Salad Days…..

In a desperate attempt to be a little healthier, (upon discovery that my ‘active’ holidays have caused me to gain 7lbs!), we have been eating more wisely and I’m feeling loads better for it.  Think I will also be hotfooting back to my local WeightWatchers meeting – a wonderful crutch in times like these. Jon suggested the first one… a California style salad – great for Abbie as she could pick the bits that she wanted and leave those she is not keen on, which happens at the moment to be avocado. The second is a deconstructed type of Nicoise salad… great for picking at in front of ‘Total Wipeout’, which is indeed when it was served! Abbie’s eating has been turned upside-down since turning 4… don’t know whether anyone else has this experience. She is still happy to try anything, but has become more fussy in general… chicken is back on the menu after a long dislike, avocado and cabbage are now shunned. Flat and shell pasta is also a no-no – my Mum cut her lasagne into ribbons and said ‘there, now you have tagliatelle!’… it was eaten with no fuss. I guess this is all just part of her striving to be more independent.

Anyway, back to those lovely salads..

Abbie contemplates which parts of the salad to eat first

California Salad – serves 3, would serve 2 adults & 2 children

2 chicken breasts (poached for 10mins in chicken stock), 2 large ripe tomatoes, 1 ripe avocado (skin and stone removed), 1 Granny Smith apple (cored), 1 orange (take of rind and pith), grapes

• Slice chicken breast on the diagonal and arrange in a line across a platter
• Thinly slice tomatoes, avocado, apple; arrange in lines under the chicken
• Cut orange into segments and grapes into halves – again arrange in lines
• Serve like this; everybody helping themselves
• Dressing for this salad is made from; 1/4 cup orange juice, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, 1/4 tsp salt, grinds of pepper

I have to admit I was not looking forward to this, but it was truly delicious and you feel absolutely virtuous afterwards!!

Deconstructed Nicoise

Deconstructed Nicoise Salad

So easy to make – watercress with a little balsamic vinegar over the top, tuna steak from a tin, cooked green beans, boiled new potatoes and a few olives.  We ate this with some doughballs and garlic butter – currently on a great 10 pound offer at the supermarket giant we all love/hate! Great TV dinner… shame we were watching Total Wipeout!!

Chicken Caesar salad (Quorn Caesar salad for Abbie)

Abbie is sometimes a bit funny about meat and has started to stage protests at the table…. wish we had never watched Bambi! Venison is out now for her, when previoulsy she loved it. We have had some very frank conversations and she has a great understanding of why we only buy free-range birds, responsibly sourced fish and ‘happy’ pigs/cows/lambs, but today was a protest day….. so I got the quorn pieces out.

I was priveledged to take part in the trial of Quorn when I was a young teenager (my Mum had a friend who worked for Marlow Foods and the fungus was discovered only a few roads away from our house); I can tell you that they have come a long way from the strange lumps that were delivered in a huge freezer box. Abbie and I often eat Quorn products… favourite has to be the meatballs. I want to be clear to her that if she is not to eat meat, she must get her protein in some form. Luckily she loves beans and tofu, so the thought that she might give up meat doesn’t terrify me…. like any parent would think it would be an inconvenience.

The Quorn version....

We eat this salad quite often and so now I have begun to adapt it to suit us! Originally the recipe came from ‘How to Eat’ by Nigella Lawson and I love her idea to make potato (rather than bread) croutons. For quorn caesar salad, substitute chicken with one handful quorn pieces, cook according to packet instructions.
Chicken Caesar Salad – adapted from ‘How to Eat’ by Nigella Lawson
150g potatoes – diced into 2cm cubes
Squeezy garlic and olive oil or substitue for Garlic oil
1 large chicken breast – cooked
1-2 large head of Romaine lettuce, chopped
Parmesan/ pecorino – grated to give about 2 handfuls (15g)
1 egg
few drops Worcestershire sauce
1/2 lemon
Anchovy sauce (or 2 anchovy fillets in oil)

• To make the croutons, mix the potato cubes with 1 tblspn oil and a squeeze of garlic (or 1tblspn garlic oil) – roast in a preheated 200C oven for 30-40 mins (check after 25 and give a toss around) – cool for about 10mins before putting on salad
• 20 mins after putting potatoes in, Boil water for eggs
• Tear lettuce into mouth sized pieces and toss with a tblspn olive oil, seasoning as you go with s&p
• When water is boiling, put egg in for 1 min.
• Back to your lettuce: Shake over Worcestershire sauce, squeeze 1/2 lemon, few drops anchovy sauce and break egg in – toss
• Add 3/4 of the cheese and toss again.
• Top with the chicken/quorn, croutons and a final sprinkling of cheese
• Bring to the table immediately! You don’t want the lettuce to wilt…

....and the chicken version!

