Chicken and butternut squash stew: a dairy free recipe

This stew is such a lovely autumnal dish, full of warming flavours, sweet root veggies, and enough chicken that you know it's there - but that doesn't cost a fortune. In fact, it's only got chicken in it because I defrosted some to make a casserole on Sunday, and then dropped the pot of cumin onto the slow cooker and smashed it. Go me! Or something. I wanted something that was suitable for us all, and a replacement for the casserole I had in mind.

This was inspired by a Squash, chicken and couscous recipe at BBC Good Food - but, then heavily adapted as I could see that the squash was never going to cook, and I wanted to use some different ingredients as that was what we had. 

M said that he'd like this with pasta - so that's how he's having it tonight, I preferred it over a portion of curly kale. There's something about the pairing of a rich tomato based sauce with the iron-yness (it's a word) of dark green veggies. 

Chicken and butternut squash stew

Dairy free

Serves 5

Fry light spray (you could use olive oil - about a tablespoon)

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 red chilli (or appropriate amount of lazy chills)

2 red onions, peeled and diced

2 tbsp harrisa paste

1 tsp ground cumin

1tsp ground coriander

2 chicken breasts, diced

2-3 medium carrots, peeled and diced

1 medium sweet potato, peeled and diced

1 butternut squash, roasted in advance

140g of quinoa, washed in advance

1 punnet (or thereabouts) of cherry tomatoes, quartered

1 litre passata

Fresh coriander to serve (lots if you're me, none if you're M)

Salt and pepper 

Spray a large pan with the Fry light, and add the garlic, and chilli, gently frying until you can smell them

Add the onions and spices and cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes - you want the onions completely soft, but not caramelised

Add the chicken and brown off - about 8 minutes

Add the veggies, soaked quinoa, cherry tomatoes and passata

Bring to a gentle simmer and cook until the veggies are soft, and the quinoa cooked through. It took about half an hour

Serve as you like - either as it is, or with green veggies, or pasta and a liberal sprinkling of that coriander. 

This is today's Blog Every Day November post - on the prompt Food Glorious Food. 

Meal Planning Monday - normal service is resumed

It's been a few weeks since I posted a meal plan - we had our first family holiday in Dorset, and then last week was just a bit of a blur. To top it all off, yesterday I had a massive allergic reaction to a bee sting and ended up in hospital. Today I'm resting up as I still feel a bit wobbly - that said, I have two dairy and egg free cakes to make and a batch of lactation cookies to bake for a friend who's new to breastfeeding.  Sorry, what did I say about resting?

We've got a quiet week this week, so I'm hoping to get right back on the Slimming World plan - I've been doing really well with my meals, but have been snacking or picking between times and definitely using all my syns if not going over. This week, my aim is to keep my syns low and really focus on what I'm eating.

Harry is doing beautifully - he's just starting to be really mobile, walking and climbing around and up everything! We are going to be childproofing in the evenings this week.

Breakfasts - I'll be back on overnight oats, with melon and apple.

Lunches - I need to make a low syn free lunch, probably my Spring veg orzotto

Dinners

Monday: Roast chicken, veggies and roast potatoes

Tuesday: Leftover roast chicken, baked potatoes, and veggies

Wednesday: Chicken and mushroom risotto

Thursday: Sausages, sweet potato wedges and sweetcorn

Friday: Pasta with a tomato and vegetable sauce

Saturday: (weather permitting) BBQ - and I'm thinking chicken kebabs with a lemony, garlicky, herby marinade

Sunday: Undecided as yet, but possibly roast chicken again

So that's us - an easy week. I feel a bit wiped out by yesterday still, so wanted to make it easy on myself. Be sure to pop on over to At Home with Mrs M and see what the other meal planners have up their sleeves.

Meal Planning Monday

Harry turned one on Friday - no I have no idea how that happened either. We had a lovely party yesterday, with family, friends and a Hartbeeps session for the little ones which was amazing. We all enjoyed a dairy free feast, and this week's meal plan will largely be featuring the leftovers from that. Well aside from the bread, I ended up giving most of that away!

Breakfasts: I'm sticking with fruit or overnight oats at the moment. It's not thrilling, ,but I know Harry doesn't react to them and as he's reacted recently to egg through my milk and strawberries I'm erring on the side of caution.

