Salmon and lemon rice pastry parcel

For dinner this evening we had Salmon and lemon rice pastry parcel from the September 2012 issue of the GoodFood magazine.  We will be having leftovers for dinner tomorrow night, so this recipe will feed the 4 of us for 2 nights.  The recipe states that it serves 6, and so we are able to get two nights dinners out of this quite easily.

Alterations
My husband and children don't like eggs, so I omitted these from the recipe when I made it. Though I did brush the pastry with whisked egg, as per the recipe, as I figured they couldn't object to something they didn't realise they were eating!!  I also left out the capers as no one in my family really likes them.

The hot-smoked salmon fillets that I used had cracked black pepper on them.  I used the same salmon the first time I made this recipe and it tasted lovely so I decided to stick with it.


Top tips - lemon basmati rice
The first time I made this recipe (about a month and half ago) I couldn't find the lemon basmati rice the recipe needs when I was doing my grocery shopping.  I did however find Martha Stewart's recipe for making lemon basmati rice on her website, and as I had all the ingredients in I decided to make my own.

After making the lemon rice, I had a lot more rice than the pastry parcel recipe called for, so I once again took to the Internet to check to see if it was possible to freeze cooked rice.  The short answer is - you can, but you need to cool it quickly.  For more information on how to freeze and defrost rice click on the link.

This morning I lifted my puff pastry and rice from the freezer to allow them to defrost for use in the dinner later in the day.  It is possible to re-heat the rice from frozen in the microwave, but I decided to not to do this so that I didn't have to wait for the rice to cool before I mixed it with the other ingredients.  The rice tasted fine when defrosted and reheated. 

After seeing how straight forward it was to freeze, defrost and re-heat the rice I think I might double up on portions of rice that I am boiling in the future in order to freeze half of it. 

Menu plan 17/11/2012 to 23/11/2012

Once again I've managed to not find the time to post my menu plan for the last few weeks.  I figured while I had the computer on, checking the ingredients I need for my shopping list, I would make a quick update. 

Anyway, my menu plan for the 17th November to the 23rd November is as follows:-
Saturday dinner - Mince and onions (from the freezer), potatoes and baked beans
Sunday dinner - Salmon and lemon rice pastry parcel
Monday dinner - leftover salmon and lemon rice pastry parcel
Tuesday dinner - Chilli
Wednesday dinner - Chicken with creamy bacon penne
Thursday dinner - Fish, chips, peas and sweetcorn
Friday dinner - Roast ham, potatoes and veg

For lunches this week we will have sandwiches, leftover chilli and salads.

At the moment I am trying to run down my freezer again before Christmas as I'll probably have a lot of leftovers to freeze (my husband insists on getting a big turkey and freezing what we don't eat as we only ever have turkey once a year).  This week, all the meat I will be using is from the freezer, except for the salmon for tomorrow's dinner which is in the fridge.  This will allow me to gain a lot of space in the freezer, as well as saving a bit of money as I will not have to buy any meat.

My husband has classes on Tuesday evenings, so I will make the chilli ahead on Monday evening so that he can take some to work to eat before he heads to class.  Having the chilli ready ahead of time will also help save some time in the evening when I get home which will be handy as I will be trying to get dinner on the table as quickly as possible as well as trying to entertain the kids. 

When I make chilli there is usually leftovers, but rather than put them in the freezer, like I would normally do, I will use any leftovers for lunches.  There is nothing quite like a nice warm filling lunch at this time of year.  Unfortunately I am still trying to lose weight so I'll be having salads!