Live For Food

Yet another recipe that involves cooking chicken on a weeknight in a fairly speedy fashion.  Have a look at the original recipe on the BBC Good Food website.  Below is the recipe with my own adaptations.  Like one of the commenters I added some red wine, and I didn’t have garlic flavored tomatoes in so I just used a garlic clove separately and fried it with the meat at the beginning.

Ingredients (serves 2):

4 rashers streaky bacon, chopped into large pieces
2 chicken breasts, cut into large chunks
1 garlic clove, crushed
4 large mushrooms
1/2 tbsp plain flour
200g (half a tin) chopped tomatoes
100 ml red wine
1 beef stock cube
dash Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp dried parsley

Method:

Heat a shallow saucepan and sizzle the bacon for about 2 mins until starting to brown.

Throw in the chicken and the crushed garlic clove, then fry for 3-4 mins until it has changed colour.

Turn up the heat and throw in the mushrooms.

Cook for a few mins, then stir in the flour, and cook until a paste forms.

Tip in the tomatoes and the red wine, stir, then crumble in the stock cube.

Bubble everything for 10 mins, splash in the Worcestershire sauce, stir through the parsley, then serve with mash or boiled rice.

Result:

This was a very tasty dish.  I like adding a beef stock cube to a chicken dish, it gives a meatier flavor, and as its not typical it makes the dish have a taste all of its own.

I expect a proper chasseur recipe is more sophisticated, but for a simple midweek meal this can’t be beaten.  The addition of the red wine probably improved the flavor compared to the original.   I would definitely cook this again.  

You’re out and about.  You might be food shopping, on your way home from work, or rushing to an appointment.  Hunger strikes.  The nearest source of food is a large supermarket.

How can you navigate those aisles and come out with a quick and easy snack that is healthier than a chocolate bar or a bag of cookies?

This is a bug bear of mine as I sometimes need a snack on the way home and its so much easier to pick up an unhealthy one – so from trial and error here is my top ten healthy-ish snacks:

1. Healthy bag of crisps or rice cake snacks – think ryvita minis or snack-a-jacks
2. Pot of ready chopped fruit from the lunch section 
3. Fridge raiders
   
4. Cereal bar 
5. Peperami – ok its processed and fatty, but at least it isn’t sugar
6. Again in the lunch section – small pack of carrot sticks and hummus 
7. Banana 
8. Apple 
9. Packet of cooked flavored prawns from the fish section 
10. Mini bar of green & blacks dark chocolate from the confectionery section

So next time you get a snack attack in the supermarket try and think healthy!

Sometimes it’s difficult to make healthy food choices.  There is always the day when the unexpected happens and you don’t have food with you, and the only option is something you wouldn’t normally choose.

How you deal with these situations could be more important than you think.  Firstly, these situations often arise when you are most in need of healthy food – you may be busy, stressed, or coping with other people’s problems.

Secondly, if you don’t make a healthy choice it could affect your food choices for the rest of the day.  How often have you had a cake mid morning and then been unable to resist the chocolate bar with lunch and the mid afternoon biscuits?  Your brain may decide that the day is ruined health wise anyway, so why make the effort.

I was in this situation earlier in the week.  I went out to a client’s office and had to stay over lunchtime unexpectedly, so I could no longer buy the healthy salad I’d been planning to get from the supermarket.  I was on an industrial estate, and I was very busy, and the nearest food source was a café round the corner, specifically aimed at the mainly male population who worked on the estate.

The menu choices started with burgers and chips, and ended with the “Big Boy Breakfast” – which was the most enormous fry up I’ve seen in a long time!  So, I perused the menu for something with vegetables – vainly – until I finally spotted the words BLT.  Hey at least that was token salad if nothing else.

Then I asked the lady on the counter if she had any brown bread.  I got a funny look, followed by an oh yes, I think there’s some under the counter somewhere.  Not a popular choice!  Anyway, my BLT on brown bread was very nice – although a real door stop.

Given the circumstances and the options available I don’t think I did too bad a job at eating healthily.  And hey how often is it that you get to feel virtuous for choosing a bacon sandwich!

The knowledge that I was at least attempting to make a healthy choice stopped me getting any cake or chocolate to go with it, and day as a whole was not too bad food wise.

So if you get stuck in a situation where healthy food is not really available, have the intention to do the best you can, ask a few questions with a smile about what options are available, and remember that by looking after yourself you will be able to deal with that unexpected situation all the better.

I don’t buy much lamb.  The joint or cuts of lamb always seem to be small and expensive when compared to meats like beef or chicken, and they also often seem to be quite fatty.  However on my last shop I came across these lamb escalopes:

They looked quite nice – not too fatty and not too small – so I thought I would give them a go and find something to cook with them.  A little research later and I came across this recipe on the Cookipedia website for Lamb Escalopes with Garlic and Mustard.  I have adjusted the ingredients and method below to reflect what I did.

Ingredients: (serves 2-4)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon olive oil
100 g natural breadcrumbs (from a packet)
1 packet of lamb escalopes
Dijon mustard, to taste
Crushed garlic, to taste
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method:
Beat the eggs with the teaspoon of oil and pour into a shallow dish.
Place the breadcrumbs in a separate dish.
Rub the garlic and mustard into the lamb escalopes.
Dip each slice firstly into the egg and then the breadcrumbs, ensuring that the meat is properly coated.
Using a large deep frying pan, add the tablespoon of oil and when it is hot, add the lamb.
Cook for about 3 minutes on each side and place in a serving dish.

Serve with mashed potato and steamed vegetables.

Verdict:

These were very tasty.  However I didn’t have any pan juices as stated in the original – possibly because I used oil instead of butter, or possibly because my cut of lamb was very lean.  It could have done with some kind of sauce.

I should have had a lighter touch with the mustard, because it didn’t all cook underneath the breadcrumbs and turned out quite spicy, in the way that only mustard is, in certain places where I had put it on a bit too thickly.

One egg would have been sufficient.

I cheated by using bought breadcrumbs as I don’t have a good enough food processor to make them myself – I always end up with a lumpy handful of bread rather than breadcrumbs.

I would make these again, but it was a bit of a faff for a weeknight, I’d probably save them for a weekend when I had a bit more time to clear up leftover bowls of egg and breadcrumbs.

Photo: Jonathan Ruchti, Switzerland

If you have an unexpectedly large amount of potatoes, do not fear.

In my opinion the best way to use them all up without wastage is to firstly make a large pan of mashed potatoes.

Use a reasonable amount of salt, pepper, and butter when you are mashing them up.  Also use a little bit of milk, but not too much or you will make them sloppy.

Use what you want for your meal, and then we are going to freeze the excess.

Get a baking sheet and cover it loosely with greaseproof paper.

Using a couple of spoons placed the mashed potato in large lumps on the baking sheet on top of the paper.

Pop them in the freezer overnight.

In the morning when they are frozen take them off the sheet and put them in plastic bags to store in the freezer.

When you want to eat them, simply put the frozen balls in a dish or on a baking sheet, and bake them in an oven at 200 C for 25 minutes.

Voila, baked mash potato balls.

You can also make a little dip in the top with a spoon before freezing them – and then when you bake them from frozen, put a slice of cheese in the top for cheesy mash balls.