Roast lemon chicken with tagliatelle

On Sunday evening I made the roast lemon chicken with tagliatelle from the September 2009 issue of Olive magazine.  It was really straightforward to make and tasted delicious (I think I need to find another adjective or two to describe recipes that turn out to be extremely tasty!!).

I found the recipe after doing a search for 'basil' and 'chicken' as I had both ingredients in the house.  The basil was purchased for summer chicken and basil stew that I made for dinner on Thursday night last week.  I had some leftover and didn't want to throw it out.  Obviously as I had made the summer chicken and basil stew the week before, I was keen to find something that would taste quite different from the stew as we'd had it two nights in a row and I didn't want to bore my family.  So, after looking through the search results I picked the roast lemon chicken with tagliatelle and I have to say - I'm glad I did!

All the family enjoyed this meal and my son devoured it.  As the alcohol in the wine evaporates when cooking, it was fine to serve this to him as well as to the rest of the family.  He really enjoyed picking up the bits of tagliatelle and feeding them to himself!

Alterations
When I said I had chicken in - I had chicken breasts in.  The recipe calls for chicken thighs.  So, once again I used chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs.  As well as not having to buy chicken thighs for the meal, using the chicken breasts allowed me to reduce the roasting time as they didn't take as long to roast as the chicken thighs would have.

As I was only making this recipe for 2 adults and 2 kids, I only used 2 chicken breasts to keep the costs down a bit.  I stuck to the recipe with regards to the rest of the ingredients though as I fancied a lot of flavour and a bit more juices to tip into my tagliatelle than I would have had if I had halved all the other ingredients.

Cost
The chicken breasts cost €2, the basil was 50 cent, the lemons were 50 cent, the tagliatelle was around 80 cent and I have allowed 30 cent for the garlic and olive oil.  The wine I had in the house was bought on my last trip to my mothers house in Asda.  It was on offer 3 bottles for £10.  As the recipe only uses one glass I estimate that the wine cost around 80 cent.  This makes the total cost of the recipe €4.90.

Took this photo with my phone so it doesn't look great - sorry!

Maple and pepper-glazed chicken with roasted carrots

Last Wednesday night we had maple and pepper-glazed chicken with roasted carrots for dinner.  This recipe was from the March 2010 issue of Olive magazine.  It was delicious!

I am only getting to write about it now as I have been a bit unwell the last week.  I did make the dinner, as it was a quick one, and took a few photos so that I would be able to post about the meal as it was so delicious.

The meal was really quick and easy to make.  When I put the carrots in to roast, I put a few potatoes on to boil so that I could make a little bit of mash to go with the chicken and roasted carrots.  To be honest, I don't think the mash is really necessary, but I knew my husband would be starving and would appreciate a bit of mash.

I gave the baby a bit of mash and chicken.  I only gave him a little of the chicken though as I was conscious of the fact that it had been cooked in stock.  He had some of the roasted carrots to eat as finger food.  They went down really well and I ended up giving him more from my plate.


Alterations
Other than using three chicken breasts instead of two and more carrots, I made no alterations to this recipe.

Cost
The chicken breasts cost €3, the carrots cost 40 cent and I have allowed €1 for the remaining ingredients and potatoes.  The total cost of the meal was €4.30.

Puy lentil, spiced carrot and feta salad

Just a tiny bit excited about my lunch for the next few days - almost looking forward to going to work in the morning so that I can have some at lunchtime!

I made the puy lentil, spiced carrot and feta salad from the May 2011 issue of GoodFood magazine.  This recipe is served warm, but obviously my salad won't be warm as I will be eating it straight out of the fridge, but the magazine suggested using leftovers for lunch so I decided to make it specifically for lunches.  I did however have a sneaky taste while it was hot and it was yummy!

Alterations
I made two minor alterations to the recipe.  I used the juice of one lemon instead of the juice of 1/2 a lemon and the lettuce I used was a mix of lambs lettuce and rocket.

Cost
The puy lentils (green lentils) cost 30 cent, the carrots were 50 cent, the lettuce was €1, the lemon was 25 cent, the red onion was 15 cent, 63 cent for the feta and I have allowed 50 cent for the other ingredients.  The total cost was €3.33.

There is enough in the salad to last to four days lunches.  I put it into a large tub in the fridge and will fill a small tub for my lunch each evening.  This means that the total cost of my lunch per day will be 83 cent.  Much cheaper than eating out!

Can not wait to eat this tomorrow!

Irish coddled pork with cider..again!

Back in January I made this Irish coddled pork with cider recipe from the GoodFood magazine and it went down a treat.  I decided to make it for dinner today when I saw that both cabbage and turnip were on offer in Dunnes yesterday for 29 cent each.  There we pork loins in our freezer and we got some bulmers when we were in Asda last week (note - we bought 'Magners' not the English Bulmers), so I didn't need to buy them which made this recipe a cheap enough option for me this week allowing me to stay well within my grocery budget.

The cabbage on offer in Dunnes was a quarter of a white cabbage for 29 cent, so I only used a quarter of cabbage this time round.  There was still more than enough to go around.

I wouldn't normally post about a recipe I've made previously, but I wanted to show how tailoring your menu to suit what the stores have on offer on any given week can reduce the overall cost of your menu for that week by comparing the how much it cost me to make the coddled pork this week to when I made it back in January.

Cost - As I said I had Pork Loins in the freezer.  They were recently on offer in our butchers at 5 pork loins for €5.  This recipe used 2 so this it cost €2.  The turnip was 15 cent, the cabbage was 29 cent, the carrots were 25 cent, the bacon was €1, potatoes were 60 cent (I used 4 instead of two) and the bulmers was 25 cent (the offer I bought them on was not as good as the one I got before Christmas making this ingredient slightly more expensive.  This makes the total cost of the meal €4.54. 

I saved 46 cent on this recipe this week when compared with how much it cost when I made it in January.  I used an extra potato but less cabbage.  Even if I had bought an extra quarter of white cabbage, I would still have saved money on the recipe as this would only have cost another 29 cent.

A saving of 46 cent doesn't really seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but if I saved this much in every meal I made in the week I'd have an extra €3.22 at the end of the week.  Considering that I have some recipes on here that cost less than €3 to make, this extra money means that I could feed the family for an extra day on what I had saved.  Something to think about I guess.

Crab linguine with chili and parsley

Tonight for dinner I made the crab linguine with chilli and parsley from the March 2011 issue of Goodfood magazine.

Unfortunately when I went to get the linguine from the cupboard I discovered that my husband had been using it instead of spaghetti so I had none left.  I did have some nice tagliatelle in that a friend brought back from a holiday in Italy, so decided to use this instead.

I made a bit of an error as well in that I misread the crab that was needed to make the recipe and only had 200g of white crab meat.  The recipe still turned out well, but I think if I had the brown crab meat it would have turned out a bit better.  If I make it again I will make sure to have the correct crab for the recipe. 
Last Saturday night when I made a meal that required parsley, I got the parsley ready in advance and forgot to add it to the pot at the appropriate time.  This week, I made sure that the parsley went in!

The squeeze of lemon is optional.  I decided to add it as I have lemons left over from the shopping last week.  I love the taste of lemon and parsley together and think they go particular well together with any seafood, but this is the first time I've tried them with the crab.  I actually ended up getting the lemon and squeezing a bit more lemon juice on it as I was eating it as I felt it needed a bit more.  It was really tasty with the extra lemon.  If I make it again I will be putting extra lemon in before serving.

It was really quick and easy to make - definitely one for a night when you need to get dinner ready in a hurry.

Cost - Again this is a bit of a hard one for me to put a definite figure on with regards to cost as some of the ingredients I have had in for a while - like the tagliatelle and wine.  The crab I got was on special offer.  I reckon the meal was less than €5 in total, but if the crab had not been on offer it would have been quite a bit more than this.

Lentils with chorizo and red wine - yummy!!

On Saturday evening, as planned, we had lentils with chorizo and red wine for dinner.  I have to say that it totally surpassed any expectations that I had.  My husband confessed to me after we had finished that when he saw it in the pan prior to being served he was a bit concerned about eating it, but that he loved it and would like to add it to our regular list of dinners.  Proof that looks can indeed be deceptive!! 
As per the recipe suggestion I served mine with plenty of crusty bread which we used to mop up the juices.  As the kids had gone to bed, we decided to finish the bottle of wine we used with the meal. 

