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 for 14/7/2012 to 20/7/2012

We're onto week 3 of my July challenge and so far things are going good.  Last week I managed to spend only €35.70 of my €50 budget for the week.  To say I am happy would be a bit of an understatement.  Although, in fairness I had one less day to feed the family last week and while this wouldn't have caused me to save the €14.30 that I didn't spend of my budget it certainly helped a bit.  Hopefully I'll be able to do as well with my budget this week as I did last week.

This morning my husband cleaned out our fridge while giving me a bit of a lie in (I know - lucky me!) so it was possible to see at a glance what we had in our fridge.  Together we had another review of the contents of the freezer and made a list of what was in there just to update the list of what we had in already.  So, using the list of what we have in already I put together a menu plan for the week.  It is as follows:

Saturday dinner - Steak and sticky red wine shallots with potatoes
Sunday lunch - Tomato, lentil and lime soup (I have all the ingredients in for this)
Sunday dinner - Roast lemon chicken with tagliatelle (I have all the ingredients in for this)
Monday dinner - Wraps
Tuesday dinner - Pizza
Wednesday dinner - Chorizo pilaf (I have all the ingredients in for this)
Thursday dinner - Leftover chorizo pilaf
Friday dinner - Fish fingers, chips, peas and sweetcorn

For lunches we will be having ham sandwiches, leftover tomato, lentil and lime soup and leftover roast lemon chicken with tagliatelle.

As you can see, I have selected three items for my menu for the week were I will not have to buy anything for the recipe as I already have all the ingredients in.  For the rest of the options I have selected I have most of the items in already apart from Tuesday evenings pizza.  I will be buying whatever frozen pizza is on offer for my daughters dinner on Tuesday evening as a special treat for her as my husband and I are off to a concert on Tuesday evening while she and her brother stay at home with a minder.  Picking recipes where I have most of the ingredients, if not all of them, in the house already has enabled me to keep my shopping list quite small for this week again.

Tip
To help select recipes using ingredients I already have in, I used the search function on the Good Food website to do this quickly.  I typed in a selection of the ingredients I have in already, for example 'chicken' and 'basil', and then went through the search results.  I then looked at the ingredients list for those that caught my eye, dismissing those that involved the purchasing of lots of items I don't have in the house at the moment. 

Turkey meatballs in tomato and fennel sauce

Last night I made turkey meatballs in tomato and fennel sauce for dinner and we had the leftovers for dinner tonight.  The recipe appeared in the March 2010 issue of Good Food magazine.  I decided to make it when I realised that I had all the ingredients in that were required

As with a lot of the Good Food recipes I have used recently, this was really quick and easy to make.  My husband, daughter and son loved it - my daughter informed us that she wanted a second bowl of it after her first forkful!  I liked it to, but I think the next time I make it I'll add something to the meatballs to give them a bit more flavour.  They definitely need some seasoning at the very least.

With regards to the leftovers, instead of heating up the whole dish, I had prepared all the meatballs on the first night, leaving half in the fridge for dinner tonight.  I cooked them while the pasta was boiling and then added them to the sauce that I had made the night before and reheated.  It worked out really well and dinner was on the table in the length of time it took for the spaghetti to be ready.

Alterations
When I was preparing the ingredients for the sauce I added two onions instead of one as the onions I had in were quite small.  I also added three carrots as my carrots were quite small as well.  I omitted the tomato puree simply because I forgot to add it!  Other than that I stuck to the recipe.

I think it would be easy to add additional veg to the sauce without altering the taste too much.  As the sauce is blended, it is a handy way of getting veg into kids without them realising it which can be helpful if you have fussy eaters.

Tip
To save time on a busy weeknight, you could prepare the meatballs the night before and keep them in the fridge until you are ready to cook them the next night.  In fact, you could even make the meatballs before freezing them so that all you had to do is lift them out of the freezer to defrost when you want to have them for dinner.  You could also make the sauce ahead of time and reheat it after the meatballs have been cooked while the pasta is boiling, saving more time.

Cost
This is another one that is difficult for me to work out the cost of as I got the turkey mince up north in Asda a while back and had it in my freezer.  The turkey mince was £1.98.  The can of chopped tomatoes cost 66 cent, the onions cost about 25 cent, the carrots were around 30 cent, the spaghetti that I served it with was about 80 cent (allowing for two nights) and I have allowed another 40 cent for the fennel seeds, breadcrumbs, oil and garlic.  In total I reckon that this dish cost me about €5 to make.  Considering that this did us for dinner for two nights that makes it about €2.50 per night to feed two adults, a four year old and an 11 month old baby.

