Chicken & Chorizo Stew

I made this easy one pot dinner a few weeks ago. Chorizo is one of my favourite ingredients as it does all the hard work for you, the incredible oil it releases adds plenty of flavour to whatever you're cooking without having to use dozens of ingredients. I added a little honey to sweeten the tomatoes and some hot sauce to add a little heat, paprika or chilli powder would also have been a welcome addition.

Serves 3
5-6 free range chicken thighs and/or legs
1 red onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 red pepper, chopped
100g chorizo, skinned & cut into 1cm chunks
Tin chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp of tomato paste
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp hot sauce
Small bag spinach
Jacket potatoes & creme fraiche to serve

1. Fry the chicken in a little oil, until the skin has browned. The meat does not need to be cooked through at this stage as you will poach the chicken in the sauce later
2. Fry the onions, peppers and garlic over a medium heat in a little oil. Once softened add the chorizo and continue to fry until it releases its delicious oil and starts to colour
3. Add the chicken back to the pan with the tomatoes and tomato paste. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 30 minutes until the chicken has cooked through and the sauce has thickened
4. Add the spinach for the final few minutes. Once it has wilted, add the honey and hot sauce to taste along with plenty of seasoning. Serve with jacket potatoes and a big dollop of creme fraiche

Thai Red Curry with Chicken & Butternut Squash

I know it's lazy but when I get home from work I can never be bothered to make my own curry paste. In place of the real deal, I tend to use a good quality paste and spruce it up with some extras, you'll hardly notice the difference. To save the pennies, I only used two chicken breasts and bulked the recipe out with butternut squash. It's still super tasty, just cheaper and healthier! 

Serves 4
2 free range chicken breasts, cut into large chunks
Butternut squash, deseeded and cut into 2cm chunks
White onion, chopped
Red pepper, chopped
3 garlic cloves, grated
2cm piece of ginger, grated
Mixed pack of mange tout & mini sweetcorn
400ml can reduced fat coconut milk
100g jar red curry paste (ideally Bart's)
Juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp fish sauce
Rice to serve

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Put the butternut squash chunks into a roasting tin, drizzle with oil and pop in the oven for 45 minutes
2. Meanwhile, heat a large pan with a tablespoon of oil on a medium heat. Add the chopped onion and red pepper to the pan, gently fry for 10 minutes. Next add the mange tout, sweetcorn, garlic and ginger, allow to soften for a few minutes
3. Now add the Thai curry paste, reduced fat coconut milk, fish sauce, lime juice and chicken. Bring to a light simmer and cook for 20 minutes, allowing the chicken to poach in the sauce. Add the roasted butternut squash for the final 5 minutes, serve with jasmine rice

Three Bean Chili

After a long weekend of meat eating in Shropshire, I decided to make us something vegetarian for dinner on Monday night. I really enjoyed this bean chili, but I'm not sure Chris is convinced by vegetarian food, as his first comment was how nice it would be with some chicken or beef in it. But considering this is a man who said 'I like vegetarian food, as long as it's got loads of meat in it', there probably isn't much hope of him becoming a fan of meat-free meals. Frezule and I will be eating the leftovers tonight, so lets hope she's a fan!

You can use any beans you happen to have in your cupboard, but I like to have a mix including baked beans; the sauce helps to prevent the tomatoes being too acidic and half a tin counts as one of your 5 a day. It's reasonably spicy, so a dollop of yogurt and some cooling avocado piled on top tasted great. It's also nice served with brown rice or with a roasted sweet potato, topped with cheese.