I added more liquid than is stated in the recipe as I felt my lentils were not soft enough by the time the liquid had reduced.  I poured in a bit more water, but I think if I make it again I will simply add an extra 100mls of stock.  If it doesn't all reduce that won't be a problem as the juice is delicious mopped up with the bread.

I had no fresh thyme in so I didn't add it.  If I had thought at the time I would have added a little dried thyme, but I wasn't really thinking.

The other difference I made was totally accidental.  I had my parsley prepared in advance...and forgot to add it!  My husband went into the kitchen with the bowls when we had finished and shouted that he could really taste the parsley in the dish.  Cheeky git!!  Anyway, if you do not have any parsley then don't worry about it as I can assure you that the meal still tastes delicious.  Next time I will be adding parsley though as it is one of my favourite ingredients, which I guess just goes to show how tasty the dish was that I was so wrapped up in eating it that I hadn't noticed that I left the parsley out!

COST - it is hard for me to work out the cost of this one as I had the chorizo, garlic and lentils in.  I had to buy wine, onion, leek and the parsley which I accidentally omitted.  I think it is safe to say that the recipe is well under €5 though, but I think the cost depends a lot on the wine you buy.

Sweet potato and easy chilli bake

Dinner this evening I made sweet potato and easy chilli bake - see the 'try' note at the bottom of the recipe to make the recipe into a bake. 

I opted to make the bake instead of just serving the roasted sweet potatoes with the chilli inside as I thought it might be easier to serve it to my children that way.  My daughter is not keen on sweet potato and I worried that if I served it to her with the chilli in it that she would just eat the chilli and leave the sweet potato.  With the bake she mixed it altogether and ate it all without question.  I served to to the baby the same way.  They both really enjoyed it and I have to say I enjoyed it myself.  Unfortunately my husband was out, so I didn't get any feedback from him on it.  Though, if I am honest I don't think he would have eaten any of it as he claims to hate sweet potato.  Perhaps if he had been here I would have had to mix it all together the same way my daughter did and give it to him that way!!

Anyway, to save myself some time I roasted the sweet potato last night.  TIP  - when roasting sweet potato avoid using a pizza tray.  In my haste to get my potatoes on last night I roasted them on the first oven tray I could put my hand to and it was a pizza tray.  Result - the sugar that oozed out of the sweet potatoes as they were roasting dripped through the holes in the tray and is now all over my oven.  So - that's oven cleaner for the shopping list this week :-(

The recipe is for 8, so I halved the ingredients.  I had loads left over so I froze the leftover chilli and made a portion for lunch tomorrow.  I didn't freeze the little bit of sweet potato I had left over as there was sour cream in it and I didn't think that the cream would freeze well.  Next time I'll make a bit less sweet potato as I had to throw a bit out. 

I used chilli powder instead of Cajun seasoning as I don't have any Cajun seasoning.

COST - The mince cost €3, the sweet potatoes were €2.74, the chilli was 40 cent, the onion was 28 cent, 400g tin of tomato is €1 and the can of kidney beans €1.09, making the total cost of the chilli €8.51!  Gulp!!  I think that it is safe to say that this might be the most expensive meal I had made to date.  Of course, some of it is in the freezer, so I have actually not spent that much on what we had for dinner this evening, it's more like half of that - €4.26, which sounds an awful lot better!

Who doesn't like a Sunday roast?

To be honest, until a few years ago I had gone off Sunday roasts altogether.  During my final few years living at my parents house we seemed to have roast chicken or beef with potatoes and vegetables all the time.  At least, that's what it felt like.  After I left home to go to university I stopped eating roast dinners, even managing to avoid eating them when I went home.  I had become sick of them!  Fast forward a (good) few years and I love having a roast dinner.  We don't have them every Sunday though - I don't want to get to the point where I am bored of eating them again - and I try to shake things up a bit by having different vegetables on the side or cooking the potatoes a different way.
Yesterday we had a roast chicken dinner.  I got the chicken from my local butcher on Saturday.  It cost €6.99 which is a bit more expensive than the whole chickens you can get in the supermarkets but I prefer to buy it from my butcher as I feel it tastes much better. 

With the chicken yesterday we had a little bit of mash potatoes, roast potatoes (made the same way that the roast potatoes were made last weekend), mashed carrots and parsnip and gravy with onions, some carrot and parsnip through it.  For dinner this evening, we had leftovers from yesterday.  The baby had the same dinner as us, minus the gravy. 

TIP - Having a whole chicken - then get as much out of it as possible.  After slicing the roast chicken for our dinner yesterday and today, I pulled the remaining meat from the wings and legs and put it in a bowl.  Then I made chicken stock by boiling the carcass in water in a stock pot on my cooker.  I used the chicken stock and the meat to make a soup (a version of the creamy chicken soup mentioned earlier in the blog) for lunches this week.

Cost - Sometimes paying for a whole chicken can seem a bit expensive, however you can get more out of a whole chicken than you can out of chicken breasts making it good value for money.  We had dinner for 2 nights - slicing a breast for each night - plus six portions of soup from our lunch during the week.  The chicken was € 4.66 (I've allowed two thirds of the cost for the roast dinners), the parsnips were 49 cent, the carrots were 99 cent per 1 kg bag (I used them all between the soup and dinners), the potatoes were about € 1.50 and the onion was 28cent.  The total for the roast dinner was €7.92, making it €3.96 per dinner. 

Looking at the cost of our roast dinner I can easily understand why my mum made so many of them.  It was good value for money and offered a well balanced meal of protein, carbs and veg.

Black bean and chorizo soup

At the start of the week I made a black bean and chorizo recipe from the Olive magazine in November 2010.

I have to say I give it a ten out of ten for taste!  I was a bit dubious about it as I have never cooked with black beans before.  Before Christmas I had got some dried black beans in for a different recipe that I never got round to making.  So I used them for this recipe. 

There was no cumin in my kitchen when I went to make the soup, so I just left it out.  Also, I couldn't find hot smoked paprika anywhere so just used ordinary hot paprika instead.  I have come across a few recipes that call for smoked paprika but I have never come across it in a shop.  If anyone knows where I could get this (in Ireland), then please post and let me know!  My mum has been on the look out for it for ages as well.

I doubled up the ingredients and managed to get 5 portions of soup for lunches out of the pot.  I think that this soup would also make a lovely hearty dinner.  Just serve with some bread.

TIP - Using dried beans instead of tins of beans can make the recipe a lot cheaper.  You need to remember to prepare them in advance though.  While off on maternity leave I say a brilliant tip from Rachel Ray for dried beans.  She suggested that you should rehydrate the beans, divide them into portions and then stick them freezer, ready for when you need them.  Then when a recipe calls for them, just take them out of the freezer and add them into the pot.  I haven't done this myself, but I think it's a brilliant idea and intend to do it in the future as it would be a real time saver.

Cost wise, I used 50 cent worth of chorizo, 2 peppers that cost 45 cent each, a red onion that cost 23 cent, a lime, which I think cost around 30 cent (my receipt has gone missing this week so I can not double check) and I will allow another 80 cent for the spices, vegetable stock cube, beans and 3 garlic cloves (this is just an estimate).  The total cost of the recipe was € 2.73.  That's 55 cent per portion.

Spicy sausage pasta

This is a quick and easy dinner that I used to make a while ago and had forgotten about.  I've adapted from WW recipe I got a few years ago.  This recipe serves 4, so I make it for dinner and we have the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Ingredients
fry lite cooking spray
1 red onion, sliced
1 red pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
1 green pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves
crush chilli (to your own taste - I use lots!)
150g chorizo, thinly sliced
punnet of mushrooms (chestnut mushrooms are lovely in this dish if you can get them)
400g can of chopped tomatoes


Method

1. Cook the pasta according to instructions, drain and keep warm.
2. While the pasta is cooking, spray a large pan with fry-lite and fry the onion over a low heat until it starts to soften.
3. Add the sausage, crushed chilli, garlic and peppers, turn up the heat and fry for a further 3 minutes.  Add the mushrooms, mix well and fry for a further 3 minutes.  Add the chopped tomatoes, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Add the pasta to the pan and mix.  Bring back to a simmer and serve.