Weekly shopping budget - slightly over in week 1

As you can see from the title I went slightly over the weekly shopping budget in week one.  To sum up my expenditure for the week - I spent €6.91 in Lidl, €45.82 in Dunnes and my husband spent €5.38 in Dunnes on Monday.  The means I spent a total of €58.11 which is €8.11 over my weekly shopping budget of €50 during each week in July.

So where did I go wrong?  Well, two things happened that I feel caused me to go over the limit.  Firstly, my disorganisation meant that my husband ended up buying some food on Monday in order for me to be able to put together a meal for Monday night.  So, lesson one is to be better prepared in future!

Secondly, in a rush of blood to the head I managed to miscalculate how much I spent on cartons of ready-made formula for the baby.  I had to buy a lot more of them than I anticipated as a trip to the Dr's on Tuesday resulted in me being told that the baby has a food allergy of some sort and in order to get to the bottom of it I have been told to cut out cows milk and all fruit from his diet to see if the rash clears.  This means that I need extra formula to send up to the creche for his cereal in the morning so that it can be used in place of the cows milk that he usually gets and I bought more than I had on my shopping list.  So, my second lesson is not to try to do maths in my head when I am shopping.  I should use the calculator on my mobile phone.  Of course, it generally helps if the mobile phone is in your handbag when you go shopping in the first instance!

Still, I am pleased with the €58.11 and won't be too hard on myself for going over.  I did acknowledge that if I was intending to buy nappies and formula that I would need a slightly higher budget than the €50 I had set for my July challenge, but I really didn't think I would need to buy anymore of either this month. 

I wonder if next week I might be able to limit my spend to €41.89 to make up for my overspend this week.  That might be too much of an ask.  You know what they say though - it won't hurt to try!!

Sunblush tomatoes and spinach tagliatelle

Tonight I made sunblush tomatoes and spinach tagliatelle for dinner.  This is one of my favourite quick vegetarian meals and is a handy recipe to have up your sleeve for a busy midweek night. 

I chopped some of the tomatoes, spinach and pasta up into the chunks and feed it to the baby who devoured it!  I added a little cooled boiled water to it before giving it to him to help keep up his water intake.  He was not impressed when his was all gone and we ended up giving him some tagliatelle to feed himself while we were finished ours as he was looking at us with puppy dog eyes!

I paused long enough to take this photo of my tagliatelle before eating it!

Tip
I make my own sunblush tomatoes by roasting them in the oven.  Making your own will save a bit of money as shop bought ones can be quite expensive.  I also find that shop bought ones can be extremely oily.  If you are using shop bought ones in the recipe, put a spoonful of the oil into the pan before adding the tomatoes and frying.  Do not pour the whole lot into the pan straight from the tub!  My husband did this one night as I wasn't very direct in my instructions with regards to dealing with the tomatoes and the dinner was really greasy and not as pleasant to eat as it normally is.

When I make my own, I add a bit of extra flavour by adding some crushed garlic, dried basil and oregano, as well as olive oil to the tomatoes before putting them into the oven to roast.  As I had the oven on for dinner last night to cook the oven chips we had with the dinner last night I put the tomatoes into the oven at the same time so that the oven was on once.  After lifting out the chips, I put the oven up to gas mark 9 for five minutes and then turned it off, but left the tomatoes in the oven to continue roasting.  Once the oven was cooled I removed the tomatoes and put them into the into a tub and put them in the oven ready to use in the dinner tonight.

Ingredients - enough of each to serve the number of people you are cooking for.
Sunblush tomatoes - (I made my own with 1.5 punnets of cherry tomatoes)
Spinach, stalks removed (I used one small bag of baby spinach)
Tagliatelle (I used 6 nests of Dunnes tagliatelle)


Method

1. Put on the tagliatelle to cook according to instructions.  Before rinsing, remove a mug of water from the pasta pot.  Rinse the starch off with hot water from the kettle.
2. Heat the tomatoes in a frying pan and add the spinach.  Cook until the spinach has wilted.
3. Add tagliatelle to the frying pan and stir into the tomatoes and spinach.  Add a little of the water from the mug at a time to coat the pasta.  Serve.

