Stuffed Chicken Breast with Roast Potatoes

Bread and crackers for stuffing 

To make the stuffing use a variety of bread and crackers. Break the bread into pieces and crush the crackers.

Add chopped onions, garlic, parsley, basil (or your favourite herbs) and pepper.

Add hot water and olive oil and stir so that the bread softens.

Cut slits into the chicken breast and stuff with the bread mixture. Cover the chicken with any remaining mixture. Cover with grease proof paper and wrap in foil.

Break up bread and crackers, add herbs and onion

Add hot water to the bread 

Slit the chicken breast

Slice courgettes. Bake in the oven in a dish filled with water, some olive oil, parsley and garlic.

I sauteed some aubergine and served it along with roast potatoes, courgettes and the chicken. I kept the skin on some of the potatoes and par boiled them before roasting them in the oven.

Stuff the chicken and cover it with the remaining mixture

Add parsley, garlic, water and oil 

Chicken  breast and  Roast potatoes

Heart Pancakes

Add an egg to the milk

Soya milk

 It's Valentine's Day tomorrow but I'll be getting home late so I made something for desert tonight.

Pour about 500ml of milk into a bowl and add an egg. I have a lactose intolerance so I made separate pancakes for myself with 250ml soya milk.

Add flour until you have a smooth batter that coats the back of a spoon. I usually add water to pancakes I make with milk.

I used a heart shaped biscuit cutter and poured the batter into it.

Cook until golden.

Serve with whipped cream and strawberry jam. If I had fresh strawberries I would have used them too.

 A smooth batter

Cook the pancake in a heart-shaped cutter

Remove the cutter

Serve with cream and jam

Herby Beefburgers with Fresh Bread

Minced meat, onions, herbs, garlic, tomato ketchup and black pepper

 Choose good quality minced meat. Add your favourite herbs, chopped onions, chopped garlic, tomato ketchup and black pepper.

Give the ingredients a good stir and then form into burgers.

I cook my burgers in wine with added tomato pureè and onions. They stay nice and moist as we like our meat well done. This way you don't need to fry the meat.

Serve with home-made bread (see the recipe in
an earlier blog).We had oven chips and onion

Mix well

rings with ours.

Make into burger shapes

Cook in wine with tomato puree and onions

The cooked burgers

Serve in a home-made bread bun

Pork stew and rice

I was supposed to serve this stew with polenta but we forgot and Ricky made2 a vegetable fried rice instead. He added curry powder to cooked rice just for a little flavour. He sauteed the rice with courgettes, onion and sweet pepper.

Cut a joint into cubes. Put into a saucepan and add bay leaves, a vegetable stock cube, onion, garlic, celery, tomato pureè and carrots. Add salt and pepper if you like.

Leave to boil and then simmer for an hour until the meat is tender. I made the stew a few days before I needed it and decided to freeze it.

Ricky defrosted the stew and then reheated it.

Salmon and prawns in crust

Using 500g of flour and 250g of butter I made the pastry. Some cookbooks say to use your fingers to make a breadcrumb-like mixture. I use a spoon and it always comes out fine. I even melt the butter a little in the microwave. Pastry is supposed to stay cold.

Anyway, once you have the breadcrumb mixture add cold water slowly until you can make a ball that's not sticky and well formed. I usually make pastry the day before I need it and keep it in the fridge.

If the salmon has skin on remove it. I always soak fish in lemon and salt before I cook it and added the prawns to also remove the raw taste.

After the fish has been in the lemon and salt for about 20 minutes rinse it very well. Remember not to add anymore salt to the dish as the fish will already have some salt residue on it.

Roll out the pastry into a rectangular shape. It has to be long enough to fit the salmon it. Place the salmon along one side of the pastry, put the prawns on top and along the side. At this point I would normally add breadcrumbs to help soak up any juices produced by the fish but I forgot.

Flour and butter

Mix the flour and butter together

Add water

Form into a ball and chill

Skin the fish

Add lemon and salt

Roll out the pastry

Place the fish and prawns on the pasty

Brush with egg

Next sprinkle parsley, garlic and black pepper on top of the fish. Brush beaten egg around the edge of the pastry.  Fold the pastry over the fish and pinch the edges to seal in the fish. Brush the pastry with egg and bake for about 30 minutes at 160 degrees.

We ate the salmon with potato wedges made by husband (just cut potatoes into wedges add a pinch of salt, mixed herbs and a sprinkle of paprika) and salad.

Cooked!

Our dinner tonight

Raspberry tart

There was some pastry left over so I made a raspberry tart.

Tomato Soup with Fresh Bread

This is a favourite of ours. I usually make fresh bread to go along with soup.
Cut just over a kilo of tomatoes into quarters and place in a large saucepan. Add 2 or 3 carrots (sliced), 3 medium sized potatoes (diced), an onion, 3 cloves of garlic, a stick of celery, black pepper, parsley, basel and a dash of olive oil. Add 1200 mls of water. Bring to the boil and then simmer until the potatoes are soft.

Use a hand blender to mash up all the vegetables. Allow the soup to simmer for another 20 minutes or so and add a handful of parsley.

For the bread, I made double the amount but the recipe is as follows
350g of flour
1 packet of yeast
210 ml of warm water
a spoonful of sugar (to activate the yeast)
A spoonful of olive oil

Add the yeast and sugar to the flour. Make a well in the flour and add the water and olive oil. Mix well until a ball is formed. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes. Put back into the mixing bowl and leave somewhere warm to rise.

Quarter the tomatoes

Add water

Bring to the boil

Use the hand blender

Add water and oil to the dry ingredients

Knead

Form into a ball

Leave to rise

Form into shapes

Allow to rise another half an hour

Serve the soup with hot bread

My son added parmesan cheese and mini pasta to his soup

After about an hour the dough should have doubled in size. Knead again and then shape the dough. I made rolls. Leave the dough to rise again for half an hour. Bake at 180 degrees for about 10 minutes (if rolls) 20 minutes if a loaf.

Pork Chops with Vegetable Rice

My husband bought a Roman Cauliflower today.I think that's what it's called in English. We steamed it.

I boiled white rice and sliced courgettes and carrots julienne style. Using a non-stick pan I put the rice in then added the sliced vegetables along with chopped onions, garlic, a dash of tomato pureè and black pepper.
Make sure everything is mixed well especially the pureè. Add olive oil towards the end. I like my veggies crisp so I didn't pre-cook them.

I like to cook pork chops in a lightly greased non-stick grill pan. I sprinkled a ready made herb mix on the chops and cooked them. Just before they were finished I added a simple sauce made from ketchup and white wine and then took the chops off the heat. I always keep the ketchup bottles when they are almost finished, making a sauce by adding wine to them.

Roman cauliflower

Slicing the courgettes

Slicing the carrots

Add the ingredients and mix well

Don't forget the pureè

Add the sauce just when the meat is cooked

Ready to eat

The chops need to be served immediately