The chicken continued - 'paella' of sorts

So where was I before I so rudely interrupted the ramblings of my kitchen - and our life - with the big news? Oh yes. The chicken.

After the chicken pie on Tuesday last week, we had meat-free Wednesday - not as catchy as meat free Monday, granted, but I'm not going to be tied to the alliterative benefits of a particular day of the week (despite my penchant for linguistic trickery) for reducing the amount of meat in our diet. Twice baked potatoes it was - a brilliant addition to our regular meals thanks to Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall (in Veg Everyday, I think). So easy it doesn't need a recipe - bake your tatties, scoop out the insides and mash them up with butter, or cream cheese (Philadelphia with garlic & herbs is good), plus extras - chopped up spring onions, tinned sweetcorn, that sort of thing. While you're doing this, pop the skins back in the oven to crisp up, then whip them out, pile the skins back up with the enriched potato and pop back in the oven for 10 mins. Easy peasy and very delicious.

Thursday, though, we were back with the chicken that I cooked for the pie on Tuesday, plus the joys of the veg box, which included 3 small green peppers and some small red onions. Paella - of sorts - beckoned. Plenty of smoked paprika and some chorizo to spice things up, and unfortunately no seafood - which probably means its not paella at all, but hey, I used paella rice, so I'm going to call it paella.

A couple of other notes - if I'd had a choice, I would probably have used red pepper rather than green, and I forgot to include any garlic. It's not fatal as the chorizo is quite garlicky, but it would have been nice. I think a bit of chilli would also have been good - we got some lovely looking ones in the veg box, but I suspect they are of the firey variety, and as I was feeding the kids, I had to make do with the tabasco bottle to spice up my portion.

Easy Paella - for 4

125g cooking chorizo, cut into bite size pieces
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
2 small red onions, or 1 large one, finely chopped
3 small green peppers - substitute for red if you have the choice, to be honest, but the veg box yielded small green ones...
300g paella rice
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 litre of stock (if you poached a chicken to make the pie, you'll have some lovely stock to use for this)
170g cold cooked chicken cut into bite size pieces.

Heat your stock up in a pan (or, if you're me, defrost the stock over a gentle heat because you forgot to get it out of the freezer earlier...).

Heat a large frying pan and chuck in the chorizo. Cook gently til lthe oils start to run then add in the garlic, onion and pepper and cook till softening, then stir in the rice and the coriander and paprika. 

Cook for a couple of minutes, then tip in the stock, bring to a simmer and leave to bubble away till the rice is cooked. 

Stir in the chicken and garnish with chopped parsely if you have it to hand.

Serve with a bottle of tabasco on the side for those that need a little more heat. 

The rest of the chicken meat went in sandwiches, and I still have 2 litres of stock left from poaching the original chicken too. So I reckon that's pretty good value. What do you think?

And the news is...

So, all things considered, the kids took it pretty well.

There were tears. There were cuddles. "My life will be ruined". It was to be expected. The life they know and love is about to change. It was hard to do that to them.

The Husband and I were positive and upbeat. That bit was easy, because despite it all sounding terribly ominous in my last post, for which I realise I should apologise, the news is very exciting:  we're off to the Welsh coast for 3 years. 

Of course there will be challenges. But the Husband is being transferred with work. I work freelance and can transfer what I do easily. We have the opportunity to spend some time in a glorious part of the world. We can live by the sea. What's not to be excited about?


I realise that it's possibly not everyone's idea of a good time, but for us, it represents a bit of a dream - and an opportunity to live a lifestyle that we've long hankered after.

We've talked about it a lot today, and it's all been good. I might dare to say that the kids are on the way to being excited about it too.

Watch this space!

News

I've been up early.

Today, as many in the last few weeks - there's a lot on my mind.

We have news, and today's the day we tell the children.

The news must wait till after Remembrance Day parade, though. Perhaps, somehow, the message of what others have been though, and continue to go through, in the name of their country, of freedom, of stabilisation and humanitarian aid, will help them put the news, when it comes, and as they digest it over the next few days, in perspective. 

I suspect not.

I peel shallots, dice vegetables, brown meat. I take extra care to make sure the flavours are right: rosemary and bay, a couple of anchovies, wiped of oil and snipped up, hopefully to melt in to the gravy. The slow cooker is on, and there's a crumble to prepare. 

Nothing fancy:  comfort food, familiar food. 

Food that will tell them that they are loved.

Uncomplicated food that we can sit down and eat without really thinking, so we can concentrate on telling them the news.