Cost
I've estimated that the tagliatelle cost me €1, the tomatoes were €1.50 and the spinach was €1.49, making the total cost less €4 exactly.  In the past I have used spinach that I've grown myself to make this meal, meaning that it can cost me as little as €2.50.

Salmon with basil veg

Last week I made a version of the spring salmon with minty veg recipe from the Goodfood website for dinner one of the nights.  Mine was more like spring salmon with basil veg though as I had leftover basil in the fridge and decided to use it, as per the suggestion at the bottom of the recipe.

With regards to the veg, I used a mix of fresh and frozen veg.  I used broccoli, green beans and frozen peas.  This meant that I had a little bit of prep to do for the broccoli, but I was able to do this while the potatoes were boiling so it didn't really take any extra time.

Cooking the salmon in the microwave worked really well.  I have used the microwave to cook fish before and I've found that you have to be very careful when doing it as it is easy to overcook it and make it rubbery.  However, with this recipe the salmon stayed really moist owing to the that it was covered with the dressing.  I stopped the microwave after 3 and a half minutes to check it and then gave it another 15 seconds and it was done.  If you've not used a microwave before to cook fish then it might be a good idea to check the salmon periodically while it is cooking to make sure it doesn't overcook.

Tip
I made extra salmon, potatoes and veg and chopped it up and froze it in portions for the baby for during the week.  He devoured his portion and ate some green beans as finger food as well.  If I am doing a dinner that is suitable for him I have started making extra to freeze for him rather than making food specially for him now.  When I defrost a portion and heat it up for him I will add a bit of boiled water to it as it can be quite dry when it comes out of the freezer.  I find this is a handy way of getting water into him as well as he can be a bit reluctant to drink it some days.

Cost
The salmon was €6 for three fillets (I used Donegal catch frozen fillets which are skinned), the basil was 40 cent, the lemon was 25 cent, the frozen peas were 30 cent, the broccoli was 40 cent, the green beans were €1.50 and the potatoes I used were 99 cent.  This means the total cost of the meal that I made was €9.84.  For this I feed two adults, two kids and got 8 portions for the freezer for the baby. 

This is one of the more expensive meals that I have made, but given that I got so many portions of dinner for the baby out of it as well I think it works out as quite good value when you consider the cost of jars of baby food.  If I had used all frozen veg then the cost could have been lowered a bit.  Also, when my potatoes and green beans are eventually ready in the garden, and if I planted some herbs, I could lower the cost further.

Menu plan 16/6/2012 to 22/6/2012

It's been a while since I put together a proper menu plan but I decided that I needed to take the time to put one together this evening for the next week.  So, my menu plan for the 16th June to the 22nd June is as follows:-

Saturday lunch - spring onion soup
Saturday dinner - Chorizo chicken
Sunday lunch  - leftover soup
Sunday dinner - Steak, mushrooms, onions, chips, sweetcorn and peas (Fathers day request)
Monday dinner - Tagliatelle, sunblush tomatoe and spinach
Tuesday dinner - Shepherds pie
Wednesday dinner - Leftover shepherds pie
Thursday dinner - Bacon and mushroom pasta
Friday dinner - Fish, chips and peas

For lunches through the week we will have ham sandwiches and tuna salad. 

Spring onions (scallions) and mushrooms are on offer in Dunnes at the moment for 48 cent.  I picked up two bunches of scallions to make soup for lunch over the weekend and I picked up 3 packs of mushrooms for use in various dishes through the week.  Youngs frozen battered fish is on offer in Dunnes at the moment for €2 for 2 large fillets.  I picked up two boxes of these for the freezer and will use one of them on Friday.

Tip
There were quite a few offers on frozen products in Dunnes and I picked up several.  When I got home I discovered that I didn't have as much room in my freezer as I thought, so I removed the Youngs fish fillets from their packaging and put them in freezer bags to save space.  The box for the fish was quite large in comparison of the actual size of the fillets, so this saved a lot of space in the freezer.

Summer pea pasta

Like many parents, when feeling unwell I still have to make dinner for my kids regardless of how I'm feeling.  So on Monday night I wanted something quick to make so that I didn't have to stand at the cooker for long.  Also, given that I wasn't feeling very well, I didn't want something creamy or heavy to eat.  I found this recipe for summer pea pasta in the August 2010 issue of the Goodfood magazine and thought it would make an ideal meal for my family. 

This recipe was really handy for me to make as I had all the ingredients in the house except the basil and chilli which are available in my local green grocers, so I didn't have to go to a supermarket to get ingredients for dinner.


