My first rolled lamb breast (yorkie & roasties recipes)

I have a baseline price with meat, I dont like paying more than £2.50 per kilo. Lamb is one of my favourite meats but at a minimum of £5 per kilo, I can never normally afford it. Breast of lamb is one of the cheapest cuts you can get and I was fortunate enough to get a 1.1 kilo joint reduced to £2.80 a few days ago at Tesco. Close enough :)

Its quite a fatty joint, Ive never cooked one before, but I did a bit of googling and asked my friend, it seems slow cooking/roasting is the way to go. I originally wanted to stuff it and slow roast it, but in the end I went for the slow cooker in the hope that i'd get a little more meat from it.

Apparently, veg takes longer to cook in the slow cooker than meat, so you should always put veg at the bottom. So I had half a swede (reduced, 15p), chopped half and 3 carrots, put them in. A bag of baby button mushrooms from the freezer went in, and some chopped pepper. The chicken stock left from last weeks chicken, a carton of passata, 2 good handfuls of fresh rosemary (from the freezer), salt, pepper and a bit of boiling water to dissolve the chicken stock. I fried a red onions and 3 garlic cloves and added them. Then I placed the lamb ontop and stuck it on low for about 8hrs.

If your wondering about the box ontop and the tea towel, well thats what happens when you overload your cooker. The lid wouldnt shut so it couldnt get up to heat, the jug on the left is the pint of liquid I removed in order to shut the lid, the box is to keep it shut as liquid kept trying to escape. And the tea towel, is because said liquid was successful at escaping! I owe the poor thing a very large clean up operation tonight.

Serving with home-made yorkshire puddings, stuffing balls (leftover in the freezer from last week) and roast potatoes.

Yorkshires and I have a very turbulent relationship, much like me and pastry. They either work beautifully or they go horribly wrong. These ones came out like this:

It was a batter mix (I still have 20 to use up!) But mixing your own batter form scratch produces way better yorkshires. Jamie Oliver has a brilliant recipe:
3 eggs
115g plain flour
pinch of salt
285ml milk

Pour a little oil into a muffin tray wells, I use a pastry brush to brush oil round the sides too so they dont stick as they rise. You need to heat this oil until it is smoking! Talking seriously hot here. I left the tray in for half an hour on 250. When the oil is hot enough, quickly pull the tray out and pour the mixture into the wells, about half full or so. Put them back in a shut the door. My oven is rather pathetic so I do yorkshires on their own so it can concentrate all the heat on them or they just dont rise well enough.

Another tip, if you can, keep a muffin tray just for yorkshires! Not only does the tray get rather manky, but with using oil in them all the time it builds up a nice non stick coating after time.

 Now, for roast potatoes, you can just chop the potatoe, pour over some oil and bang in the oven for 45mins. simples. Today I was really craving very crunchy, fluffy roasties. So I put a bit more effort in. Peel, chop and boil them for about 10 mins. Just long enough that the outside softens, but you dont want them cooked. Drain them. Then rough them up. Honest! bang and shove and toss them around in the colander until the outside is all fluffy:

This way, the oil clings to them better with a rough surface, so does the salt and gets them a lot crispier. Also The insides are really nice and fluffy as theyve already been softened slightly by cooking.

Pour oil over and toss around to cover evenly, Salt well (it helps them to crisp up), pepper and ive added some rosemary since im serving it with lamb.

 Put in the oven for about half an hour, maybe 45 mins. Im adding the stuffing balls to the same pan after half an hour.

The lamb will be sliced and served with the veggies and stock poured over. Leftover lamb with be chopped and put back into the stock (as a stew/casserole) and served for lunch tomorrow with rosemary focaccia bread.

Rosemary and sea salt focaccia

I LOVE this bread! Its so fragrant and the texture is all chewy! Love love love it! Ive only made it with an instant mix before, this was my first attempt making it 'from scratch' and it was surprisingly easy.

500g white flour (I used strong white bread flour)

280ml warm water

1tsp yeast

1tsp salt

3 tbsp olive oil

a bunch of fresh rosemary (recipe said 1 tsp dried rosemary)

Mix it all into a dough and kneed for several mins until it becomes soft and pliable.