Wish us luck.

101 uses for a dead chicken - #1 Chicken, leek and parsley pie

One of the books I remember from my childhood was "101 uses for a Dead Cat". Not very good taste, but quite funny, especially when you are 9 or 10. My favourite cartoon was the one where you used the cat's bum as a pencil sharpener. 

I know. 

Sorry about that.

But it sort of popped into my head the other day when I was looking at the chicken before me, trying to decide how best to cook it. Before you start to worry, I wasn't contemplating turning it into any kind of desk top toy, or anything else other than a meal, but I reckon there are at least 101 ways to cook a chicken, and maximise the meal potential from a bird.

And if you maximise your bird, you reduce waste.

Food waste is a terrible thing.

We all know it. 

And I'm not just talking about the terrible irritation that rises up when the kids turn their nose up at whatever you've put in front of them.

Food is expensive. People put lots of time and effort into growing, cultivating, preparing it and we spend our hard-earned money on it. We are extremely fortunate to live in a country where we have a huge variety of food available to us.

On the other hand, we live in a society where children still go hungry; where there is an increasing need for the food banks. It seems to me that we owe it to everyone, not least ourselves, to do better at wasting less food.

According to Love Food Hate Waste, "...We throw away 7.2 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year, the majority of which could have been eaten. It's costing us £12bn a year and is bad for the environment too"

This costs an average (if there is such a thing) family £50 a month. And apparently "If we all stop wasting food that could have been eaten, the benefit to the planet would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 5 cars off the road."

Staggering.

So, back to my chicken. It's true that buying a whole chicken usually represents better value for money than buying jointed pieces. You can get so much more out of it. If you get the opportunity, it's worth reading Rose Prince's book "The New English Kitchen" which is a great book, crammed with ideas for making meat (especially) go further. If not, you can work on the basic principle that for a family of 4, a whole chicken will give you at least 2 main meals, plus stock for soup and bits for sandwiches. 

If you don't like 'boiling bones' as one of my friends delightfully calls it, the other way to get delicious chicken stock is to poach your chicken whole first. You can then eat it as you would roast chicken for your first meal, or turn some of the meat into a pie.

I got the idea for this pie from The Claire Macdonald Cookbook. I'm in awe of Claire Macdonald. She's a favourite of my mum's, and her recipes are really great. As a hotelier on Skye, cooking everyday, she produced 'homely dinner party' food which she hoped would be a treat for her guests to eat. I can't imagine anything nicer than spending a day out in the majestic Skye mountains or on the beaches, then coming back for the sort of food she was serving up. When I was flicking through the book, this pie seemed like just the sort of thing to serve up to the kids and the Husband after our first day back at school and work since the Italian escape. There's a good load of meat left for another meal and for some sarnies, and as a result of poaching the chicken I've got about 3 litres waiting to be used for other things. Marvellous. And don't balk at the addition of curry powder. It really works!

Chicken Leek & Parsley Pie
 for 4

1 chicken - mine was 1.7 kg
1 carrot, cut into chunks
2 small red onions (or equivalent - I used what came in the veg box) peeled and halved for the poaching, plus 2 more peeled and finely diced for the filling
2 sticks of celery
2 bay leaves
A good sprig each of thyme and rosemary
A good handful of parsley, leaves & stalks, plus another good handful, thick stalks removed, finely chopped
40g butter
2 leeks, cleaned and sliced reasonably thinly
25g plain flour
1/2 tsp mild curry powder
250 ml milk
100-150 ml stock reserved from cooking the chicken
salt & freshly ground black pepper
300g puff pastry
milk for glazing

First, cook the chicken. Put it into a large pan with the carrot chunks, the halved red onions, the bay, thyme, rosemary and the first handful of parsley, a few grinds of salt and pepper, then cover with water. Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for an hour or so till the chicken is cooked. Allow to cool in the water.

Remove the chicken from the stock, and then strain it through a seive. Reserve what you need for the pie (100-150 ml) and put the rest aside for soup, risotto, or whatever you have planned for it.

Strip the meat off the carcass, and put a layer of chicken pieces in the bottom of your pie dish. I used the meat from the 2 legs (thighs and drumsticks) and some more of the 'brown' meat. The rest of the meat can be used in another meal. Watch this space.

Pre heat the oven to 220C

Melt the butter in a pan, and add the leeks and finely chopped onion. Cook gently till soft and transparent then stir in the flour and curry powder, cook for a minute or so, then stir in the milk and stock, and bring to the boil and cook till thickened. Add salt and pepper and the chopped parsley. Cook the sauce out for a few minutes, then pour over the meat and stir it all together to combine.