Tip
Eating vegetarian can be a good way of cutting the costs of a meal so I have decided to try and introduce more vegetarian meals to my family.  Unfortunately, my husband tends to expect meat with every meal (show me an Irishman who doesn't!) so I find that when I suggest adding a vegetarian option to the menu that it is usually meet with a 'what meat are we having with that' from him.  On Monday night he had no idea what he was having for dinner as the menu hadn't been prepared in advance, so couldn't protest at the lack of meat, so perhaps my plan for the future should be to just spring meat-free dishes on him!!  Fortunately for me, this dish was really tasty and filling, so he couldn't complain too much about the lack of meat.  If he did I think I would have told him how much it cost and pointed out that he could maybe have a nice steak some night soon with the money I saved!!

Alterations
As I was making this for two adults and one child, I used a bit less pasta, basil and peas than what the recipe suggests.  I used the full amount of red chilli, garlic and lemon zest suggested despite using less of the other ingredients and the result was a dish full of flavour.

Cost
This was quite a cheap dinner to make.  The basil was 40 cent, the pasta was 50 cent, the peas were 50 cent, the red chilli was 30 cent, the garlic was 20 cent and I am allowing 10 cent for the olive oil.  This means that the total cost of the dish is €2.

I haven't counted the lemon zest in the overall cost as I still have the lemons to use in another dish and didn't want to end up counting the cost of them twice.

Menu planner for 19/5/2012 to 25/5/2012

This week will be a busy week for us as we get ready for our daughters birthday party on Saturday.  To make sure we have plenty of time to get ready on Friday night I have opted to have leftovers from Thursday nights chilli.

My menu plan for the 19 May to the 25 May is as follows:-
Saturday dinner - Spiced salmon with lentils
Sunday lunch - soup (depending on what veg is on offer)
Sunday dinner - Ham, vegetables and Boulangère potatoes
Monday dinner - Leftovers from Sunday lunch
Tuesday dinner - Pizza
Wednesday dinner - Maple and pepper glazed chicken with roasted carrots and mash
Thursday dinner - Quick chilli (special request by my daughter for her birthday!)
Friday dinner - Leftover chilli

For lunches I will be making baked feta and tomato, scrambled eggs, tuna, red onion and white bean salad and sandwiches.

Several of the recipes I have picked this week are low GI recipes.  Food that has a low GI helps to keep your blood sugar level steady as the foods take longer to digest.  This helps make you feel fuller for longer.  I will be trying to incorporate more low GI foods into our diet over the next few weeks, paying special attention to lunches.

Tip - My shopping bill for this week will probably be slightly higher than previous weeks as I will be adding some items to it for my daughters birthday.  Next weekend we are planning on having a BBQ at our house, so rather than buy everything in one trip to the supermarket next week, I am hoping to pick up some things this weekend in order to spread the cost slightly.  Our butcher has offers on this weekend on pork loins which are lovely cooked on the BBQ, so I will pick up a few of these, marinade them and then freeze them so that they are ready to simply lift out of the freezer and cook next Saturday.  Doing this will save me time as well as money.

Quick chilli

For the first time, I have been so tempted by a chilli recipe that I have decided to try it.  Usually, I look at recipes for chilli and decide to stick with my own after reminding myself of the saying 'if it's not broke, don't fix it'! 

The reason behind my decision to try a new chilli recipe?  Simple - this recipe includes chorizo which is one of my favourite ingredients! 

The recipe I am using is Nigella Lawson's Quick chilli from her book Nigella Express cookbook.  I have typed it out as Nigella has written it below.  After the method I have included some alterations that I made to the recipe in order to make sure that it is suitable for the baby to eat.

The recipe is as follows:-

Ingredients
150g chorizo sausage (not the salami sort), halved length ways and cut into 5mm half moons
500g minced beef
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cardamon pods, bruised
1 x 500g jar good-quality tomato and chunky vegetable sauce for pasta
1 x 390g mixed spicy beans
60ml sweet chilli sauce
1/4 teaspoon chilli flakes (optional, or if your beans are not spicy)


Method

1. Put the sliced chorizo into a hot, heavy-based pan and cook over a medium heat until the sausage crisps a little and gives up its orange-red oil.
2. Add the mince and cook for about 5 minutes, breaking it up with a wooden fork to help it brown.
3. Stir in the spices and then add the tomato-vegetable pasta sauces, spicy beans and chilli sauce.  Also add the chilli flakes if you need more heat or if you've managed only to find some regular canned beans.
4. Bring to the boil and then turn down the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
5. You can eat this with rice or just as it is.  If you're not adding any rice, you might consider dolloping with a blob of sour cream and sprinkling some grated cheese and chopped coriander.  I can't think of a way of eating this that isn't good.