Leave to double in size in a warm place, this could take anywhere from 40 mins to 2 hours depending on how warm it is.

Tip onto a greased and floured baking tray and shape into a flatt-ish rectangle about 3/4cm thick.

Leave to double in size again.

Dimple all over using the tips of (clean!) fingers and brush with olive oil (i used a pastry brush) sprinkle over some coarse rock sea salt and some extra fresh rosemary and bake for about 20-30mins on 180.

This is a lovely 'special' side dish to go with some plain soup or a simple meal.

Batch baking recipe - Carrot cake

Ok, so as facebook friends will know, I had a not so minor meltdown yesterday. OCD monster strikes again. Thanks for everyone who sent me hugs and remined me not to listen to the negative voice inside.

So I was supposed to be making treacle tart monday, but I just could not roll the pastry out, it just crumbled. And I didnt have enough butter defrosted to make another batch. I was trying to think of a cake I could make that wouldnt require butter, and notied the 2 kilo's of carrots on the side waiting for freezing/cooking. Carrot cake usually uses oil, and I had some walnuts, so I doubled a recipe and adapted it to fit my trusty lasagna tray. Half of this recipe is in the freezer and half is in an air-tight container for snacks and desserts through the week. I didnt take any picture as my phone had died and I did it in a rush.

320g sugar

350ml oil 

6 eggs

280g grated carrot

200g walnuts (if you want to!)

zest of 2 Oranges (not strictly necessary but nice)

350g self raising flour

2 tsp bicarbonate soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

If you want you can add raisins/sultanas too.

Its probably not the right way but I just measured it all into a big baking bowl and switched the whisk on, it came out fine.

Line a large square tin with greasproof paper. Pour into prepared tin and bake for 45mins or so on 180, leave it in the tin for 10mins to cool before tipping it into a wire rack and cooling and slice into squares.

Sweet and sour chicken noodles

My 4th meal with my chicken, is sweet and sour chicken noodles. I am cheating tonight and using a sauce as it is a meeting night here, and I am terrible for over-working myself and then being too tired and in pain to get to our meeting.

So, I used:

2 handfuls leftover roast chicken

1 x pack noodles 

Sweet and sour sauce (Ill explain this a bit later)

1 carrot

1 pepper

1 red onion

Half a handful chopped spring onions (good job I had them chopped in the freezer)

Cashew nuts

Now, you can buy a jar of sweet and sour sauce at any supermarket. Id recommend buying several when on offer. Lidl has them on their half price weekend offers for 34p jar regularly.

The one i'm using I got from approved food recently (along with the noodles). It is a 1.1kilo jar of concentrated sauce (in other words it makes double, 2.2kilo sauce) and I am obviously not going to use it all today! It was 99p. 

So, when I have leftover sauce from a bulk pack, or even that ive made myself, I freeze the remainder like this:

Re-Useable silicone muffin cases in a muffin tray, then peel the cases off and transfer the frozen sauce portions into a labelled bag. Ive put 'makes double' on mine to remind me to add as much water as there is sauce.

It provides little portion-sized sauces you can pop out of the freezer and defrost whenever you need them.

So, today I used 100ml concentrated sauce and added 100ml of water to make 200ml of sweet and sour sauce.

Chop your veggies, or take your pre-chopped veggies out of the freezer, and stir fry until softened. Add noddles and sauce and let it warm through for a couple of minuits. These noodles are pre-cooked, it was a case of 12 packs noodles for 99p. But usually I would use half a pack of dried noodles, pre-boil them and add to the stir fry cooked.

Stir through your cooked chicken and cashew nuts, and your done! dead easy :)

I found half a pack of spring rolls and prawn toast at the bottom of the freezer leftover from a trip to jack fultons month, so will be serving with them.

And......

All gone! I could have stretched the chicken out an extra meal, but we have had enough leftover chicken and we wanted a really decent meal before the meeting tonight, so I put all the leftover chicken in.

