pasta with chicken, blue cheese and broccoli

using up: half a head of broccoli, some everlasting chicken

We had a mound of cold roast chicken left from Saturday’s roast – we had cold with steamed new potatoes and red cabbage, and chicken sandwiches, and dhal with shredded chicken, have put all the bits and bones in the freezer, and were still left with a bowlful of chicken that would feed us for two more meals.

We also had a half a head of broccoli to use up, and we wanted something quick last night as we were both going out.

So, cut the broccoli into florets, and steamed for 6 minutes. Fished it out into a colanader, topped up the pan with some more boiling water and put in some pasta. As an aside, I have taken to weighing pasta (120g) and rice (80g), as I’m watching my carbs – this is about half the amount of both we used to eat, and it’s plenty!

Fried off a roughly chopped onion in olive oil, and added some thyme from the garden. Then lobbed in some chopped up cold cooked chicken and stirred it all around. When the pasta was almost done, I added the broccoli to the chicken pan, then in went the pasta, and about 100g of blue cheese. Stirred all that around till the cheese melted, then served in bowls.

It was nice, but I thought it was lacking something – not sure what. I shall ponder.

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Malayasian-ish veg curry

We had a meal in the local Malaysian restaurant last week, and it was utterly delicious, so I thought I’d have a bash at creating my own. I didn’t bother looking up recipes – it’s more fun to try to recreate a dish, in my opinion.

In the fridge veg drawers was a load of stuff that really needed eating up, so I chopped up:

• 2 courgettes
• 1 aubergine
• 1 leek
• a bunch of lovely sweet carrots from my sister-in-law’s garden
• half a yellow pepper
• a butternut squash that was actually starting to go mouldy – oh the shame …

These were all hurled into the slow cooker. Then I fried off finely chopped garlic and ginger, and a chopped onion. Into the frying pan went a tin of chopped tonatoes, two dessert spoonfuls of smooth peanut butter (I think this might have been too much), some tamarind paste, cumin, coriander, allspice and cinnamon, black pepper.  Cooked the sauce down a bit, then left it to cool.

This morning, I heated it up again, then lobbed it on top of the veg and switched the slow cooker on while we were out for the day at Driffield County Show (cracking day out!).  There is a Smell from the kitchen, and I’m just about to put some rice on to accompany it for our supper.

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pasta with green beans

This was quick, simple and delicious and we’ll make it again!

I had some green beans from my sister-in-law’s garden; we normally stir fry them with mustard seeds, but I thought I’d be a tad more Reactive last night! Topped and tailed the beans, cut them into chunks,m and simmered until they were al dente – about 7 minutes, maybe.

In the meantime, fried off some chopped garlic and a chopped onion in olive oil, adding some pancetta cubes and chopped sage after a few minutes. Put some fusilli on to cook, then added some cream that needed using up, a dash of lemon juice, some ground black pepper to the pan. Put the beans in and warmed it all through, then added the drained pasta and quite a lot of parmesan. Lovely!

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mushrooms and tagliatelle

We had some button mushrooms and a little cream waiting to be used up, and this seemed an ideal way to do it on a hot day.

Finely chopped two shallots and three cloves of garlic, and cooked them down in olive oil. Added some chopped rosemary and thyme from the herb garden^H^H pots, which are coming along nicely. Sliced the mushrooms and added them to the pan, with a glug of white wine, and let them cook very slowly, while I boiled some tagliatelle.

Added the cream to the mushroom mix and warmed through, then drained the pasta and stirred it in. Ate out of bowls, topped with grated parmesan. Followed by the last of the plum and pear crumble, with ice cream.

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