Meal Planning Monday: The healing edition

After last week's slightly incoherent, rambly post about the ills of hospital food, I'm still at home and slowly getting back to full strength. I'm hoping to go back to work next week, but have to get checked out by the doctor to say that's OK first. Consequently this week features a lot of comfort food, as demanded both by the weather and by the slowly healing system of this poorly person.

Breakfasts are 0% Total Greek yoghurt with some lightly stewed eating apples that I cooked down this evening with about 100g of sultanas soaked in orange juice and zest. I'm planning on making some granola to add some crunch - apparently crunchy foods increase serotonin and I've been craving them since my release last week.

Lunches for me are another batch of Nigella's split pea and frankfurter soup, with a good spoonful of lazy chilli stirred through.

Dinners, as I say are full on comfort food. It's not so much about calories, but about needing that soothing unctuousness that comfort food provides. M has work and Welsh this week so I'm getting the slow cooker back out for a hearty, warming casserole:

Monday: Toad in the hole, mashed potatoes and vegetables

Tuesday: Chicken and sweet leek pie with vegetables- cauliflower and spring greens I think

Wednesday: Chicken, butternut squash and barley casserole - I'll blog this as it's a long standing recipe I've been using for years that doesn't seem to have made the blog as yet

Thursday: Leftover casserole

Friday: Apparently I said we'd find out when we got there which means my brain was addled after thinking up four dinners. The fact that I just had to ask M this is evidence that I really am not on form yet.

I should be getting beetroot in my veg box tomorrow so M has requested Jenny's Beetroot chocolate cake, and I have a bit of a craving (is it the crunch again?) for Eccles cakes, so will be breaking out my t&t Delia recipe. 

I've promised M a roast on Sunday as he's at archery in the morning, so will either do the slow roast pork from the other week, or go steady on the cauliflower in the week and do roast beef and cauliflower cheese. Oh I think I've just decided! Beef it is, with a mustardy crust. Yum.

Meal planning Wednesday: The midweek edition

You may have noticed that it's not Monday, and I'm not trying to sidle in late to Meal Planning Monday with a note from my Mum. It's midweek, and I'm proudly only just doing my meal plan.

Wednesday: Nasi Goreng
Thursday: Fridge bottom soup (swede, parsnip, carrot and celery) with Herman bread
Friday: Is it cheating to say leftover soup & Nasi Goreng?
Saturday: Bratwurst, baked potatoes and red cabbage
Sunday: Chicken and leek pie

Baking: A Herman, and a beetroot chocolate cake

Lunches this week have been mainly fruit based, but once I've made the soup, it'll be that in my new flask.

My main reason for lateness is that I've been teaching in Kent this week, and I'm disorganised, and seem to be suffering with some kind of permanently full up and slightly nauseous thing. Anyway, the Riverford veg box arrived today and I made good use of it, and a leftover sauce from my Fusion Foods challenge in a protein and veg rich Nasi Goreng.

Nasi Goreng

1 cup brown, basmati rice. Cooked
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Dried galangal to taste
1 red chilli, chopped
250g chicken
100g cooked prawns
1 cup edamame beans
1 cup sweetcorn
2 sticks celery, chopped
2 carrots, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 tablespoon rapeseed oil
1 jar WorldFoods Fusion nasi goreng sauce

Heat up the oil in a large pan or wok and add the spices, cooking until they sizzle
Add the chicken and cook until browned
Add the vegetables and stir fry until lightly cooked
Stir the sauce through
Add the cooked rice and stir until combined
Serve, on the sofa, in a bowl, with a large glass of water, wearing pyjamas.

The Pantry Christmas, picture edition

Who will buy? My leftover turkey surprise pie

So you've had your turkey, and now you're surrounded by leftovers. What do you do with them?

Sandwiches

Try adding mango chutney if you have some lingering around the cupboards or fridge, we find it adds a fruity edge to turkey. I like one with a good kick of chilli to it, but all the supermarkets sell them so you can easily find one to suit your tastes.

If you're trying to eke the turkey out further, try chopping it up small and mixing it in with something like mayonaise or salad cream (this is a bit of a Guiding trick to make things feed more girls). Don't forget to add a bit of seasoning.

I am a sucker for homemade bread, and over Christmas have been using the breadmaker (it's normally ignored in favour of doing it by hand, but y'know the wrist is still plastered and everyone's busy enough, it's so easy to run the breadmaker overnight while we are all sleeping. And you have the added bonus of waking up to the smell of fresh bread.