Im not sure what tomorrow will be yet, I'm thinking about making a pizza, but I have some cobs to use up so maybe sausage and egg cobs with potato wedges. Will have to wait and see.
Very happy with my £4 this week :) 3 main meals for 4 and a lunch for 4. I usually do this once a month or so. I still have the chicken stock in the fridge to use up too so will have to think of something for that later.

'Baguette' and butter pudding

I dont usually go shopping midweek, but on Monday we went down to asda when hubby got home from work, and I picked up this baguette for 15p. We had some of it with our meal on Monday, and some for Tuesdays lunch with brie, but still have a lot of it left. Its Thursday now and its gone rather hard and stale, no good for eating 'fresh'. So I was pondering what to do with it, having already got a bag of bredcrumbs in the freezer.

Bread and butter pudding I have made many times, its very easy and not too sweet. Cant say ive ever done it with baguette before though. Can it be done with baguette? Were about to find out ;)

Slice your baguette and spread with butter, line the bottom of a dish, you should probably grease the dish first, unfortunatly I forgot! Then sprinkle some sugar over the top. Repeat with another layer, sprinkle with sugar.

When your finished cutting your baguette and your left with all those bread crumbs, scoop them up and put them into your breadcrumb bag in the freezer, they come in very useful when you want to top a pasta bake or make a treacle tart.

I used 3 eggs, and about a pint and a half of milk, used the little bit we had left of the semi skimmed milk and the rest was made up with powdered milk.

Pour your milk/egg mix over the top and bake for about 30-45mins, untill its fairly solid and all puffed up.

While that was baking I also stuck in some stuffing for lunch. We had some leftover roast chicken with stuffing on some cobs I picked up for 15p of monday.

This is such and easy lunch and the kids LOVE stuffing, plus its 15p per pack! Cant beat that, serve with side salad.

I didnt need the whole pack of stuffing and still have half left. Ill just roll them into balls and freeze them until I need them.

nom, nom, nom, nom!

Chicken and chickpea curry

Meal number 2 from my chicken, is chicken and chickpea curry.

You need to soak your chickpeas overnight if using dried (I have and used a small handful per person).

 I always start by frying my onions and minced garlic even if im using the slow cooker, boiled onions dont have the right texture somehow. I added 3 cubes of my curry paste (recipe posted earlier in february), my fried onions/garlic, and bowl of chickpeas to my slow cooker.

Then I had a rummage round for veg, there was grated carrot and chopped celery in the freezer, so added a handful of each, some plum tomatoes that needed using and half a pepper in the fridge, so added them too.

I added a carton of passata and stuck it high (at about 9.30 am) while I went out in the garden for a couple of hours. This could all be done in a pan in one go. The most important thing to remember is dont add your cooked chicken or yogurt untill everything else is already cooked, these just need to warm through rather than cook.

Lunch by the way was leftover mash, veg and stuffing from last nights dinner, with fresh gravy.

yum!

Anywayssss, after lunch, and more gardening, at about 2.30pm, everything had cooked and it tasted rather tangy and strong. I switched it the the warm setting and left the lid off for it to cool a little (just until it wasnt bubbling anymore) then I added some yogurt and coconut.

I only used half a packet of creamed coconut the rest is in the fridge, so I will need to come up with a recipe to use that up this week too.

I added about 2 handfuls of cooked chicken.

Stir through, put the lid back on and keep on warm until hubby comes home.

Serving ours with basmati rice, naan and mango and ginger chutney with popadoms. Non of which ive made myself as I managed to get some smashing bulk deals from approved food (yay!)

And I still have this much chicken left:

I think it will last another 2 main meals and a lunch. Ive got the stock cooling and will be posting shortly how to cook with this. Im thinking maybe a chicken pie tomorrow and sweet and sour chicken noodles on friday. Maybe.

Making the most of your chicken.

Not very pretty, I did warn you. But that chicken is sooooo succulent! 

So, drain off all the juices that have run out of the chicken, these are very rich and can be used either in soup, risotto, pasta sauce, for gravy, any number of yummy recipes.

Strip every last shred of chicken off and place all the skin/bones/carcass, back in the slow cooker.

On the plate is about 1 and half breasts that I will be serving for dinner tonight with roast trimmings (yorkshire, stuffing, mash, roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips, the works).

In the tuppaware box on the left is all the leftover chicken that will be our meals this week. This becomes a bit of a game, how far can I stretch my chicken. 

Place the tub of stock and tub of extra chicken in the fridge/freezer.

Pour about 4 pints of water into your slow cooker, add seasoning (I added two bay leaves, pinch of herbs, salt, plenty of pepper and 3 minced garlic cloves) and put your slow cooker on low overnight. Easy peasy.

I will show you all how to strain your stock and use it later, and I will be posting all the yummy recipes that I make from this £4 2kg chicken. Stay tuned! Xx

Slow cooked chicken

This is usually how I cook my chickens. Not only does it save money on the electric/gas needed to cook a chicken in the oven for a couple of hours, the chicken will come out so moist and falling off the bone, you'll never cook them in the oven again!

One 2kilo chicken, £4, and my trusty slow cooker.

Start by scrunching up some foil into balls and placing in the bottom of the cooker. This isnt strictly necessary, neither is it too brush oil around the sides, but it helps the chicken not to stick.

Upside down, strange right? Trust me. You can do it normally, i have done and its been fine. I put them upside down now as I find it makes the breast meat a lot juicier. All the juices run through them and make them very succulent. But be warned, this chicken will NOT look pretty when you take it out. I tend to take a chicken out, carve and strip it of every bit of meat, portion it out into the 3/4 meals worth and just put that dinners portion of chicken ready carved on the table. It helps to stop people taking seconds just because it's there.

This is on low, and will be until about 5pm. So easy. Dont forget to season your chicken however you want. Ive done this before and gone out for the day. Come back and stuck some baguette in the oven for 5mins, served with salad. Much quicker, cheaper and healthier than picking up a McDonalds on the way home ;)

Bacon tomato pasta

Our dinner today as planned (for once!) was bacon cannelloni. Usually i would just do a pasta bake with penne or fusilli, but this pack of pasta I picked up from asda for 35p. And the funky little tubes were calling to me. The cheese sauce you see in the blue tub in the background is a bit naughty. I usually make it myself but this blue tub that makes 8 litres (just add water) was a whopping £1. Cheese, milk and butter are quite expensive so it works out a lot cheaper than making yourself, although I would still prefer to make it myself due to the extra ingredients in the mix (potato starch?!) But in the evening I cannot stand over a stove constantly stirring sauce with two children hanging off my legs. Im giving myself a break and saying its still alot healthier to use an instant mix than to dial out a takeaway. 

Pack of pasta

Bacon lardons/rashers (I had 3 to use up)

I added a carrot, half a pepper and some celery

Also had half a pack of plum tomatoes to use up

Carton of passata

Onions

Garlic

pinch of herbs

dash of lee and perrins

Cheese!

As you can probably tell I just made this up out of whatever I needed to use up in the fridge.

So, fry off the onions and garlic, add bacon. Then add passata, lee and perrins and a pinch of herbs. Add grated carrot, half chopped pepper and some chopped celery. Add a few plum tomatoes if you have some that need using. I didnt add any red wine or tomato puree but you could if you wanted too. Salt and pepper, which i also forgot to add! But bacon is quite salty anyway.

The fiddly bit was filling the pasta tubes! This took

forever and was so messy!

I was going to top it with cheese sauce, but i had quite a bit of the bacon tomato sauce leftover so i topped it with that instead

And plenty of cheese!

Im serving this with tiger baguette (because I picked some up reduced to 15p last night) and honey roast chateney carrots (because they were 49p at Aldi)

Made a pudding too as I had a bruised apple to use

I got another apple out but actually didnt need it in the end. That is a tin of broken manderin segments in juice and it was one of my bulk buys recently, they were selling 10 cans for £1. The bag of crumble mix I am using up, crumble mix is so easy to make on your own but I had this that needed using.

 Apple and manderin crumble with custard for pudding.

Complete evening meal made using stuff that needed using up!

What a waste!!!!

Look at this lot!!!