For the bean chili:
1 onion, diced
1 red pepper, chopped
1 courgette, chopped
250g pack mushrooms, quartered
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp hot chili powder
1 tin baked beans
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 tin black eyed beans, drained and rinsed
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 squares of dark chocolate

1. Add the onion and garlic to a pre-heated pan with a little oil and allow to soften for 5 minutes. Then add the red pepper, courgettes and mushrooms and leave to cook on a medium heat for a further 10 minutes
2. Add the cumin, chili powder and paprika and cook for 1 minute, until the spices are fragrant
3. Add the chopped tomatoes, tomato paste and all the beans, bring to a light simmer, adding a little vegetable stock if necessary. Turn the heat down and leave to cook with the lid on for 1 hour
4. Once the sauce has thickened, add a few squares of dark chocolate and allow to melt into the sauce. Season and serve with roasted butternut squash, topped with yogurt and avocado

Vegetables with lots of spices:

Ready to eat:

With roasted squash, yogurt & avocado:

Thai Green Curry with Prawns

I love Thai food, but I’ve never been particularly successful at recreating it at home. Unless you’re lucky enough to have a good Asian supermarket close by, I find it’s quite difficult to get hold of the ingredients for the paste. As you can see from this recipe on the Guardian’s excellent ‘How to make the perfect…’ blog, the majority of the ingredients aren’t the kind of thing you can pick up from the local supermarket. As I have to make do with ingredients from Sainsbury’s and I’m quite lazy when it comes to midweek meals, I decided to make do with a ready-made curry paste. The paste has the basic flavours needed for the curry, by adding extra lime, fish sauce, lemongrass etc. it gave the sauce the extra zing the paste alone was missing. The end result was pretty good, and considerably cheaper than buying all the ingredients for the paste, the remainder of which would inevitably have ended up rotting in my fridge.

Serves 4:

4 tbsp green Thai curry paste

1 lemongrass stalk

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 tsp light muscovado sugar

Juice 1 lime

Tin coconut milk

1 green chilli

3 cloves garlic, grated

2cm piece ginger, grated

1 onion, finely chopped

1 red pepper, chopped

1 courgette, chopped

1 small butternut squash

100g mange tout

Handful basil leaves

Method:

1. Cut the squash into 1cm chunks, toss in olive oil and roast for 45 minutes until soft.
2. Fry the onion, garlic & ginger for 5 minutes until soft. Add the chilli, pepper and courgette and fry gently for a further 5 minutes.
3. Add the curry paste, fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, lemongrass and coconut milk. Bring the sauce to a light simmer, add the mange tout and roasted butternut squash and keep on a low heat for 20 minutes. If the sauce gets too thick add a little vegetable stock to loosen it.
4. To serve, remove the lemongrass and top with basil leaves and spring onion. If you’d like to add some protein, either add some raw king parwns for the final 5 minutes or add chicken breast chunks for the final 15 minutes and allow them to poach in the sauce.

Curry cooking:

Ready to eat!

Vegetable Tagine

With a fridge full of random ingredients from various different meals, I decided to create my own version of a vegetable tagine. I hate letting anything go to waste (mainly because I’m poor!), so creating my own recipes with left over ingredients is a great way to save money and hopefully end up with something tasty for dinner.

It’s a very simple and cheap recipe as it doesn’t contain any meat, and helps you on your way to 5 a day! I’ve never been to Morocco (it’s on my very long list of places I’d like to visit), but I doubt this recipe is particularly authentic, but it does taste goooood!

Serves 4 hungry people:

Half a butternut squash

2 red onions

1 red pepper

1 carrot

2 parsnips

8 dried apricots

4 cloves garlic

2cm piece of ginger

1 tsp light muscovado sugar

1 tbsp harissa paste

1 tbsp tomato paste

3 tsp paprika

3 tsp cumin

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tins chopped tomato

Chopped mint to serve

Method:

1.       Put the chopped vegetables into a roasting tray and sprinkle on 1 tsp of paprika. Drizzle with oil and put into a pre-heated oven for 45 minutes. Check on them every 15 minutes to make sure they’re not sticking to the tin.
2.       Fry the ginger and garlic for 1 minute, then add the spices and fry for a further minute. Add the chopped tomatoes, sugar, harissa and tomato paste and bring to a light simmer. Leave on the hob on a low heat to allow the sauce to thicken. If it gets too thick add a little vegetable stock to loosen it up.
3.       Add the apricots to the sauce for the final 5 minutes, then add the cooked vegetables and coat thoroughly with the sauce. Serve with couscous and top with the chopped mint.

Veggies roasting:

Tagine & couscous: