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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a sort of chicken tagine

I bought a pound of diced chicken last Friday, and soaked and boiled some chickpeas, with the full intention of making a tagine with them on Sunday. Didn’t get to it, due to an unfortunate cycling incident (OK, I fell off), so I stole 30 minutes yesterday morning to make it.

Browned the chicken pieces in olive oil, and put them in the slow cooker. Cut two peppers (one red, one yellow) into chunks, and fried them off until they were just starting to blacken at the corners, added them to the cooker. Hurled in a sliced courgette which was getting a bit tired, a lemon cut into 8, salt, pepper.

Cut a red onion into chunks, and chopped four cloves of garlic, fried them off, added some ras el hanout to the pan and cooked it for a few seconds. Rummaged in fridge for ideas, and found a jar of tomato and pepper relish, so bunged in a couple of tablespoons’ worth, then a squirt of honey and some water. Brought all that to a simmer, hurled it into the slow cooker with the chickpeas, switched on.

The smell drove us demented all afternoon, and we ate some for supper with rice, and chopped coriander sprinkled over the top.

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very quick lentil soup

P and I have been struck down by some summer lurgy, and fancied soup for lunch; it’s a standard comfort food for us. However, we had no suitable ingredients in, and no energy to make it either, so I toiled up to the local small supermarket. We always call it Jacksons, because that’s what it was before Sainsburys took it over about ten years or so ago. God knows why *I* call it Jacksons, because it’s always been Sainsburys to me, but there you go – I’m being assimilated.

Anyway, I digress. They had cartons of fresh soup for £1 each, so I bought a lentil and bacon, which we ate on Monday, and a tomato and basil. Yesterday morning, I put a mug of lentils in to soak in some cold water for a couple of hours, then into a pan went the soup, the lentils, and about 1.5 soup pots of water. Simmered it for about 35 minutes, and while not anywhere near as nice as home made tomato/lentil soup, it really wasn’t bad at all, and there’s enough for today too.

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chicken with blue cheese

I did another stuffed chicken breast on Sunday evening – this time with blue cheese, chopped sage, shallot and some walnut oil. I was going to add pine nuts, but we seemed to have run out, which is very bad planning, I know.

It was delicious – accompanied by steamed new potatoes and asparagus. But I should have used more sage. And it only occurred to me yesterday that it would probably have been far more successful, and much easier to stuff, had I beaten the chicken flat first with my trusty meat hammer, so I shall do that next time.

Next time won’t be far away, as when I sent Pete up to the CoOp to get the chicken, they had a stack on special offer as it was approaching its sell-by date, so there are six more in the freezer.

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Tesco is no champion of the poor

“Forget the eulogies to Sir Terry Leahy. The legacy of Leahyism has been damage to our towns, countryside and environment, and the promotion of a much poorer diet that we’ll all pay for”

Excellent piece by Alex Renton from the Guardian.

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roasted asparagus with pasta

“What’s this?” you cry; “two posts in one day? You’re spoiling us.”

We are going to a meeting tonight at 6 p.m. and thought we’d eat our main meal at lunchtime, and just grab a sandwich before we go out. I bought a bunch of  English asparagus at the greengrocer yesterday – don’t suppose there’ll be much more this year, so must gorge while we can. We have a handful of standard recipes we cook with it, but fancied a change. So:

Trimmed the asparagus and put it in a baking tray lined with foil – I generally do this now, as the washing up is so much easier. Drizzled it with a generous quantity of olive oil, and sprinkled some sesame seeds on it. Pete finely chopped a couple of cloves of garlic, which were duly added, then I mussed it all up with fingers; sometimes that’s the only way to do it.

It went into the oven at 180C for 15 minutes, while I cooked some fusilli to accompany it. Then further inspiration struck, and I whipped up a dressing of olive oil and lemon juice.

Pasta, covered with asparagus, covered with the dressing. It really was rather nice, and there’s still half a bunch of asparagus left!

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sapo in the hole

(sapo is Spanish for toad)

We had some snacking chorizos left from this month’s Discover Unearthed tasting box – they’re the first thing we’ve had from them that we didn’t really like, so after the first taste, we decided to cook something with them. And thus a chorizo toad in the hole was conceived.

I made a batter from 3oz wholemeal flour, 1 egg, good pinch of salt, 5oz of semi-skimmed milk. This batter was in itself an experiment – I’m trying to cut down on white flour – and it worked very well.  Cooked down the chorizos in a little oil on the hob first and drained off the excess, then added the batter, and bunged it in the oven at gas 7 for about 30 minutes – came out lovely!

While it was cooking, I bunged a finely sliced onion in the Remoska with a little olive oil, then at the end turned it into onion gravy with the aid of some cornflour and a beef stock cube. Consumed it all with steamed cabbage.

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