Squash and Spinach Rissotto: Budget Food

One big step to help us move Southwest is to start saving money.... uuuuggg the never ending battle of money and not having enough of it :)

That being said one area we are trying to trim back on is our food shopping. It's so hard, especially now that I am home all the time on maternity leave to not just buy anything and everything. I almost give myself the excuse because we can't go out, due to having babies, that having more fancy food and sweets and treats is our RIGHT!

However, I think we can do better. I also am reading this FABULOUS book by Alicia Silverstone called the Kind Diet. All about eating Vegan and the great benefits of a plant based diet. WAIT! for all you anti-vegan or dinner MUST have meat peeps... I'm not going to go on a rant or try and convert you ... I just saying I was inspired by trying more meat free dishes... done!

All in all, one day I was trolling the internet and came across this recipe for Squash and Spinach Risotto... I had a spare squash and spinach that was day or two from going bad so I thought why not...

Click here for Squash and Spinach Recipe by Rachel Cotterill

WOW WAS I IMPRESSED.... with under 10 ingredients ... and nothing fancy (I actually just naturally had everything in the kitchen... which like never happens!!)... I even left out the parsley leaves and it still turned out fab...

even more so.... MY 2 YEAR OLD TODDLER LOVED IT! She told me "this is a yummy delicious dinner.. thank you mommy!" wait... WHAT!?!? We aren't arguing over dinner and bribing her with every sweet under the sun to get her to eat just 3 damn bits of dinner. HALLELUJAH JESUS!

this bad boy recipe is now on my regular list of eats....

BONUS: toddler loves, meat eating husband didn't complain, it used NORMAL, CHEAP ingredients, it took less than an hour to make, it's healthy and its VEGAN!!!

Why the SouthWest?

My husband and I have been dreaming of moving to the Southwest for over a year now. It's crazy how having a family of two small girls (2 years and 5 months) and needing to make sure we can provide for them has ridiculously slowed down our ability to dive into adventures. Less then 5 years ago when I wanted to do something new I need only pack a back and buy a ticket... but now its a slow process of MAKING A PLAN.

So we have about 4 to 6 months before we would like to be moving to the Southwest. We love everything we are hearing about this area of England  ... cfbc nc nn gn g g hhgfrhwfd   ..... sorry about that... my little girl saw mommy doing something "extra important" on the computer and wanted to help... "just one more mummy"

bxgxbbabg ggggggggx     z ... Ok that is enough from her and a sign I need to wrap up..

But I just wanted to start documenting our little adventure Southwest by keeping this blog as record of all the ups and downs of moving our family from one place to another... specifically from the East of England to the Southwest.

Loads of people keep asking us Why? Why would we want to make this great big move to a whole new place with two little kids when we already have a good life established for ourselves right where we are now?

Both my husband and I would say mainly "For the Adventure". We felt like we wanted to go on an adventure together and moving our family to the Southwest would be just that.... we also LOVE what we are hearing about the Southwest. I am a native born American and my husband, though he was born in the Southwest, mainly grew up in Essex. We have travelled, just a bit, in the Southwest and we love the beaches, campgrounds, community and friendliness we meet. We never have met anyone from the Southwest that doesn't have something good to say about the area.

Grant it, we won't be a stones throw away from London like we are now... but there is something really exciting about moving to the Southwest. We really want to buy a home and the housing prices seem a lot more in our price range there. We also love the idea of maybe growing more of our own food and love the natural, fresh vibe we get when we are down there. It really feels like it will be possible for us to build and make a lovely home for our family.

We  also would love our kids to be adventurous and outdoorsy... which again we feel if we are around places where they can go camping or surfing or diving or horse back riding that they will have easier access to get into these things (if they so desire).

I need to be near to an international airport, for the ease of my international family coming to visit and also for the comfort :)   Exeter Airport and Bristol Airport are just as near to us now as Heathrow our main international airport.

All in all this blog is going to be a written documentary of what it takes to move our family and also the grand experience of settling into the new place and how we come to call the Southwest home. I'm looking to post tips for moving, money saving ideas, points of interest in the Southwest, homes and neighbourhoods I like in the southwest, how I go about job hunting and the lessons I learn along the way.

I feel excited to really be proud of where we come from, I feel inspired to make the Southwest the base of where we grow our family, I look forward to the adventure of discovering great spaces and places in the southwest and I am thrilled to add some of what we are passionate about into the area.

Back when Steve (my hubby) and I were dating long distance (he was in Colchester, Essex, England and I was in Seattle, Washington USA) we used to love taking pictures of sunsets and sending them to each other via email and social media saying cheesy things like "I can't wait to catch this sunset with you" "it will be so good to get bored watching the sunset with you" or "this sunset is for you"... it became out little thing... a way of saying to each other how we loved being together and we were both dreaming and hoping great things for our future together. So, it seemed fit to call this little space of the internet after our love for catching sunsets and giving them to each other as we continue to dream new adventures for our family.