Lunches: The warm weather means salad and leftover ham or roast chicken for me. Harry is having chicken or ham and slices of pepper, chopped up cherry tomatoes or cucumber sticks. Also houmous. All the houmous.

Suppers:

Monday - Leftover roast chicken with salad and baked potatoes

Tuesday - I'm doing Outdoor cooking with the Guides, but will leave M some stir fried chicken with mushrooms, brocolli and rice.

Wednesday - Ham (leftover from a ham in coca cola) and salad - possibly with sweet potato wedges

Thursday - Chilli crab linguine with salad

Friday - Salad and something fishy *vague*

Saturday - I think I might do a slow roast shoulder of lamb, portion it up and freeze it. Then I can have it with salad.

Sunday - leftover roast lamb

That's this week. M will be enjoying the culinary delights of a campsite at Le Mans - burgers and sausages will feature heavily I'm sure.

As always, don't forget to pop on over to At home with Mrs M to see what everyone else's menu looks like

Stuffed butternut squash - a Slimming World recipe

I'm not doing too badly at Slimming World - steadily losing a pound or so a week. I struggle with snacks, as there's only so much fruit that is appealing and in season at this time of year and as I can't have dairy products, lots of the suggested snacky bits are off the table for me.

I'm finding lots of inspiration for recipes on line, and either adapting things like paella, or using other people's slimming world recipes as a starting point for my own tastes. I've set up a Pinterest board for recipes that already are suitable, or I think could be adapted... it's here, and if you'd like to be added to submit either things you've tried or dishes you've found online then drop me a line in the comments, or via email.

This is one of those recipes - adapted from here. I ended up making a few changes, based mainly on the fact that I tend not to shop specifically for a recipe any longer - see this post for why. I actually really enjoyed it and would definitely make it again. I would also say that for us, this easily did 4 portions, plus loads of the topping for the freezer.

If you're doing SP (which I haven't yet) I think this would work as there's no carbs in there. If you know SP well, and could comment below, that'd be terrific. 

Stuffed Butternut squash

1 butternut squash, halved lengthways
300g chicken breast (it was one of that week's Special buys at Aldi, otherwise I'd have used thighs)
1 red onion, finely diced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 sticks of celery finely diced
1 large (or 2 small) carrots, finely diced
1 red & 1 yellow pepper, finely diced
250g (or so) mushrooms, quartered
Big splodge tomato puree
1/2 head cauliflower, whizzed up to rice in the food processor
3/4 pint veg stock (I use the low salt bouillon from Marigold)
2 tsp paprika - I think the sweet smoked paprika would taste fantastic, but I don't have any in
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp red chilli flakes
Salt & Pepper
Fry light
If you have it, then cheese from your HEA - we used a little pecorino as it's sheeps cheese and Harry seems to be able to tolerate this.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees
Halve the butternut squash, scoop out and discard the seeds* and then scoop out some of the flesh to make a nice sized hollow for the filling. Dice this and put it to one side for the filling
Season the 2 halves of squash, spray with fry light and put, skin-side down on a baking sheet - bake for 20 minutes or so

Your veg and chicken all want to be diced about the same size. Spray a large pan with fry light, and soften the onion, garlic, celery and carrot for about 10 minutes. If it starts to stick add a splash of water
Add the chicken and cook until it's lightly browned
Add the rest of the veggies - peppers, mushrooms and butternut squash
Pop in the tomato puree, spices and chicken stock
Add the cauliflower, give everything a good stir, turn the heat down and let it simmer uncovered.

Now I should say this made bucketloads - enough to freeze at least half for another day. Which is great as we enjoyed it. It'd also be lovely with a baked potato, and if you had a HEA (and aren't dairy free) then some feta or halloumi would be amazing. 

Fill the butternut squash halves with the chicken mixture, top with the cheese if you're using it. Bake for 20 minutes or until the cheese is nice and melty/ browned.

Serve with steamed greens - I had kale and brocolli.

Meal Planning Monday: Preparing for festivties

I've started - amongst thinking about weaning, going dairy free, trying to keep the baby things scooped up together - I made the stuffing for Christmas day last week. The fruit for the cake is soaking in it's usual brandy, and the Christmas pudding is maturing nicely in a cupboard. This week I'm going to make the gravy which will then go in the freezer and next weekend I'll bake the cake so it's got a few weeks of feeding before I marzipan and ice it.