Turkey pie

I use this recipe as my basic guideline, as it's a favourite pie of ours. But.. it's not just any turkey/ chicken pie from the archives, but with the addition of a few more leftovers becomes

Boxing Day Surprise Pie

To the leek/ shredded turkey filling, add - fried up bacon snipped into little pieces, leftover stuffing, rolled into balls, and mushrooms (leftover from the Cottage pie on Christmas Eve)

Cook as for the regular pie, and serve with roast potatoes, and lightly cooked veggies. I deliberately piled my plate high with the veggies to balance out the heaviness of yesterday and todays dinners.

The fact that this has it's own gravy that's made as part of the cooking process made me feel less guilty for agreeing to throw the leftover gravy away yesterday

Turkey risotto

I'm a big fan of risotto, and it's always one of my go to's for using up leftover roast chicken, in the same way as I did above, you could add bits of bacon, extra veggies etc to the dish, as you soothingly stir quietly away in the kitchen whilst listening to Radio 2.  Just me then?

Here is the recipe for risotto bianco, just stir in your shredded turkey where I've used chicken in that post, and any other ingredients you have to hand.

Shredded brussels would cook down beautifully in this, and if you added some leftover smoky bacon would taste amazing.


Tomorrow I'm going to post recipes for Turkey soup and stock. Just to continue the trend and not make this an encyclopedia of 101 ways with leftover turkey!

A quick review of Christmas dinner

We're going to be photo free in the Pantry for the next few days, as... wait for it, I have a new camera! And I've taken some pics with it, but (cleverly) came away without my laptop so have pics of my leftovers and Christmas dinner will have to wait. Sadly.

Christmas dinner was wonderful - if I do say so myself. Four empty plates, four full tummies, and dinner dished up only 5 minutes later than planned. I'm impressed. And modest. As you can probably tell.

The 'it'sjustaroast' mantra worked wonders, and I didn't get at all stressed until everything was just about done, and all needed things doing to it at once. I was very grateful for Mark's top oven, and was using both on at full capacity. However, I have to say that Mark came into his own, patiently stirring gravy and listening to occaisional outbursts of mild swearing.

I forgot to warm the plates, but other than that there were no ommisions, burnings, or otherwise disastrous occurences.

Particular successes were the roast potatoes - a dripping cup really is as good as goose fat, the stuffing, which I supplemented with sausagemeat on Christmas eve, and the veggies. Next year I would add honey to the parsnips, and maybe parboil them before roasting so that they are quicker to cook as the added sugar that will caramelise them.

The Christmas pudding was lovely, again I would do that the same, but just to my preferences omit the candied peel and sub that with extra glace cherries.

Next post will be Things to do with your leftovers. We've had turkey surprise pie today, I've made soup, and stock, and the last bit of the meat will be turned into risotto.

I hope you're having a lovely time with families, friends and loved ones.

Moving too fast

Photos above are anything and everything food related from my phone, as the camera is at my Mum's - a peril of being without permanent abode I'm afraid!

Once again I find myself compelled to start with an apology for a gap in writing. It's not that I've not been cooking, far from it - but circumstances seem to conspire against me being settled, and able to cook, write and post on a regular basis.

To explain further, shortly after mine and Jess' enchilada extravaganza, my ex-flatmate decided that she wanted to live by herself. Which is fine. But put me under pressure to find somewhere new to live in my local area at a time when there was (and is) just little movement in the rental market. Obviously as regular readers are aware, I need to balance my needs as a disabled woman with ensuring continuity for my Guides and Brownies, and of course I work in the Public Sector at a time when there is less job security than ever. Not a good combination with trying to find somewhere new to live, continuing to be productive in my job, and volunteering. So life has not been easy, I have been travelling the length and breadth of London on a regular basis, carrying my life on my back (I know! Bad plan for starters) with most of my possessions in that vague, uncertain place known as 'storage'. My favourite roasters, utensils, plates and cups, all packed away in copies of the Metro and taken away in a lorry.

Anyway, I haven't been as unfortunate as that suggests, I have a lovely boyfriend, who puts up with my need to completely take over his kitchen on a regular basis, and who in actual fact reminded me this morning that I needed to write something for here. My mum has turned a blind eye (and surprisingly, eaten) much of what I've turned out in her (far nicer than anything I'm used to) kitchen, including encouraging me to make the trifle for the Christmas dinner - more on this later too. Hopefully.