Garlicky chicken, roast turnips and turnip greens… hooray for the garden!

Abbie was really keen to get out in the garden today after spotting all the strawberries on our plants. Whilst we were there, we thought we would see how our garlic was doing as well as I had heard about ‘green’ garlic, which just means that you pick it whilst the leaves are still green instead of wilted. You can see that our looking turned to pulling!

Ta da!

I separated the cloves from the stems. I put the stems into the cavity of the chicken (instead of herbs)before roasting. I boiled the cloves, with a head of cloves from a garlic I already had, for 5 mins and then put them in the roasting tray for the last 15 mins. Whilst the chicken was resting (I took out the ‘green’ garlic for us to eat), I made a gravy by adding a glass of wine to the roasting pan, squashing the soft cloves into the juices and the boiling to evaporate the alcohol. I then sieved this into a jug, squishing the wonderful garlicky flavours through the mesh! An amazing gravy – no thickening needed.

We also picked some of Abbie’s turnips. I separated the roots from the leaves, discarding the larger, partially eaten ones. The roots, I parboiled with our new potatoes and then roasted with oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar for 20 mins at 200C. The leaves were boiled in a little bit of water for 4-5 mins and then tossed in a little butter. Great use of the whole plant!

Roast chicken with garlicky gravy, roast potatoes and turnips, broad beans and turnip greens

Leftover roast chicken?.. the solution….. spicy bird tacos from Thomasina Miers

Actually made these on Monday night with chicken leftover from Sunday’s roast, but have been crazy busy so posting had to wait until now! These tacos are so delicious, mostly due to the chipotles in adobo, which we make large quantities of and store in the fridge as they play a major role in many of Thomasina Mier’s recipes and are amazing!

Spicy Bird Tacos – from ‘Mexican Food made simple’ Thomasina Miers

1 tbsp olive oil and a knob of butter
1 large onion sliced
salt & pepper
1 tbsp brown sugar
generous pinch each of ground allspice and cinnamon
2 fresh bay leaves
2 fat cloves of garlic chopped
2x400g cans of chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons of chipotles en adobo (apparently you can use Discovery chipotle paste, but it is easy to make the real thing – if you are interested I would recommend that you get the book!)
600-800g leftover roast chicken
16 small corn tortillas or 8 larger ones

Heat the olive oil and butter in a pan and then add the onion, seasoning, sugar, spices and bay leaves and cook for 15 minutes then add the garlic cloves and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and chipotles and simmer for at least 15 mins over a low heat. Finally add the shredded chicken and check the seasoning. Remove the bay leaves before serving !

I served these in tortillas with sour cream and salad on the side – oh and a cold beer, natch! It’ll warm you up this week or next!  Have to say that these are too spicy for Abbie, so I make her a quick quesadilla by putting a bit of grated cheese and sliced tomato onto 1/2 of a tortilla, folding it over and then dry frying it on both sides until the cheese melts and the whole thing sticks together. this way she still feels part of the meal, but will actually eat!!

Spicy bird on top of sour cream on a tortilla, served with some leaves from the veggie garden.

Chicken noodle for my soul… and ‘magic soup’!

I have felt quite poorly today… frankly I have been ‘sponsored by unbranded cold and flu tablets’! So this soup was a must! There are only two soups which cut the mustard with me when I am feeling coldy…. Nigella Lawson’s ‘Sunday Night Chicken Noodle’ from ‘How to Eat’ and also what we call ‘Magic Soup’ in my home – this recipe (also Nigella’s from ‘Nigella Express’ – actually called ‘Noodle soup for Needy People – here is the link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/nigella-lawson/noodle-soup-for-needy-people-recipe/index.html )

‘Magic soup’ is reserved for when you don’t have enough energy to cook (you literally open packets), but you need something nutritious and comforting – it should be on prescription as always cures my family quicker than any medicine – I add a bit of garlic puree to mine as in old ‘remedies’ garlic was supposed to help colds.