The cost for this meal is quite low.  The chorizo was € 1.50, the two peppers were 90 cent for both, the red onion was 23 cent, 66 cent for the can of chopped tomatoes,  23 cent for 250g of pasta and 99 cent for the punnet of mushrooms.  I've added on an extra 30 cent for the fry lite, crushed chilli and garlic.  The total cost is € 4.81.

As this was adapted from a WW recipe it is low in fat.  In the old points system (pre-pro-points) it was 4.5 WW points per serving.

Irish coddled pork with cider

On Sunday I made the Irish coddled pork with cider recipe from the March 2008 issue of the Goodfood magazine.  This recipe is for 2, so I doubled it and served the leftovers on Monday night.  It went down a treat, especially with my daughter who has recently decided she does not like cabbage - obviously she likes the taste of cabbage that has been cooked in stock and cider.  It is a brilliant way of increasing your vegetable intake for the day and is a lovely filling dinner for cold winter nights.

To make it I used one of the packs of smoked bacon medallions that I recently got on offer in Lidl for €1.49.  I used half a white cabbage (65 cent), a whole swede (89 cent), 4 carrots (50 cent) and 6 potatoes (estimated at about 90 cent).  The four pork loins that I used came as part of a deal I got in the butchers last weekend, so I have allowed € 5 for them.  I used Bulmers cider that I had left over from Christmas which I bought for 87p for a pint bottle (it was in a case of 8 for sale for £7 before Christmas), so I have allowed 50 cent for the Bulmers I used.  In total the cost was € 9.93, making it less than € 5 per meal.

To be honest I am pleasantly surprised at how much this cost as I thought that it was a lot more than this. 

TIP to lower fat - to lower the fat in this dish the first thing I would do is to grill the pork loins instead of frying them in butter in the pot.  I wouldn't use the butter in the recipe at all and would use spray some fry lite in the pot before adding the bacon and vegetables.  To further lower the fat you could leave the cider out, or use a 'light' cider such as bulmers light.  You could also use less potatoes and more vegetables.

Oven baked chicken, tomatoes and baby potatoes

This is one of my favourite meals to make on a Saturday where I just do the prep work and through the dish in the oven, checking on it every now and then.  It takes a while for the potatoes to cook in the oven, so you are best to leave it until a night are able to start dinner a bit earlier.  I have often adjusted the amount of this dinner I make and served it to anything from 2 to 7 people.

Ingredients
Chicken breasts - 1 per person
Baby potatoes - allow 250g per person
Cherry tomatoes - at least 250g (I always put in as many as I have)
Red onion - 1 or 2
Dried basil - as much as you like
Garlic cloves - I like garlic so usually have at least 3 cloves
Olive oil

Method

1. Turn on the oven - I use gas mark 7 for this
2. Wash the baby potatoes and cut them in half, or quarters (the smaller they are the quicker they cook).  Put them in a large roasting tin.  Drizzle with olive oil and put in the oven for 10 minutes to start them cooking.
3. Wash the cherry tomatoes.  Lift out the roasting tin and add the tomatoes to the potatoes.  Mix well and put back in the oven for a further 10 minutes.
4. Prepare the red onion(s) by cutting into large chunks.  Slice or crush the garlic.  (NB. Crushing the garlic can sometimes result in it burning)  Remove the roasting tin from the oven and add the onion and garlic.  Sprinkle the dried basil (as much as you want) and give a good mix.  Add a bit more olive oil if needed.  Put back in the oven until the potatoes are almost soft.
5. Place the chicken breasts on top of the mixture and put the roasting tin back in the oven.  After 10 minutes, remove from the oven and turn the chicken breasts.  Mix the potatoes, tomatoes and onions under each chicken breast as you turn them.  Put back in the oven until the chicken is cooked.  Remove and serve.

This dinner is delicious hot or cold.  I sometimes serve with green beans or a side salad.  If I make it at the weekend I often leave a few of the potatoes, tomatoes and onions in a bowl and mix them through some scrambled eggs the next day for lunch.

You can use large tomatoes, but I have found that cherry tomatoes left whole are the tastiest way to make this recipe as they explode in your mouth when you put them in whole.  Yummy!  I always use the baby potatoes as I used large potatoes one day and I found that they went really mushy in the juice from the tomatoes and the olive oil.  While still tasty, it wasn't as mice as it is when made with baby potatoes.