In other news, I'm still dairy free, and missing cheese wildly. However that pales into insignificance when I look at how much less Harry is sick. He's like a different baby. Obviously this gives us lots to think about in case this is a long term allergy, but for now we're embracing the weight gain (26oz in 3 weeks) and just going with it!

Meal wise this week, we're fully into our slow cooked winter warmers. Next weekend I'll make another batch of casserole both for our meals and the freezer, as our homemade ready meals are the saving grace of days when Harry isn't quite himself.

Breakfasts for me are porridge made with rice milk, either with chopped up banana or sultanas and brown sugar.

Lunches are falafel, houmous and pitta bread with carrot sticks and cherry tomatoes. Not particularly wintery I know, but easy to eat while I'm feeding.

Suppers:

Monday - freezer surprise (casserole I think)

Tuesday - Parsnip and bacon pasta but with pecorino instead of parmesan

Wednesday - Lentil ragu

Thursday - Leftover lentils

Friday - Breakfast for tea

Saturday - Chicken casserole with dumplings

Sunday - Super slow cooked brisket - which will take us into next week with leftovers for a cottage pie and hopefully some more pasties


That's our week - festivity preparation is gaining pace and other things are ticking along quite nicely *fingers crossed*

Meal Planning Monday: written through bleary eyes

Last week we 'discovered' cluster feeding - meal plans, meal times and at some points eating went royally out of the window in favour of Wimbledon on the telly and vast quantities of water. Being an eternal optimist (or something) I'm thrilled that this resulted in another 100g weight gain, and trying to avoid looking at my dark circles, or the bottom shaped dent in the sofa.

With M being back at work, Harry and I are learning together how our days go, we have no routine as such, but feed when he's hungry, try to get out for a walk every day, and try not to let the house descend too far into chaos. Too far. I'd like to say I know where the time goes, but life with a newborn seems to absorb the hours and I honestly don't know where they go.

This week is M's birthday - and I think for the first time ever I'm going to buy him a cake. Baking one isn't too taxing in itself - I just am entirely sure that my ability to balance doing that with feeding and entertaining Harry may not work. So no judging please, unless you want to send me one.

Breakfasts: I'm keeping up with the oat based breakfasts to supplement my milk - porridge, granola and oatibix (a new discovery on M's part - the man is a genius) with fruit.

Lunches: Halloumi salad for a couple of days, fishfinger sandwiches (so sue me) or leftovers - pretty much anything that can be eaten with one hand in case Harry's feeding. Lots of fruit through the day as well.

Dinners:

Monday: I made a chilli con carne today so we'll have that with either wraps as burritos, or tortilla chips as nachos.

Tuesday: Chicken-y burger things in buns with salad and potato wedges. I'm going to try making them based on an Annabel Karmel recipe I've seen online and adult-ify them as I go. If they work I'll blog them.

Wednesday: Chicken kiev, chips and peas/ sweetcorn

Thursday: Chicken curry - frozen pre Harry (thank goodness for my brief moments of organisation before the baby came)

Friday: Pasta carbonara (M's choice as it's his birthday)

Saturday: We've actually got no plans next weekend so I think just something quick and easy out of the freezer on Saturday - pizza maybe.

Sunday: I'll try and do something similar to the chilli that I made this week - maybe a casserole or similar as the easy suppers for a couple of days are a new mama win as far as I'm concerned.

So that's us - don't forget to pop on over to At Home with Mrs M to see what the other meal planners are up to. Have a good week.

Meal Planning Monday - all change!

Clearly I made the mistake of tempting fate on my last meal planning Monday post as on the Wednesday, 6 weeks early I gave birth to my lovely son Harry Keith. I'm sure you'll excuse the hiatus in posting, as we spent a couple of weeks in NICU and since coming home have started to make the adjustments that come with welcoming a small person into our lives.

That said, it's wonderful - tiring and anxiety provoking, but utterly, utterly wonderful. Harry is beautiful, and despite a rocky start feeding is beginning to go fairly well *touch wood* M and I are learning about the world of dream and cluster feeds, infacol and sleeping when the baby does. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

So, meal planning. Well it's gone out of the window a bit - pizzas, toast, porridge and sandwiches have played their part in sustaining us through broken nights, and long days. You may remember that I was part way through stocking up the freezer, but the warm weather has meant that the casseroles and cottage pies that I lovingly prepared have been left largely untouched. However, M has gone back to work after his paternity leave today so I'm fully expecting to start to make use of them and I expect it won't be long until I'm mourning their passing. However, family have been wonderful and chickens, cooked ham, fruit, cake and quiches have all been given to us.

