to capture it all in one place, use something like Storify to draw it all together
• Keep the conversation going - ask follow up questions
4. Evaluation
• Ask for feedback - you can use something like Survey monkey in case people would prefer to be anonymous
• Did your campaign work? Did you reach that goal?
• What went well?
• What would you do differently? 
• Don't beat yourself up about things that didn't go well - learn from them.

Before this really drags on a few final things to think about

Social media is not just about taking - you need to give as well - so, if you see a unit (even if they're at the other end of the country to you) selling badges for a GOLD trip, RT it. Who knows what badge hungry guiders, or units in search of a challenge badge to fill those few weeks before camp you have following you?

Think about your brand - select your profile picture carefully, and think about what it looks like on screen.

Don't give yourself Guiding fatigue - make sure you've got at least one other person staffing those accounts so it's not all down to you. 

Think about your tone of voice - I tend to keep tweets chatty and friendly. I'm not presenting to the board!

Use apps to help you - I've mentioned Tweetdeck and Hootsuite which will notify you of and help you to keep on top of any mentions you get.

Just be aware of your data allowance - I'm deliberately on Three so that I have unlimited data. Similarly remember your charger! All too often I'm just out of battery when the guides have formed a perfect human pyramid whilst in full uniform on a bouncy castle singing Taps. Ok maybe not exactly that, but you get the picture. 

A huge thank you to Rosie from GirlGuiding CHQ whose workshop this is all based on. I've just written it up, she did all the hard work *Brownie thank you claps*

And now my call to action - have you got any questions? Any? At all? About anything in either of these posts? Either comment here or send me an email at penelopespantry@googlemail.com and I'll bring them all together in a Social Media superpost and ask Rosie and the Social Media team at HQ to answer them all on here. I may even chip in myself ;-) 

As an aside, if you're reading this and fancy winning a £50 Sainsbury's voucher either for yourself, or to put towards the food bill for this summer's Guide camp or Brownie holiday, why not enter the competition I'm running here - for a recipe using your favourite Kitchen Hero or storecupboard staple from Sainsburys? You don't need to be a blogger, just pop your recipe in the comments section and Sainsbury's will pick their favourite!

*Something which no one was surprised at. Ever.

Chicken marsala... and my Kitchen Heroes

Kitchen heroes? Not thinking of a who, but rather a what. When I first started to cook, chicken breasts were a staple ingredient. Now, most of the time I cook with thigh meat as it's less dry, but sometimes a chicken breast is what you need for a recipe and chicken marsala is just one of those recipes. Personally when I buy chicken breasts I split them up so that I've always got a couple in the freezer as they are such a reliable staple if I want to knock up a quick curry, baked chicken goujons or a seemingly fancy (but oh so easy) dish like my Chicken marsala below.

Years ago I read a novel where the protagonist is wooed by a lover who teaches her to cook chicken marsala. It sounded like a sensual dish of wine spiked plump mushrooms and crisp chicken. Truly I thought it sounded wonderful, however on finishing said novel I didn't give it a second thought. Then, this year we went out for a birthday lunch and I saw it on the menu, ordered and ate it, and my cooking brain started to tick. 

This week I had a go at it, as part of a challenge set up for the Sainsbury's Blogger network. I was to make a dish using a 'by Sainsbury's' ingredient. My ingredient is their pack of 2 chicken breasts and the recipe I worked up is as follows: 

Chicken Marsala

2 by Sainsbury's chicken breasts
Unsalted butter
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
4-5 tablespoons plain flour
300g chestnut mushrooms
Marsala wine (our Sainsburys only sell 1 variety - and it worked beautifully Cantine Pellegrino 1880 Marsala Superiore)
Pasta/ brocolli to serve

Put your chicken breast in a freezer bag and bash the living daylights out of it to flatten - I used a wooden rolling pin and went royally to town on it. Repeat with each chicken breast.
Put the flour on a plate and sprinkle with a pinch of salt and a few good grinds of black pepper.
Dust your chicken breasts in the flour so that it's lightly coated on both sides. 
Melt the olive oil and butter together in a heavy based frying pan
When the oil is hot, add the chicken (you want it to sizzle as it goes in).
Cook the chicken on each side until it's golden brown - I let it form a crust before turning as I'm convinced that adds to the flavour later on.
Once your chicken breasts are cooked through, remove to a plate.
Add a pat of butter to the pan and start to cook down your mushrooms and add (for 2 people) 1 large wineglass of marsala. Allow this to bubble and reduce down, using a wooden spoon or similar to make sure you've got all the chickeny goodness off the bottom of the pan. It's ready when you can't taste the alcohol any longer, just the flavour of the wine - I reduce it down by at least half
Put the chicken back into the pan, and heat through
Serve with pasta (if you're M) or piles of steamed brocolli (if you're me)

We both loved this, the sweetness of the wine sauce contrasts beautifully with the savouriness of the chicken and the freshness of the brocolli. The mushrooms swell slightly and take on the flavours of the chicken and the wine. For us it's not an everynight supper - but on a Saturday night it's perfect for 2, with a glass of something cold and crisp.

The fantastic thing about this recipe is, that with the pack of chicken breasts happily ensconsed in the freezer, all I need to keep is the bottle of marsala as we always have mushrooms in. It's such a seemingly impressive dish for such little effort that I love it even more than just for the taste alone.

You'll note we're pictureless at the moment as it was so successful it was eaten before I could remember to get out the camera- but one should be up on Saturday as I've been talked into making it again.

What's your Kitchen Hero and what recipe would you make using one staple 'by Sainsbury's' product?

Leave your recipe in a comment below, or if you're a blogger link your recipe in the Linky tool below and tweet it to me using the hashtag #kitchenheroes. I'll RT all tweets sent to me.

The competition will close next Friday, 17th May and I'll do a roundup of all your recipes. The most impressive recipe will be chosen by Sainsburys and the winner given a £50 Sainsburys voucher.

The winning recipe will then be put to a vote with all the winning recipes from other blogs for a chance to find the overall best recipe.

Sainsbury's provided me with a £50 voucher for ingredients

Pretty in pink: Rhubarb rhubarb

I love rhubarb. Stewed rhubarb on yoghurt is one of my favourite breakfasts (when temperatures aren't arctic) I wish daily that I'd made more of the rhubarb and ginger jam as I ended up giving it all away. However, that's pretty much all I do with rhubarb, which isn't very exciting.

Early rhubarb is beautiful, it's rosy blush cheers me up every time I see it and makes me hopeful for spring, for sunshine and longer, warmer days. Of course this year that's gone to pot - I'm still in thermals, with 3 extra blankets on the bed, holding hot drinks to try and warm my freezing fingers.

Flavour wise I adore pairing rhubarb with ginger - be it crystallised or stem ginger the pairing just seems to work. However, this time I tried something new. I poached the rhubarb in a splash of Shloer - the new Rhubarb and raspberry flavour. This, splashed over the chopped stems as they gently cooked through on the hob made for a sweet and fresh base to the crumble. 

Rhubarb crumble

1 pack rhubarb - about 400g
200ml Rhubarb and raspberry Shloer
120g plain flour
90g butter
90g caster sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
Demerera sugar to sprinkle

Cream, custard or ice cream to serve

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C
Rub the butter, sugar, ginger and flour together until you have a mixture that resembles breadcrumbs
Lay the cooked rhubarb on the bottom of a pie dish
Sprinkle the crumble mix on top and bake in a preheated oven for 30 minutes (or so)
Serve with cream, custard or ice cream

Meal planning Monday: the Bank holiday edition