Cover the pie with the pastry, decorate as you see fit (pastry leaves are always a winner in my book, I don't care if anyone says they are naff), brush the pastry with milk, then bake for 20 minutes before reducing the temperature to 180 for another 20 minutes.

Serve the pie to your family. They will love you even more.

A Lunch to Remember - Agriturismo Tenuta Monte la Guardia

You know those "amazing food places" that you dream of finding - the kind of place that someone else you know, or a friend of someone you know has been to and raves about? Agriturismo Tenuta Monte la Guardia is one of those places.
 
While England was battered by storms, we swanned off to Italy for half term and soaked up some very welcome sunshine. Staying first with friends just outside Rome and then in Naples, we were mainly there to see some old friends, and for 'culture' of the child friendly 
variety, but on our first day, we had the most wonderful, foodie experience.

We drove through the Nutella hazelnut groves, skirted the shores of Lake Bracciano and passed the castle where Tom Cruise married Katie Holmes. You'll be pleased to hear that our visit had a far more auspicious end than the ill-fated Cruise/Holmes union - LUNCH!!

Eventually, the road petered out to a dirt track on the edge of the village of Castel Giuliano, and at the end of the track: Agriturismo Tenuta Monte la Guardia. 

Piggies. (Actually these are boar, and were behind a fence. The piggies were too quick...

It's a little compound of buildings, pretty 'rustic' with some rather cute families of pigs (yes really!!) running around. You can stay here, and there's also an organic restaurant where, for a fixed price, you can sit down and get what they are serving up. No menu, just what they are cooking. And all utterly fabulous.

 



 The owners are much in evidence, really friendly, and it's a lovely place to eat. While my university friend who we were staying with took us, her husband came on a little later with their daughter (so she could have a nap before we ate) and this was all perfectly acceptable and easily accomodated. The presence of the pigs in the garden, giant acorns to be gathered, and the relaxed Italian attitude meant that the kids could get down and run around when they needed a break, leaving us to enjoy the chat, the food and the wine.

 

We kicked off with antipasti of bruschetta, salami, cheese with a kind of fruit jam smeared on it, and slices of a rustic savoury tart reminiscent of a Greek spanakopita. There were also 2 delicious dishes, one a barley salad and another a dish of bread, cabbage, onion and cheese, that sounds like nothing but is just the sort of thing Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall would weep for joy over. 

 







This was followed by the pasta course - tagliatelle with a delicious sausage sauce, then the  meat course: 2 dishes, one a mouthwatering, rare roast beef, sliced wafer thin, the other a divine venison casserole, flavoured with lemon and juniper, plus some beautiful fennel roasted potatoes. Just wow. 

There was of course wine and water to wash it all down. We also had puddings (not included in the fixed price, but oh so worth it) - a choice of 3 and between us we sampled the chocolate brownie tart - rich and luscious - and also a local loaf cake/pudding which was a bit like soft biscotti, packed with nuts and fruit. Both came with cream and strawberry jam, a combination I intend to repeat.
 

Mmm - which would you choose?

When we felt like we could move again, we spent some more time admiring the pigs, then took a slow meander through the woods, just starting to hint at the possibility of Autumn...

down to a nearby waterfall. 

Pretty much the perfect day.

Tomatoes on toast

Did I mention that we are going away for a week? 

I'd like to say I'm being ever so casual about it, that it's no biggie, but who am I kidding? 

We are going to ITALY. To Rome, then to Naples.

I am very, VERY excited. 

Of course, in the run up to any holiday there is the finishing up of work. 

There is the 'weather checking and clothes washing' to be taken care of (you might not like me to mention that it's currently getting up to 28C in Rome - now where did I put my sandals?)



There is the consideration and purchasing of useful literature (I am very pleased with my 'overlay' book of ancient Roman sites (which has photos of the current ruins, with artists impressions of how they used to look which you can overlay onto the photos), purchased on Amazon for a mere 1p as opposed to the 10 Euros I am informed it will cost us in Rome)

There is the finding of the passports and the checking of the tickets. 

There is the daydreaming of how perfect it will all be as long as we don't try to do too much and wear the kids out on day 1 (actually unlikely as we are staying with friends just outside Rome first and we have been promised a relaxing day on Sunday revolving around lunch somewhere very lovely.)

And then there is 'Operation Fridge Run Down'. Easier said than done when the courgettes are still coming, as are the tomatoes.