Breakfasts for me are porridge as I'm breast feeding and oats are good at promoting milk supply. I'll switch back to granola and yoghurt once I've finished up the porridge oats.

Lunches - unsurprisingly my lovingly prepared salads have been abandoned in favour of sandwiches, not because they take too long to do, but it's impossible to eat a salad and feed the baby (something which seems to happen regularly - I swear he can smell the food!).

Supper:

Unsurprisingly most of this week's meals are quick and easy - either things I can throw together while Harry sleeps, or things I can get out of the freezer and just wallop in the oven.

Monday: leftover slow roast pork with wraps, salsa, salad and sweetcorn. Stupidly I didn't think to pick up an avocado which is annoying me more than it should.
 
Tuesday: Chicken kiev, chips and peas night as I'm popping to Guides to introduce the girls to Harry.

Wednesday: Quiche, wedges and salad

Thursday: Baked tomato pasta - I think we have some leftover dough balls to go with as well as some salad

Friday: Chicken wraps- with my harissa sauce some greek salad and potato salad which I'll blog the recipe for later this week.

Next weekend we have M's parents visiting, so I'm going to break out some of the cottage pie portions from the freezer and have that with frozen peas and carrots.

Sunday: I'll see how we're going - possibly pizza.    

 Well, that's us for this week - if you've had babies - what sort of things did you eat in those early days?

Meal Planning Monday: with love from the new Mrs R

After all those months of panicking, writing lists, budgetting for all we're worth we finally did it. At 3pm on the 22nd March M and I said "I do" and started the next step of our lives together. We had a lovely honeymoon in Carcassonne last week, and this week have returned to the daily grind of working, volunteering, cleaning, shopping, ironing (How much ironing?!) and, of course, blogging. It's not that much of a grind really - we're doing it together, and just occaisionally we remind each other that "we're married!"

I will blog a bit more about our day - but for now it's back to the usual (late) Meal plan for the week.

This week, we're both at home, and as busy as ever. I say that but it's my last night at Guides tomorrow before I step back as leader - I'll always be on hand as an extra pair of hands, but my time in charge is over and I'm thrilled to be handing over to someone as lovely and as capable as Hayley.

Breakfasts: I need to make some more yoghurt tonight to get back onto that wagon, but have been keeping going courtesy of bagels and peanut butter with a banana chopped up on top.

Lunches: Today I had a wonderful salad of feta, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, radish, and some seeds for crunch. Hopefully the week will herald more of the same although I finished the feta so it'll be my favourite chilli grilled halloumi instead.

Supper:

Monday - I accidentally de-veggied my courgetti spaghetti by adding chorizo to it, and cooking it down much slower with tomatoes.

Tuesday - I'm having pizza with the guides so M is having leftover courgetti and chorizo pasta

Wednesday - Chicken and spinach curry

Thursday - Leftovers

Friday - we found a pizza in the freezer so that will be our quick and easy supper

Saturday & Sunday - I've not quite decided yet, but as next week's a busy one, something to set us both up for the week ahead.

So that's us - be sure to have a hop on over to At Home with Mrs M and see what everyone else is up to.

Meal Planning Monday: It's the final countdown

(Please add in your own do do do dos)

It's so nearly here... I feel like I should be skipping around like one of my Brownies after a packet of Haribo. In actual fact I'm sat on a birthing ball in my pyjamas yawning and it's not even 8pm. Oh dear, this is clearly old age.

I've deliberately planned an easy week food wise, we've still got things to do to finalise getting ready as well as the fact that I'd like to spring clean the house before people start arriving at the end of the week.

Baking wise I'm going to knock up a lemon drizzle cake on Thursday, which will hopefully keep us all going.

Breakfasts: Still on granola, yoghurt and fruit.

Lunches: sandwiches mainly. On Friday when people are visiting we're going to have sausages in french bread, with cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks and cucumber. 

Dinners:

Monday: Leftover roast chicken, cheesy stuffed baked potatoes, kale, and carrots

Tuesday: Chicken and mushroom risotto

Wednesday: Leftover chicken and mushroom risotto

Thursday: Pizza, homemade wedges and crudites

Friday: I'm being taken out for dinner by a dear friend Jo on Friday night. M is going out for Thai with his friends. 

Saturday: Well I hear there's some kind of buffet going on (not that I've agonised over it or anything). With wedding cake for pudding.

Sunday: Pizza - the takeaway kind. My feet will be up, and I will be delegating to Mr Domino

That's us. A very exciting week, a very easy meal plan. See you on the other side :-)

Meal planning Monday

I have to say this week I'm writing this bathed in glorious sunshine, wearing pjs and drinking buckets of tea - this seems to make the whole process a bit more hopeful. We're on the final countdown to the wedding and although the logical part of my brain tells me we're really organised, the hormonal part tells me I should be in full blown panic mode.

A busyish week for us, although no Guides for me this week as I'm travelling back from a meeting on the South coast so don't think I'm going to make it in time. We're starting off with a roast today, although sadly it's not going to provide leftovers as the piece of beef I roasted yesterday is about a third of the size of normal. Just enough in fact to do 4 meals.

Breakfasts: I'm still firmly on the granola and knitted home made yoghurt bandwagon.

Lunches: Still no enthusiasm - so soup or a sarnie it is.

Dinners:

Sunday - leftover brisket with roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese, veggies, yorkshire puds and gravy. Yum. 

Monday - I'm meeting one of my very best friends for an overdue catch up and squee over the upcoming nuptials. Food will be involved.

Tuesday - I've got some courgettes knocking around in the freezer so courgetti spaghetti is on the cards

Wednesday - Cottage pie with peas

Thursday - Leftover cottage pie

Friday - Homemade chicken kebabs - I use a variation on this recipe

Next weekend I think I'll do a roast chicken as I'm off in the run up to the wedding so it'll make for a nice straightforward week.

Have a good week - here's hoping this weather holds. What have you got on the meal plan?

Meal planning Monday

How does it get round to being Monday again so quickly? I'm writing this on Sunday evening, surrounded by chaos and the smell of wet paint as we prepare to head back to work after a weekend of trying to set the house to rights.

We're busy again this week (when aren't we?) Although M is quite gleeful about the fact that he forgot that this week existed so everything he thought he was doing this week is next week instead. Confused? You should try being me.

Breakfasts: In an epic fail in meal planning terms I forgot to buy myself any cereal or any almond milk so cereals and smoothies are off the menu. In their stead will doubtlessly be porridge - I had it this morning with pools of dark brown sugar melting into little treacley puddles. And enjoyed every mouthful

Lunches: I blame my mother for this. Entirely. She introduced me to Seriously strong smoked cheese spread *ahem* applied liberally to toasted crumpets. I suspect this will now take up pride of place as it's own food group for the forseeable future.

Dinners:

Monday - Slow cooker chilli con carne with brown rice, avocado and grated cheese (post to follow on Tuesday)

Tuesday - Leftover slow cooker chilli con carne before Guides for me

Wednesday - excitingly I've been nominated for a Jack Petchey for my work as a Guide leader so we'll be at the presentation on Wednesday night. I will retrieve a couple of tupperwares for a freezer surprise dinner in advance.

Thursday - I'm at Brownies, but I think we've got a pizza in the freezer

Friday - Now I know it's St Valentine's, but it's my birthday on Saturday which far eclipses that. Plus we celebrated on St Dwynwen's back at the end of January, well we swapped gifts as we were up to our eyes in lining paper that weekend. I quite fancy curry at the moment so I might make a chicken and spinach curry and have that with some naan bread and dhaal. Curry was the first thing I ever made M.

Saturday - as it's my birthday we're going out for a family lunch at the potential venue for the wedding reception to sample the menu. I've also kindly been sent a bottle of non-alcoholic fizz to celebrate with.

Sunday - I have a small brisket stashed in the freezer, so I might treat us to roast beef again. So soon!

That's us. Busy again, but getting through the week in a haze of freezer surprise, and peanut butter kitkats (just me?)

