Chicken stew - freezer dinner

Dinner last night was supposed to be chicken stew but we ended up eating at the home of some family.  As I had all the ingredients in I decided to make it anyway and freeze it for a night when I do not have much time to prepare a meal. 

The recipe uses the same ingredients as the Potato and Savoy cabbage soup plus chicken and leeks.  The recipe is at the bottom of the method for the soup.  To make the stew:-

1. Cut 4 chicken breasts into large chunks and chop the bacon. Heat the oil in a frying pan, fry together until golden, then remove.
2. Add a little more oil, then fry 4 small, finely sliced leeks, the finely sliced celery, the potatoes and the carrot, finely sliced, for few mins.
3. Add stock, turn up the heat and bring to the boil, then simmer.
4. Once the potato is tender, add the chicken and cabbage and simmer for a further 5 mins.

As I was making the stew to put in the freezer I didn't add the potato as I feel it doesn't freeze well when cooked.  Instead, I will cook potatoes separately, then add to the stew when I am reheating it.  In all it took me about 20 minutes to prepare the stew for the freezer.

In order to reduce the fat in this meal, I cooked the chicken and bacon in a non-stick pan and didn't add any oil.  When cooking the vegetables, I added a small bit of water to the bottom of the non-stick pan before adding them.  By doing this I was able to avoid adding any oil when cooking.  I also used bacon medallions instead of streaky bacon, lowering the fat content.

This recipe is another inexpensive dinner.  The chicken breasts were €1 each.  I used 3 instead of the 4 suggested, so I spent €3 on the chicken.  I used 2 large leeks which cost €1, 4 bacon medallions which cost €0.85, a celery stick, carrot and stock cube that I had in which I will allow €0.50 for.  In total it cost €5.35 for 4 generous servings and 2 small ones.  This will do dinner for two nights for my family once the potatoes are added, making it less than €5 per meal.