I made the ‘Sunday Night Chicken Noodle’ slightly differently as I used cooked chicken left over from our roast, added some sugar snaps and left out the dried chilli pepper for a child-friendly version – Jon and I then added chilli flakes to ours at the end – see later pic. So here is my version:

Feeds 2 plus at least one child (prob 2)

Marinade: 8 tblspns sake, 6 tablspns mirin, 2 tblspns Tamari soy sauce, 2 cloves sized squirts of garlic puree

3 handfuls of shredded cooked chicken

2 heads of bok/pak choi, sliced into mouth sized pieces

Small handful of sugar snap peas

Splash sesame oil

1 packet ‘ready-to’wok’ udon noodles – there are 2 bags of noodles in one packet

800ml chicken stock – I make mine from cubes and boiling water

small hanful of corriander (cilantro) chopped, chilli flakes (opt)

• Mix up the marinade ingredients and stir in the cooked chicken – leave for 10 mins
• Boil water and add the bok choi for 3 mins and then the noodles for an extra minute – drain
• Add sesame oil to a deep pan, heat and then stir fry the sugar snap peas for a minute
• Take out the chicken from the marinade with a slotted spoon and add to the peas – stir fry for a min and then add the marinade, let it bubble down until everything looks golden and sticky
• Add noodles and bok choi, stir and then add chicken stock – bring to the boil and then turn off heat
• Serve topped with a little chopped corriander and chilli flakes (if you want it to clear the nasal passages!)

The child's version...

..... and the adult's version

Slurping is a must!

Happy Mother’s Day! A delicious breakfast, thousands of daffodils and a roast chicken on the timer!

What a lovely way to wake up……  my daughter pulling me out of bed, she more desperate than me for the present and cards to be opened!  Jon made us all my favourite breaskfast (smoked salmon and scrambled eggs). We all had ours the way we like them: Abbie; simply just with buttered bread, Jon; in warm tortilla (no salmon) with salsa and Me; with a hot cross bun, buttered and spread marmalade. A great start to our busy day!



My beautiful breakfast and my beautiful card

We had to make an early exit as Jon was helping out at Langley School’s ‘Daffodil Day’ (a huge school fete) in the best way he

knows; he was on the mic for 3 hours; interviewing, announcing and generally keeping up the patter…. how a career in radio has passed him by astounds me!  We had a fantastic day; bouncy castle, bouncy slide (never again!), petting the ponies, great children’s games, a treasure hunt, watching dancing and ‘Quidditch’; but the highlight for me had to be watching Abbie and a ‘new friend’ on the motorised go-carts – Abbie managed to take out the sides of the circuit many times, drove into the central reservation and her final flourish…. crashing full speed into the remainding parked carts!  A great day was had by all, accompanied by the compulsory lunch of bbq and ice cream with sprinkles (even if it was organic and artisanal – Abbie’s choice).Bouncy castle (after the bouncy slide – I was still shaking!)”] 

The compulsory sausage in a roll

On the daffodil walk...

I knew I wouldn’t have much time to cook (or the energy) so I prepared a chicken for roasting later. 

To prepare…  inside your chicken, few cloves of garlic, salt and pepper, few pinches of herbs de provence, and a much stabbed lemon – tie up the legs

I delayed the cooking on the timer – I add 10 minutes to cooking time to let the oven heat up and cooked mine at 180C/375F for 20mins per 500g and an extra 30 mins (only 20mins needed if putting into a hot oven).  I served this with mash, stuffing, sprouting broc and real gravy which can all then be knocked up in under half an hour… delicious and little effort – we had yeasterday’s jelly for pudding (more of that hilarious episode later!)

From this.....

..........to this!

Normal for Norfolk….

Abbie’s outburst about her friend Oscar’s Dad this morning made me realise the impact of living in a rural area……  as she was getting into her uniform, she suddenly said ‘Oscar’s Daddy kills chickens…. it’s OK, it’s what he does…… that’s where chicken comes from!’. Clearly something that has been discussed in the playground, but it made me think how brilliant it is that Abbie associates the food that she eats with where it comes from….. just wait until the next time we cook ‘beer butt chicken’ – can’t wait for the comments!

  Just having a little sit down!