Alterations
I made a few swaps when making my Quick Chilli to make sure that it was suitable for feeding to my baby.  To lower the salt in the recipe I opted to use a 800g can of chopped tomatoes instead of the pasta sauce.  I also used non-spicy beans and added the chilli flakes that were suggested by Nigella.  I was concerned that the sauce in the spicy beans may have salt and sugar added to it.  Plus, I already had non-spicy beans in my cupboard, so I didn't need to buy them.

I had two forced alterations - my cardamon pods had gone off and I have run out of ground coriander so I couldn't add either of these ingredients.  Having never tasted the chilli before I didn't miss them, however the next time I make it I might add them to see how they alter the taste of the dish.
As I wasn't adding a pasta sauce with vegetables added to it I decided to add a finely chopped two small onions and a grated carrot large to the chilli in order to make sure that some vegetables other than the chopped tomatoes were included.

To make the meal stretch further additional vegetables could be added to the recipe.  If I was to make it again I think that I would add some mushrooms and grated courgette to bulk it up and increase my family's intake of vegetables.

Tip
Although this recipe is quick to make, if I was making it again I would make it the night before and re-heat for dinner when I get home from work.  Doing this would mean that it would only take as long as it takes to prepare the rice to have the dinner ready.

Cost
I used a pound of mince in this recipe - I know it says 500g, but I still buy it in pounds and have no idea how many grams is in a pound.  Anyway, the pound of mince I used came from my butchers and cost €3.  The chorizo I used were cooking chorizo that I bought in Marks and Spencer's on offer - 2 packs of 6 chorizo sausages for €7.  I used 3 sausages in my chilli, so that is a cost of €1.75.  The chopped tomatoes were €1.  The can of mix beans I used was bought in Aldi a while ago and I can not remember the cost of it, so have estimated it at €1.  For the remaining ingredients - spices, onions and carrot - I am allowing 50 cent.  The total cost for my version of the recipe is €5.50.

Using my version of the recipe I made enough chilli to feed my family of 4 (2 adults, a pre-schooler and a baby) two nights.  The portions were generous and I served them with rice.  I think that including the cost of the rice, the meal cost €3 for each night. 

Very quick chicken stew

Dinner tonight was very quick chicken stew from Olive magazine's December 2006 issue.  I don't buy Olive magazine but the GoodFood website has some recipes from the magazine on it.  I found this recipe when I was looking for a low GI chicken meal on the website.

The stew serves two.  As I wanted to have it for dinner on Tuesday night as well I doubled the ingredients.  While saving time on preparing dinner tomorrow night, it did take slightly longer than the 30 mins stated to make as there was a lot more in the pot.

I made a few alterations to the recipe.  I had chicken breasts in the freezer, so I used four of them instead of the chicken thighs listed in the recipe ingredients.  Also, I had now fresh tarragon in.  I do have dried tarragon in my cupboard, but rather than use it, I decided to use some parsley as I had bought some for the quinoa (bulghar wheat) tabbouleh and had some leftover.

As I want to have give some of the chicken stew to my baby for dinner tomorrow night, I left the chicken stock cube out of the recipe, just adding boiled water instead.  As the chicken and vegetables were going to be cooking in the water I figured that they would flavour it.  To be sure that the stew had plenty of flavour without the stock cube, I threw a couple of bay leaves into the pot and seasoned with pepper to add a bit more flavour to the stew.  You can buy low salt stock cubes suitable for giving to babies, but I do not have any of these in the house.  While the stew tasted ok - it was much better the second night, I think it would have tasted better if I had used chicken or vegetable stock in it.  Next time I make it I will use some chicken or vegetable stock that I make myself in advance.


TIP - Anytime I have a roast chicken for dinner, I always boil the bones after the stripping all the meat from it to make stock.  I throw in a carrot, celery and an onion (skin on) if I have them in the house.  I then pour the stock into some 'Pour and store' bags and put in the freezer for when I need it.  Unfortunately I didn't have any in the freezer for this recipe, otherwise I would have used some.