Making your food go further - roast chicken 3 ways

This was our fabulous roast dinner on Sunday, free range chicken, crispy skin, eaten with roasties, stuffing, veggies and gravy. But what do you do after that first lovely meal?

For me, one of the best parts of a roast is the leftovers, and working out what to do with them. I'm clearly my mother's daughter in that the first night of leftovers always feature an oven baked potato, more veggies and pickles if we have them (I love pickles - throw me the cornichons and pickled onions and I'm a happy camper). I often tart the potatoes up, by after an hour in the oven, splitting them in half, scooping out the middle and mixing it up with boursin and a splash of milk before putting the filling back into the crispy skins and topping with some finely chopped leeks and cheddar. Another 20 minutes in the oven and you have fabulously yummy middles and my favourites the crispy skin and leeks.

Then we have the dilemma - I've probably at this stage got enough chicken left on the carcass for 4 more portions of a meal. Over the years I've come up with a few options for what to do at this stage, mostly developed with the unashamed aim of saving money and making my food go further.

M's favourite is my chicken and mushroom risotto although he and I have a soft spot for my chicken and sweet leek pie

With some judicious freezing, both of those recipes mean another 4 portions. If I'm feeling particularly on the ball I sometimes extend that even further by turning the carcass into stock and the stock straight into soup.

What are your favourite ways to make your food go further?

With thanks to Sainsbury's for the voucher that went towards our roast dinner.   

Meal Planning Monday: the wildly organised edition

Now of course, writing this does tempt fate hugely, but I do feel like I owe myself a little boast - it's Wednesday, 6pm and I've just done our meal plan and online shop for next week. Oh yes, I'm that organised.

I mentioned last week about the belt tightening that's going on to fund the wedding and the house redecoration - one of the things I've always done to help with this is to put our weekly shop through mysupermarket.com to make sure we go wherever is cheapest. However, try as I might I never seem to be able to make the total cost at the till come out the same as what I'd planned. Avoidance of temptation to 'just add' must be key, so this week I did the same and have pressed the button to checkout with Sainsburys.

This week is ours to get back to normal. Both Brownie and Guide terms kick off properly and M and I are both working around and about a fair bit.

Breakfasts: Either vanilla porridge or fruit toast or a smoothie for me.

Lunches: I've got the dhaal I made up the other week which is in the freezer happily waiting to be defrosted and heated up.

Dinners:

Saturday - Roast chicken, roast potatoes, stuffing and veggies

Sunday - Leftover roast chicken with baked potatoes and veggies

Monday - Chicken and mushroom risotto

Tuesday - leftovers

Wednesday - M is eating elsewhere so fish and greens for me

Thursday - Brownie night so pizza from the freezer

Friday - A lazy night for me, the standby chicken kiev with sweet potato chips and veggies.

Nothing overly exciting, but a week that helps us to stay on budget and fed - what more could you ask for? If my brain reminds me, I'll be linking up with Mrs M over at At Home with Mrs M... be sure to pop over there for inspiration with other meal plans.

Meal Planning Monday: for M, with love

This week I'm working away again. Well if this storm that's forecast lets me travel that is. The meal plan is a very M friendly one as it doesn't require too much of him. Don't get me wrong, M can cook - but, he prefers not to. To paraphrase - he'd rather take tablets at an appropriate time than bother to cook. Food is purely fuel for him, and it's only when I'm cooking that he really enjoys it.

Breakfasts - cereal and toast for M. Fruit and yoghurt for me.

Lunches - sandwiches, crisps, cheese and a cereal bar for M. Cup-a-soup (or similar) for me. I'll have fruit throughout the day, M and his colleagues will have the chocolate traybake I made and iced yesterday.

Supper -

Monday: I'll have my sandwich evening. M has leftover beef curry, rice and flatbread.

Tuesday: I'll probably investigate a Pizza express or similar. M has more leftover curry with rice.

Wednesday: I'll give in and eat in the hotel. M has lentil ragu from the freezer, with pasta and grated cheese

Thursday: I'm home! Well, sort of. I'm popping up to see my sister and nephew.

Friday: Something from the freezer :vague: possibly some of the leftover rice I've been making

Saturday: We have M's parents with us for the weekend, so a roast chicken with all the trimmings

Sunday: Parsnip and bacon pasta - see post later this week

That's our week - next week I'm going to make a beetroot cake, and hopefully we'll have a more interesting one - this is deliberately thrifty and apologies about it being a bit dull. Hopefully someone over at At home with Mrs M will have some more interesting cooking going on!