TIP  If you want to make this mid-week you can speed up the time it takes to make by par boiling the potatoes before cutting them for 10 or 15 minutes.  Drain and then cut them before putting them on the roasting tray.  Dry them out in the oven for a minute before adding all of the rest of the ingredients, except the chicken breasts.  Put in the oven for 10 minutes before adding the chicken breasts to the top of the dish.

TIP  To lower the fat content in this meal, you can spray fry lite on the ingredients instead of using olive oil.  I have done this in the past and it has been fine, but you need to stir it more often to make sure the ingredients don't catch on the bottom.  I'd do a few sprays each time you remove the dish from the oven.  You might find it better to cut the tomatoes in half if you are using fry lite as more juice from them will go to the bottom of the roasting tin, helping to prevent the mix from sticking.

Cost - This dinner was quite cheap for me to make.  I used 3 chicken breasts at €1 each, 1 kg potatoes at 45 cent, 250g of cherry tomatoes 89 cent and red onion 23 cent.  I'll allow a further 30 cent for the basil, olive oil and garlic cloves, making the total for this meal €4.87.  It served 3

Salmon, green beans and baby potatoes

Tonight we had a dinner mostly from the freezer.  It went down really well and cleared a bit of space in our freezer.  It also allowed me to use up the last of the green beans I had grown in the garden and frozen last year.  To be honest, the beans were not at their best as they were frozen in the middle of September.

The baby potatoes were on offer in Dunnes and bought for 49 cent, the Salmon was bought when it was on offer and around €4.  As the green beans were homegrown this dinner was quite cheap.

Squash and chorizo stew

This squash and chorizo stew is really quick and easy to make.  It has only five ingredients in it, so there is little preparation work involved.


I served the stew with some baby boiled potatoes which were on offer in Dunnes this week for 48 cent per pack.  I only used half the pack for the 3 of us.  I omitted the parsley as I didn't have any in.  As it was to garnish for serving I do not think that the stew really needed it so I may leave it out if I make this recipe again as it will save a bit of money.  However, if I had some in I would add it at the end as per the method.

The stew is quite inexpensive.  I paid €1.49 for the butternut squash, €0.75 for the Chorizo, 6.5 cent for the onion and €1 for the passata.  Together with the potatoes I paid €3.54 for this meal. 

While I was preparing this dinner I also cooked and pureed a little of the butternut squash to give to my baby as a first taste.  I often try to do this with other vegetables, freezing the puree for future use if I do not need it straight away.

Creamy avocado jackets

Last Saturday I bought 2 avocados that were on offer in Dunnes for 48 cent each.  There were ripe when I checked them yesterday before doing my shopping list, so I decided that we would have creamy avocado jackets for dinner tonight.

Ingredients
5 medium size potatoes
2 avocados
pack of bacon medallions
1/2 tub of light sour cream

Method
To make them, I put potatoes in the oven and roast them until they are cooked.  When they are ready, I take them out, cut them in half and scoop out the potato, cut it into small pieces and put it into a bowl.  I cut up the bacon into small pieces and fry in a non-stick pan.  While the bacon is cooking I prepare the avocado, cutting it into small pieces and adding it to the bowl.  When the bacon is cooked it is also added to the bowl.  I then spoon in the sour cream and mix the ingredients together.  When they are well mixed I spoon the mixture back in the skins of the potatoes and put them back in the oven.  Once the top of the mixture is starting to turn golden I take them out and serve. 

Sometimes I serve them with salad, but tonight we had them on their own.  They are really tasty and filling.  I dont make them often as the avocados can be quite expensive, but with the avocados on offer they cost me € 4.21 to make.

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.

Cheesy leek and bacon pasta

Friday nights dinner is a recipe from my current issue of Good Food magazine (February 2012).  As it is from my most recent issue it is not available on the website, so I will provide the recipe as it appears in the magazine.  When preparing it for dinner I made a few alterations which I will note at the bottom of this post.