This is all the food I have wasted this week! About 3 meals worth. Naming and shaming myself,  1) to prove I am human and 2) to add incentive not to let this happen again. An entire pork casserole, a bowl of BBQ pork and a bag of spicy carrot soup.

Bad, bad very very bad!

Moving on....

Was extremely dissapointed, I got the aldi offers wrong :( Its all fruit at 69p this week. So I had to re-evaluate my menu plan. I have 3 rashers of bacon that need using up and found a pack of cannolini for 35p at asda today. So next week's plan is as follows:

Mon - Bacon cannolini, tiger baguette (reduced, 15p) and honey roast chatney carrots

Tues - Roast chicken dinner with trimmings (yay!)

Weds - Leftover chicken made into curry with chutney, popadoms, rice and naan.

Thurs - Chicken risotto with garlic bread and more honey roast carrots (they love 'em!)

Fri - Homemade pizza if i'm up to it or tortellini (filled pasta) with pesto if i'm feeling lazy

Anything beyond that i just cant think up yet. These usually change depending on how i'm feeling but thats the rough plan at the moment.

Aldi's super 6

I dont get chance to go shopping in the evening for reduced produce often. So I really take advantage of any offer I can stock up on. Aldi do a super 6 reduced fruit and vegatables, they change every 2 weeks. Some weeks are better than others, obviously, but I'm really, really looking foward to next weeks offers! Which I will post in a minute.

This week I got chateney carrotts, spring onions and celery for 39p each.

Celery I have found I can sneak into almost anything! Always good to bulk out meat and sneak extra veg in the family. I keep a bag of frozen chopped celery in the chest freezer. I break it up often as it is freeing so it doesnt freeze in a block and I can just pour some straight into a pan.

Spring onions I dont use often, but I have a lot of noodles to use up so will be doing more chinese/stir fry meals, and these always go well in those. So I now have a bag of chopped frozen spring onions ready to cook.

And then the chateney carrots. These are a beautiful thing! So sweet even the kids eat them, and I dont need to peel or chop! Just chuck into an oven pan with a bit of olive oil and roast, makes a wonderful side dish to anything. Especially with a bit of honey.

I've tried just freezing these without blanching but they dont come out as good. So just boil a pan of water, stick your carrots in for about 2 mins, then chill.

Bag up and freeze!

Doing this not only saves money (stocking up when cheap) but it reduces waste. Come on, i'm sure im not the only one who plans meals for a week with the best of intentions, only to have 'things' get in the way of said meals? Then the end of the week rolls around and you have to throw out all your produce that has gone bad. Trust me, this will help.

It also significantly helps me because, on bad days the food is already prepped! No standing, peeling, chopping, its all done, just chuck it in! :) simples!

So next week, actually from sunday 10th, the super 6 will be:

1kg Onions

3 pack Leeks

500g Brocolli

1kg Carrots (normal)

500g Parsnips

500g New potatoes

All 49p pack!!!

EEEEEEEE!!!! I will be getting about 4-5 packs of leeks, at least one of those will be making leek and potatoe soup with my potatoes that need using up. 4 Brocolli, 2 of which will be making stilton and Brocolli soup. Might even add some leek! 4 bags of parsnips and 3 bags carrots. The parsnips and two of the carrots i will blanch, combing and freezer ready to pull out and roast for roast dinners. the other bag of carrots will stay in the fridge for the up coming week (I manage to use them in pretty much everything!) Might get 1 bag of potatoes to make a potato and chickpea curry next week.

£1.50 Ham hock

 My mum picked up this from her local butchers for £1.50 and I bought it off her. It weighs 1.2kilo raw. And it will be the base of our meals for this week, i'm trying to see how long I can stretch it.

So I stuck it in the slow cooker overnight with enough water to cover and a couple of bay leaves, salt, pepper, a pinch of herbs, left it on low.

I woke up to a lovely bowl of nutritous stock, which is in the fridge, when the fat solidifies at the top I will scrape it off. And this is how much meat I got off the ham hock:

Not bad for £1.50. I will be updating with recipes I use this for, so watch this space. At the moment i'm thinking:

Ham and Pea risotto

Ham and Pea soup

Pulled pork cobs with BBQ sauce