Meal Planning Monday

You know those weeks where you've clearly been really bad in a previous life? Yep. So that was last week. I'm hoping this week will be better. Either that or I'm going to bed and refusing to get up again until the spring. And don't you think I won't!

Is there any point in telling you how cold I am right now? Dear Lord it's freezing. Unsurprisingly this change in the weather *scary hands* Ahem. Excuse me. ... has heralded the return of porridge. I'm stewing off some apples with spices for a topping as I type.  Oh yes, I'm multitasking (Bake off is on in the background, I'm listening to Kate of The Small things talk about hair as well as writing)

Meal planning...

Breakfasts - porridge. Made with water, a splash of skimmed milk towards the end and topped with stewed apples. From one of my trees. Oh yes, I have not one but TWO apple trees.

Lunches - soup again. I've not made any this week so it's tinned *blush*

Dinners:

Monday - Acorn squash, stuffed with mince and topped with cheese

Tuesday - Cottage pie

Wednesday - Leftovers (I'm desperately hoping to drag the beef out a long way this week - I may add lentils)

Thursday -Pantry pasta

Friday - We're out at a friend's wedding for the evening

Saturday - Chicken marsala with green veggies

I baked at the weekend - a plum sponge cake - post will be written after this one. That's us fed pretty much. Pop on by to At Home with Mrs M to see what everyone else is up to.

Meal planning Monday: have you seen my kitchen?

It's the first Monday since we've moved that I've felt like I could legitimately meal plan. We've eaten a lot of pasta so far. An awful lot. However, amid the boxes (nearly all of which are unpacked), the painting (outside only at the moment in a bid to weatherproof) and of course the migraine inducing kitchen and bathrooms something akin to order has started to descend. As with all new homebuyers, money is going to be tight for a while, not least as the house is taking great pleasure in waiting for us to sit down, one of us to say "well we're really starting to get somewhere" before flinging something which needs immediate and serious attention right in the middle of our path. Epic.

What else is one to do when surrounded by chaos but make some kind of order out of it. Not necessarily any conventional kind of order, but order nonetheless.

Breakfasts - I've come over all conventional on my breakfasts and have been having weetabix with a banana.

Lunches - The temperature dropped and like that *snaps fingers* I switched back to soup. I've got one portion of lentil left and then I'll need to make some more.

Dinners

Monday - Pantry pasta

Tuesday - Chicken chow mein. Loosely based on this recipe from Chinese cooking made simple, but with added veg to make it go further and do 4 portions

Wednesday - Leftovers

Thursday - Omlettes with mushroom, cheese, bacon and any veggies I can find lurking in the fridge

Friday - Either lentil ragu, which I batch cooked and froze last week, or hopefully it's out of my hands as we're going to pop over to my sister's to talk weddings.

Next weekend will herald pot roasted brisket - photos and recipe too with any luck. 

So that's it - nothing much exciting, but it is a meal plan.  Now I just remember to have to join and link up over at At home with Mrs M.

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

Meal Planning Monday: the still vaguely organised edition

Last week's meal plan went well - we stayed on plan, save for Sunday when my sister, her husband and my nephew couldn't come over, so we had leftover turkey chilli with flatbreads instead. Remind me to link my flatbreads up to the Fresh From the Oven challenge. 

This week M's working away for a couple of nights and I'm at a Guiders curry - I mean planning meeting *cough* Brownies starts back too so it's not just M who's a busy bee. 

Breakfasts: Porridge with brown sugar and a banana for me

Lunches: Soup - Split pea and frankfurter and Lifechanging

Dinners: 

Monday: Leftover turkey chilli

Tuesday: Guiders curry night (prawn biryiani shall be mine!) 

Wednesday: Pantry pasta

Thursday: (freezer special) Chicken escalopes, oven chips and peas

Friday: My first foray into Jamie's 15 minute meals - Chicken Dim Sum. I'll report back

Saturday: is a blank at the moment - there will be leftover Dim sum so possibly that

Sunday: Slow roast pork (same as last week's plan) 

So that's our week in the pantry - a minimal amount of shopping and a few quick and easy dinners. Sounds good to me. 