Ingredients

1tbsp olive oil

300g/11oz leeks, halved and finely sliced

8 rashers smoked streaky bacon, sliced

400g/14oz pasta shapes

100g/4oz herb and garlic soft cheese

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan.  Add the leeks and 2 tbsp water, and cook for about 10 mins until very soft.  Add the bacon, turn up the heaat and fry until cooked.
2. Menwhile, cook the pasta following pack instructions.  Drain and reserve a mug of the cooking water.
3. Spoon cheese into the leek and bacon mix, adding some of the reserved cooking water.  Season and stir gently over a low heat until melted.  Toss though the cooked pasta, adding a little more cooking water, if needed, to help the sauce coat the pasta.

Per serving - 556kcals, protein 23g, carbs 76g, fat 18g, sat fat 7g, fibre 4g, sugar 4g, salt 1.5g

In my altered version I didn't add the olive oil, I just cooked the leeks in the water.  I used some back bacon that I had in the fridge in the place of the streaky bacon.  For the cream cheese I used some phildelphia light that was in the fridge.  Also, as the recipe is for four I halfed the ingredients.

It was really quick and easy to make, so would be perfect for a night when dinner has to be prepared quickly.

I can't work out how much this meal cost me exactly.  The bacon was €1.50, the pasta was 49 cent for 500g and the leeks were €1.  The phildelphia has been in since before christmas and I cant remember what I paid for it so have allowed €1.  I think this is quite generous as I only used a third of the tub. I think it's safe to say that it was well under €5.

If I make this again it will just be for me and the kids as my husband isn't keen.  He doesn't like cheese and I decided to give it to him without letting on what was in it.  Although he ate it, he obviously didn't enjoy it so I will not be making it for him again.  My daughter and I loved it.

Chorizo and bean salad with oven chips.

For dinner tonight we had a variation of the cannellini bean salad with roast cherry tomatoes and chorizo on the BBC Good food website.

When roasting the tomatoes I sprayed fry lite on them instead of drizzling them with olive oil.  I had no sherry vinegar in, so used white wine vinegar instead.  The taste was still good!

In the past I have used butter beans instead of cannellini beans as well.

Cost wise, this wasn't too expensive for me.  The chorizo is on offer at the moment at my local supermarket  and is €2 for 200g, so I used 50 cent worth of chorizo in this recipe.  The bag of lettuce leaves I used was lambs lettuce and rocket, which cost €1.09.  Cherry tomatoes were 89 cent and the cannellini beans (which I got a while ago) were €1.09.  I am allowing 30 cent for the red onion and another 20 cent for the squirt of fry lite, the white wine vinegar and honey.  This means that the total cost of the salad is €4.07.

I served this with a few oven chips.  To save on energy costs I roast the tomatoes while I am cooking the oven chips.  Doing this also means the salad is nice and warm.

The recipe easily feeds 2 adults and a child.  I could have stretched it further by putting on a few more chips and getting a lunch out of the salad for tomorrow, but having done this in the past I dont think it tastes as nice cold the next day.  If I was to keep some for a lunch in the future I think I would mix all the ingredients together, except the lettuce leaves, then lift out what I needed for the next day before adding the lettuce.  Then I would add the lettuce leaves before serving it for lunch.

Lamb and lettuce pan-fry

For tonights dinner I made lamb and lettuce pan-fry, a recipe from the June 2007 of Good Food magazine, served with boiled potatoes.


I used diced lamb from my freezer that I bought from my butcher before Christmas instead of the neck fillets outlined in the recipe.  There were also frozen peas in my freezer and I had chicken stock cubes in, so all I had to buy was the baby gem lettuce. I bought a pack of 2 instead of 3.

Again in the interests of my new year, shed the pounds diet, I left out the butter and fried the lamb in fry lite.

Soup anyone?

For dinner tonight we had Leek, Potato and Bacon soup at the request of my 3 year old.  Normally I make this soup by frying and onion in butter, adding 3 chopped bacon rashers and continue frying, then add 3 leeks and medium potatoes that have been sliced, add 1.5 litres of vegetable stock, bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.  I then blend and add about 150ml of cream.

For my new year, shift the pounds version, I omit the butter and cream.  I softened the onions in a little water. 

It went down well with the family and we have some left for lunch tomorrow.  It cost less than €4 for 4 servings.