So, with support and help I'm getting along. As with many people with a long term condition my health has been seriously affected by the uncertainty and change I've been coping with. Regular seizures, a horrible bout of flu, and sinusitis have kept me indoors and largely aleep since November. Whilst I live in eternal hope of healthy stability, I'm also developing some patience (anyone who follows me on twitter and who is party to my frequent rages/ grumps/ whining about my health can roll their eyes here) with my health and trying to expect less of myself, and judge myself less harshly. Interestingly, with support I'm learning to rest more, to let other people pick up things and not try to do everything myself. It's hard to admit that as a young woman you need support but I'm getting there. It's interesting the lack of support that is available from the Public and Voluntary sectors in these economic times, and the expectation from Adult Social Care that friends and family will act as unpaid, unsupported carers just because one's needs are 'moderate. Although how 'moderate' and homeless sit together I will never understand!

Anyway, before I get up on my soapbox - naturally an adapted one ;-) - I'll tell you a little bit about my foodie exploits these past months. If that's OK?

Well we've had 2 pack holidays with the Brownies, and have done lots of cooking - the usual baking, but also from scratch meals as well. The girls universally enjoyed cooking 'normal' meals as well as fairy cakes, caramel shortbread, and 'armpit' fudge. I'm without camera at the moment but will endeavour to add that post later this week.

I've been involved with Sainsburys a little as a part of the launch of their Christmas freefrom range - I was invited to Christmas dinner with some lovely other bloggers and had the pleasure of sampling some lovely gluten and dairy free recipes and products. As well as the Taste the Difference wines and traditional lemonade. Both of which were gorgeous. The evening itself (and the tiramisu I made with the Gluten Free Mrs D were lots of fun, and one of my aims for 2011 is definitely to get involved more in the blogger community.

Sainsburys also sent me some of their Taste the Difference mincemeat to test early in December and I duly made mince pies for my boyfriend's father's birthday. I have to say these went down a treat, and I used up some pastry cases I had lying around after catering my sister's hen do as well as making my own pastry (top tip for pastry for mince pies - use orange juice instead of water to bind). Which does mean my dear readers that I have finally beaten my pastry demons. I am so proud!

Just before Christmas Kavey of Kavey Eats asked on twitter for our Christmas loves and hates, I very honestly admitted that my mother's 70's tastic trifle was a big hate for me, but that I didn't know how to broach that with her. Now I'm pretty sure that my mum doesn't read this (or twitter) but oddly enough she asked me to make the trifle this year, and I was allowed to deter from the typical tinned fruit in jelly, set custard with dream topping affair and make a spiced fruit trifle that wasn't dissimilar to my summer fruit fools last year.

What else is there? Mabel has been sorely neglected of late, so I'm going to give her a good feed tomorrow night, and with any luck (cross your fingers for me that she hasn't expired) and hopefully introduce my boyfriend to the world of leavened bread next weekend.

My skills with leftovers continue - this Christmas my turkey and ham pie spawned a recreation with chicken and leeks that has become a firm favourite in the repertoire. Oh and the addition of a slow cooker to the boyfriend's kitchen equipment has meant that I am casseroling with aplomb and an alarming frequency.

So that's where I am and what I've been up to of late, I hope it doesn't make for too dull reading. I'm hoping that 2011 has some stability in store for me, not least as I have a kind of plan in my head that would allow me to extend my cooking adventures out to a wider audience , but I'm not sure how one goes about making a job/ business out of what we love. Advice, mentoring and guidance is gladly received at this stage as my capacity for thought in a head that's full of flatshares, what's in my rucksack, and planning a Guide holiday that I've faithfully promised them yet utterly failed to organise!

Covent Garden Food Market

This is just a picture post from last time I went to the Covent Garden food market. Cupcakes were eaten, coffee was drunk and the unexpected sunshine enjoyed.

Naturally I was enamoured with the cupcake accessories. Look at the glitter! And sprinkles! (sometimes I do wonder if I'm in my thirties, or an overgrown teenager)


More cupcakes.

Sugar mice! Despite being slightly shocked that these were £1 when I remember them being far cheaper in my childhood I was still excited.

Look! It's like The Pie Hole, but in real life. Raul Esparza is just around the corner. Singing and selling herbal remedies.

The worst pies in London? Actually they're very good, but the Sweeney Todd reference was begging to be added.

Couture cupcakes. Who knew there was such a thing?!

Cheese. Nope, I couldn't find anything else to write - but look at the yumminess.

Also more cheese, couldn't you just go one of those, baked in it's box, with red wine and dippy bread.

Baklava. Now, should you ever be at the Highbury end of Upper Street, go to Gem which is an amazing Lebanese restaurant which does even more amazing baklava.