Make sure to pop over to At home with Mrs M to see what everyone's up to on the linky 

Meal Planning Monday: The leftovers edition

Ok, so it's not a proper meal plan as such - more a round up of what to do with your leftover turkey. I've trawled the blog for ideas that you could replace chicken with turkey and the ones I like are listed here.

My Dad's chicken curry (obviously with turkey) - quick, easy and the only extra ingredients you need are some spinach, and tomatoes which are easy enough to chuck in your trolley on that last run round. 

Butternut squash, barley and chicken casserole: one you can put in the slow cooker and leave be all day

Chicken and mushroom risotto: remember you can add any veggies to this, and could even stir in some leftover shredded sprouts towards the end

Turkey soup - made with homemade stock. Again bulk out with any veggies you have, dried peas, beans or lentils

Turkey surprise pie: You can add any leftover ham you've got knocking around to this. Also, just use shop bought puff pastry. There is no point at this time of year in fretting over your own. 

Turkey and sweet leek pie: This is the original recipe for turkey surprise pie - minus leftover veggies, ham (and any other fillers you've got!)

Also don't forget yesterday's turkey chilli, which you can wrap in tortillas, have in a big bowl that people help themselves to with rice, taco shells, cornbread, or as M did when I was poorly a bowl of tortilla chips

Coming up tomorrow (if it works) turkey carnitas

Meal Planning Monday: woman cannot live by blackberry vodka alone. That edition.

How on earth did it get to be Sunday evening already? I'm sure I only just finished doing this for last week. Anyway, here we are again, this week M is off having a well earned rest (I say that but his to-do list is getting longer by the hour) and I'm nose to the grindstone. That said we've had a lovely weekend in the sunshine, spending yesterday with a picnic on the heath and today going for a long walk and doing some blackberrying. We've also belatedly celebrated M's birthday with a Mars bar cake - which received the accolade "why haven't you made this for me before now?"

If you follow me on Instagram - I'm penjy on there - you'll have seen the preserving that's been going on in the Pantry - on Friday I took advantage of some bargain soft fruits to start a Currant rum, using the recipe I previously blogged about here. It's maturing in the pantry at the moment, but I should be adding the sugar and bottling it around the 1st September. I also strained and bottled my blackberry vodka, which looks beautiful. The 2lb or so of blackberries we picked today are destined to be split between another batch of blackberry liquor (maybe brandy or gin this time - I'm not sure, what do you think?) and some jam. I'm going to freeze the jam half as I'm waiting on M's Mum's recipe as hers are altogether failsafe and also the return of some of my jam jars. I'm getting ahead on my preserving so that the booze will be bottled and maturing nicely in time for Christmas. Yes, I said it. But if I prepare for it now then I should manage to avoid last year's last minute panic. And I prefer homemade gifts, there's just something so much more personal about giving people something you've spent time and love on, not just money. 

So seeing as man (or woman) cannot survive on blackberry vodka alone I had better get my head around some meal planning: 

Breakfasts: fruit for me with my usual mugs of tea

Lunches: salad all the way, tomorrow I've got leftover tuna pasta salad (which is all free food on Slimming World), then ham salad probably for Tuesday. After that I'll need to locate some protein to go with the veg as I didn't roast a chicken today. It was just too hot. 

Dinners: 

Monday - M is visiting his parents so I'm thinking of picking up some mackerel on my way home and having that with horseradish and a salad.

Tuesday - M is home and there's a portion of leftover courgetti spaghetti to eat. I'm in Kent all day so may well just collapse in a little heap on arriving home. 

Wednesday - we've eaten a lot of pasta lately so I'm going to make a sweet and sour chicken/ turkey. We'll have that with brown basmati rice

Thursday - is it terrible to say I'm banking on having leftovers? Well I don't care, I'm banking on having leftover sweet and sour chicken.

Friday - Meatballs with a tomato sauce and pasta

Meanwhile in my Simple Summer essentials I've got another patriotic pavlova to make (we ate the first one), in all it's red, white and blue glory for the Paralympic opening ceremony. 

And the last installment of that series will be some peaches that I'm going to try grilling and having with 0% fat yoghurt as a pudding. That post will also have a competition to find your Simple Summer Essentials with a prize from Asda for one winner of a £50 voucher to help you create your choice. 

So that's where we are this week - what about you?