The Kitchen Playground method of surviving the school term with a working mother is to use school holidays to do some bulk cooking. The idea is that I will end up wit lots of baked goods for lunches and enough precooked meals to get me through the nights that we get home late. These school holidays, it didn’t happen. I don’t know why, I don’t know what I was thinking but I suspect I will be paying the price for my break from routine for the next 10 weeks.

In a somewhat belated attempt to rectify matters, I threw enough random ingredients into the slow cooker before work yesterday to feed us last night and on another night. Lamb chops, passata, onion, dried white corn, frozen grated zucchini, an onion, a few cloves of garlic, a few sticks of chopped celery, a tin of chickpeas, some lentils, some split peas and some oat bran. Fortunately it was quite tasty and very filling. After we filled up on that, I started filling up the slow cooker again in readiness for tonight, which is also a late home night. Once again, we had success! We also had enough leftover for another freezer meal.

Cheese and Two Potato Soup
4 rashers bacon, sliced*
2 onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into small cubes
4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
2 sticks celery, sliced
2 litres vegetable stock
2 cups grated tasty cheese
2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup plain flour
*obviously this is optional if you want a vegetarian meal

1. Place everything except the cheese and flour in the slow cooker.
2. Turn on to low and go to work.
3. Return home just over 10 hours later.
4. Whisk milk and flour together and add to cheese.
5. Turn to high, stir in cheese and flour.
6. Set the table, empty school bags, holler at the kids. By this time the soup should have thickened slightly. Stir and serve.