I managed to get a whole yellow ball courgette into a quiche the other day - grated and squeezed out before I cooked it up with 3 thinly sliced onions. It made a delicious supper, and the courgette went completely undetected by those who did not know it was in there.

I could have cried when the next day, the Husband brought 2 more green courgettes in from the garden...

Tomatoes, on the other hand, are something I never tire of. The kids eat them raw and cooked, and it's very easy to turn them into soup, passata, anything really. Proper tomatoes, grown with some love, just smell delicious - of sunshine, of warmth, of halcyon days. If I had nothing else to do, I'd quite happily sit in a greenhouse of tomatoes and smell the smell all day. A bit like Ferdinand the bull smelling the flowers all day - but he was in Spain, and not many people know that story these days...





If you've never smelt a freshly picked gorgeously ripe tomato, you might think this all sounds a bit wierd, but I'm betting I'm not the only one who feels like this...

Tomatoes, of course, remind me of Italian food - the classic insalata tricolore with mozarella and basil, all that pasta sauce flavoured with basil, with chilli, with all sorts of things, brushcetta... I'm anticipating more than the odd stop during our sightseeing to partake of all things gorgeous, Italian and tomatoey - plus the odd glass of chilled white wine, of course.

For now, though, something much more English. I could have gone the bruschetta route for lunches the last few days, but these are English tomatoes, and oddly, bruschetta never occurred to me until just now when I sat down and started writing this. So I've been eating tomatoes on toast - inspired by a friend who's on the 5:2 diet and who advises me that if you use Nimble or Weightwatchers bread, 2 pieces come in at around 132 calories - including a dollop of Lidl's lowest fat mayo. Now I am no longer following the 5:2 diet. I'll tell you about it sometime, so my tomatoes were sliced and arranged on slices of homemade bread, drizzled with some (Italian) olive oil, sprinkled with some sea salt and pepper and served with some delicious Hampshire watercress. I decided to pass on the mayo...

Tomatoes on Toast (serves 1)

2 reasonably thick slices of good bread
tomatoes (the exact number will depend on the size of your tomatoes, how thickly you slice them, also the size of your slices of bread - may be 3-4 small to medium sized tomatoes as a guide)
Olive oil, seasalt and fresh ground pepper
Watercress to serve

Toast the bread lightly on one side under the grill. Flip the bread over and cover the uncooked side as much as possible with slices of tomato, drizzle with a little olive oil, sprinkle on some salt and pepper, then pop back under the grill for a few minutes till the tomatoes are starting to soften. Alternatively, you could sprinkle a little sugar on the tomatoes for a more caramelised effect.

Serve on a plate with some watercress.

Ciao!

Pasta Ratatouille

This could be called desperate veg growers' dinner, but I prefer to call it 'pasta ratatouille'. It sounds much smarter, doesn't it?

Easy, undemanding, a great way to disappear some of the glut of tomatoes and courgettes that you might be lucky enough to have (yes, still, even in October) into a healthy and tasty dinner.

This is definitely one to take as a guide rather than a defintive recipe. Use whatever you have.

Pasta Ratatouille
(serves 2 aduts & 2 children)

300g pasta
3 medium sized courgettes (I had 2 green ones and a yellow ball one)
2 green peppers
5 large beef tomatoes
4-5 small onions
3 cloves of garlic
olive oil
1 tablespoon capers
grana padano cheese

Heat the oven to 200C, and when it is to temperature, put in a roasting tray with a good slosh of olive oil in the bottom of it to heat up for 5 minutes.


While the oven is heating, top and tail the courgettes and chop into bite sized pieces; deseed the papers and similarly chop up.

Peel the onions and quarter them; peel the garlic cloves and finely slice them.

Halve the tomatoes and cut out the woody bit where the fruit was attached to the vine - you don't need ti be fussy about removing too much of the seeds or anything.

Once the oil has had the chance to heat up, take the tin ot of the oven and chuck everything in, and roast for a good 45 minutes, shaking the tin every now and again to make sure it's all getting cooked.

While the veg is roasting, cook the pasta according to packet instructions, drain, and if the veg still needs to roast for a little, stir through a little olive oil to stop it sticking together.

When the veg is roasted, mix it in with the pasta and stir through the capers. Put it all back into the roasting tin and grate over some of the grana padano cheese, then pop the tin back into the oven for 10 minutes tilll the cheese is melted and everything's really hot again (you coud put it under the grill if you prefer).

Serve - with extra grated cheese, and chilli sauce - if needed