Cost - The chicken breasts were bought at the butchers when it was 12 chicken breasts for €10.  I used four chicken breasts in this recipe, so the cost was €3.33.  The potatoes were 99 cent, the shallots were 49 cent, the carrots were 50 cent and the peas were 50 cent (another estimate).  I have allowed 20 cent for the parsley, bay leaves and pepper.  The total cost is €6.01, making the cost per meal 0.005 cent over €3!  Not too bad.

Marinated lamb steaks with barley salad

So, tonight after the kids went to bed I made the marinated lamb steaks with barley salad from the June 2010 issue of the GoodFood magazine.  It was, quite frankly, delicious!  My taste buds are still in heaven!  This recipe is definitely going on the list of dinners that we will be having again (and again and again and again!!).

After trying it my husband confessed that he was a bit dubious about the barely salad but that it tasted much better than he expected.  As well as making a nice change from potatoes as a side, the barley salad is has a low GI, meaning that you'll feel fuller for longer.  According to the GoodFood magazine the salad gives 2 of your 5-a-day, making it a healthy choice for dinner.

I made a few alterations to the recipe as I was going along.  The first change was forced upon me when I went to by the meat.  My butcher didn't have any lamb steaks, but he did have some lovely looking boneless lamb chops which looked quite thick so I decided that they would do the trick.  The second change was when I was making the marinade - it called for a pinch of dried chilli and I added a bit more than a pinch as we like our food spicy. 

The biggest changes I made were to the barley salad.  When I did the grocery shopping earlier today there were no frozen broad beans in Dunnes, so I bought soya beans and used these instead.  Red onions were on my shopping list but I decided not to bother buying them as 1kg of onions was 29c in Dunnes and I didn't really fancy having a kg of red onions AND and kg of ordinary onions in the house.  Although the red onions were on offer in Lidl this weekend, I decided that it was a bit excessive to buy a kg of them just for one recipe.  I meant to buy a single red onion, but forgot and only realised when I started making the dinner.  So instead of red onion I used two scallions (spring onions).  The red onion wasn't to be cooked and I didn't think that a raw onion would taste nice in the salad, whereas I was confident that the scallions would be fine.

The recipe suggests marinating the lamb for up to two hours if you have the time.  My lamb was marinated for 40 minutes and tasted fine. 

TIP - If I was to decide to make this recipe mid-week I would probably buy the meat at the weekend, make up the marinade, rub into the meat and freeze.  Then I would lift it out the night before making the meal and leave it to defrost and marinate in the fridge.  Alternatively I would make up the marinade the night before or in the morning, but for me the first option would save the most time on meal preparation during the week.

Cost - This was a bit more expensive than some meals that I make.  The lamb chops that I bought were €5.  The soya beans were €1.50, the peas were 50 cent (estimate), the pearl barley was 75 cent, the mint was 50 cent, the lemon was 25 cent and I have allowed 40 cent for the scallions, dried chilli and olive oil.  This makes the total €8.90 which makes this my most expensive meal to date. 

I would not normally spend so much on one meal for two of us, but a lot of couples spend much more than this on a meal in the restaurant on a Saturday night, so as a one off I don't think it's that bad.  In fact, we'd spend more on a takeaway if we were to get one and probably not enjoy it half as much!

Grocery shopping - menu planner for 28/4/2012 to 4/5/2012

So, it's Friday night and it's time to sort out my meal plan for the next week and write my grocery shopping list ready for my trip to get the groceries tomorrow.  Is it sad that I actually enjoy doing this on a Friday night...possibly, but I'm not afraid to admit that I enjoy having a trawl of recipe books and magazines on a Friday night and putting together a meal plan for the week.

Anyway, I digress!  My menu plan for the 28th April to the 4th May is as follows:-

Saturday dinner - Marinated lamb steaks with barley salad
Sunday dinner - Irish Coddled pork with cider
Monday dinner - Very quick chicken stew (I am planning on making this with chicken breasts)
Tuesday dinner - Leftovers from Mondays dinner
Wednesday dinner - Sticky gammon steaks with steamed greens and rice
Thursday dinner - Black pudding and colcannon
Friday dinner - Sticky pan-roasted sausages with grapes and leftover colcannon

For lunches we will have ham sandwiches, quinoa tabbouleh and scrambled eggs.

Shopping list for the week:-

1. Chicken breasts (usually 10 for 10 at my local butchers)
2. Gammon steaks x 2
3. Lamb steaks x 2
4. Smoked bacon
5. Black pudding
6. Good quality pork sausages (my butcher does some thick sausages that will be suitable)
7. Potatoes
8. Pak Choi
9. Shallots
10. Scallions (spring onions)
11. Cucumber
12. Red chilli
13. Parsley
14. Carrots
15. Swede (29c in Dunnes according to their website)
16. Cabbage (29c in Dunnes according to their website)
17. Baby potatoes
18. Grapes
19. Oranges
20. Apples
21. Bananas
22. Pears (29c in Dunnes according to their website)
23. Mint
24. Red onion (39c for 1 kg in Lidl)
25. Frozen broad beans
26. Eggs
27. Ham
28. Full fat milk - 2 litre
29. Skimmed milk - 3 litres
30. Bread
31. Yoghurt's
32. Cheese
33. Rice Krispies (to make rice krispie buns with the remaining Easter eggs!)

Hmmm...starving now after putting that together. 

TIP - I have to confess that I often find more recipes to try than there are days in my menu planner and often find it difficult choosing between them.  To help me decide I look at the ingredients to work out which recipes I have a few of the ingredients in for already which will make my grocery shop for the week a bit cheaper.  Then I look at the time it takes to prepare and cook to work out if it is feasible for me to attempt to make the recipe mid-week when time is of the essence!  By doing both these things I usually manage to narrow down the list, but if I don't I'll make a note of the recipe for another week.

Quick chicken chasseur

I have made this Quick chicken chasseur recipe from the good food magazine a number of times in the past but had forgotten about it until my husband requested it one day.  Previously we have had it with various different types of potatoes - mash, boiled and even chips - and rice.  To be honest, while I am sure it is supposed to be served with potatoes my family seem to prefer it when it comes with rice.  We had it for dinner last week, but I am only getting a chance to write about it now.

It is ready really quickly making it an ideal mid-week dinner to prepare when you get home from work and have to get something on the dinner table quickly.

The can of chopped tomatoes I used didn't have any garlic in them, so I added a couple of gloves of garlic at the start of cooking.  I usually don't bother adding the flour to the recipe and I use bacon medallions rather than streaky rashers in order to lower the fat content of the recipe.  I didn't have any fresh parsley in so I used some dried parsley and I added this towards the end of the cooking time.  When I made this for dinner last week I used two cans of chopped tomatoes instead of one.

Cost - Although I have made this recipe many times before, I have never worked out the cost of it so I am interested to see how much it works out as now.  As I was making it for two people and one child, I only used 2 chicken breasts and 3 bacon medallions.   The chicken breasts where bought on offer for €10 for 12, making the cost of the chicken that I used €1.67.  The bacon medallions were 75 cent - I bought them on offer for €1.50 a while ago and put them in the freezer.  The mushrooms were 99 cent, the chopped tomatoes cost €1.33 and I have allowed 50 cent for the garlic, dried parsley and beef stock cube.

The total cost of recipe €5.24.  As I indicated I only used two chicken breasts as I was only intending to serve two adult portions and one child's portion.  However, adding the extra can of chopped tomatoes bulked up the meal enough for me to be able to get extra portions from the pan for dinner another night, so I managed to get 4 adult and 2 child portions for this price, making the cost for me (minus the rice) €2.62 which is really good.  This works out much cheaper than using 4 chicken breasts to get the same number of servings.

TIP - As I am trying to give my baby as much of the same food as we are eating I refrain from adding the stock cube until the same point that I add the Worcestershire sauce so that I can give him a little of the chicken chasseur to try.  I then let the pan simmer for a few more minutes before lifting it off the heat and serving.

Skinny Irish stew

For dinner tonight we had skinny Irish stew.  The
recipe is from Olive magazine's December 2011 issue.  I found it on the Good Food magazine website by searching for using the words 'lamb' and 'stew'. 

I confess that I have never actually made a stew with lamb before - I've always used beef as that is what my mother did.  Yet every recipe I come across for Irish stew has lamb in it.  From talking to friends, they all use beef in their stew as well, so I'd love to know where all the Irish people are who use lamb in their stew!  Anyway, I decided it was about time I give it a go.

The recipe is fairly simple and easy to make.  All you have to do is brown the lamb, add the onion and through in the rest of the ingredients then simmer for an hour.  The fact that it has to simmer for an hour means that it is not that ideal for making on a work night when quick dinners are more suitable.  For this reason I chose to make it the night before and reheat when I got home.

I used some extra carrots as I had them in and figured I might as well bulk up the stew a little instead of leaving the carrots in the fridge to potentially go off.  I had no chives or parsley in, so instead I used some dried parsley.  I also had no lamb stock cubes in the house so I used a chicken stock cube instead.  It was really tasty, but if I make it again I'd like to try it with the lamb stock to see what it tastes like.  I'd also like to use some fresh parsley and add the chives as well, though it tasted fine without the chives and with dried parsley.

Cost - It is difficult for me to work out the cost the skinny Irish stew as it uses some ingredients that I already had in the house - I had the lamb in the freezer and the pearl barley.  If I remember correctly the lamb was €3.  The potatoes cost €1.29, the carrots cost €1.99 and the onion was 10 cent.  I have allowed 50 cent for the stock cube, pearl barley and for the dried parsley.  I have enough to do dinner for our house for two nights, so the recipe works out at €3.44 for each night.  Not bad.

TIP - You could make this a bit cheaper by just using ordinary carrots instead of Chantenay carrots.  My local Dunnes sells 1kg for 99 cent, so this would make the cost of the carrots just 20 cent, reducing the overall cost of the stew by €1.79.  To be honest though, the Chantenay carrots tasted lovely in this stew.

TIP 2 - This recipe has only 341 calories per serving which is quite good for such a filling dinner.  If you wanted to lower the calories and the fat further, you could leave out the olive oil and brown the meat in it's own juices.  I used the olive oil for brown my meat, but to be honest I really didn't need to so next time I make it I'll be leaving it out.

Another lesson!

So, as you can see I've been very good planning my meals and getting back on track last week with my shopping and everything only to be hindered with the break down of my Internet!  Last week I forgot to make a copy of my weekly planner or note down the recipes I needed in order to follow it, which meant I had to wing it through the week when it came to cooking!  When I finally got Internet access again I could see that I hadn't exactly stuck to my meal planner much (leaving me to question the ability of my memory now!!).  I think from now on I'll be writing my meal planner out and sticking it to the fridge in case we have another incident with our Internet access.

As a result of not sticking to my meal planner through the week I have some ingredients that I need to use this week so you may notice that I am using some of the same meals for my planner this week as I did last week.

Here is my meal planner for the next week:-
Saturday dinner -  Crab linguine with chilli and parsley
Sunday lunch - Crab and sweetcorn chowder
Sunday dinner -  Chicken breast with mushrooms and red wine sauce, broccoli and boiled potatoes
Monday dinner -  Mackerel, baked potatoes and salad
Tuesday dinner -  Herb and lemon pork chops (from freezer) with mash and vegetables
Wednesday dinner -  Mince and onions (from freezer), mash and vegetables
Thursday dinner - Wraps
Friday dinner -  Salmon, broccoli and mash

For lunches during the week we will have spring onion (scallion) soup, ham sandwiches and leek, potato and bacon soup.

I make the chicken breast with mushrooms and red wine sauce from memory now and couldn't remember where I came across the recipe - I should have known it was from the Goodfood magazine!  Thankfully I was able to find it to provide a link.

TIP  The herb and lemon chops have been prepared in advance and frozen before cooking so that all I need to do is to lift them out the night before, defrost them and cook them on Tuesday evening for dinner.  I decided to do the prep work in advance before freezing the chops for two reason - to save time when making the dinner during the week and to make sure that the parsley and lemon get used.

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.

Chaos in the kitchen!

Well, as you can see I haven't posted in quite a while.  We've had a bit of a chaotic time in the kitchen of late.  As a result of being ill and then being away my normal careful meal planning has gone out the window a bit!  It's fair to say that this has meant that I have ended up spending more money per meal than we have in previous weeks.  There was also more waste as a result of deciding what to have for dinner on a day by day basis and then buying what I needed in the shops without knowing what was in the fridge.  Doing this meant that I wasn't making use of the ingredients in my fridge and they ended up going off.

I think the lesson learnt here is that I need to organise my freezer a bit better so that I have more standby dinners that can be used when I am ill or away.  Although I had a few in there, they were used quite quickly.  The other thing I have decided that I need to do it get more vegetables in my freezer.  I have frozen vegetables that I have grown in the past, but these were all used well before the end of 2011, so I think in the future I will need to have in some frozen vegetables from the supermarket if I have none of my own in the freezer.

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.