I can’t seem to get enough of chicken at the moment. I usually make a version of this recipe as a tray bake – cooking chicken in the oven with masses of cherry tomatoes and adding creme fraiche for the last five minutes or so. But for this recipe I’ve pan fried the chicken (coated…
Category: Main courses
Baked cod with chickpeas
This has become my go to recipe for a really quick and easy baked fish dish. I found it online but have copied the recipe here for convenience. I’ve since made this with sea bass but any white fish would go well. I found a pack of orange and red tomatoes which made it look…
Bang bang chicken salad
This is now my favourite way to use up left over chicken. The most delicious part of the recipe is the dressing – crunchy (or smooth if you prefer) peanut butter diluted with a little warm water, with chillies, generous amounts of fresh ginger, garlic, soy sauce, honey and loads of lime juice. Really, really…
Authentic ragu recipe with tagliatelle
This recipe is a world away from the kind of ‘spag bol’ I used to make in my student days – a quickly cooked sauce using just minced beef as the meat base which always seem to end up very watery. A good ragu on the other hand is a rich sauce, full of flavour…
Haricot bean and halloumi bake
This was a recipe I made a couple of Saturdays ago, conjured up at the last minute based on ingredients I happened to have in the cupboard and fridge (a typical ‘Cheap, Fresh and Easy’ approach). I usually plan for the week’s meals in advance and shop accordingly, as it’s cheaper that way. But lately…
Pan griddled tuna steak with artichokes
This is a nutritious and very fresh tasting fish recipe which is ready in about 10 minutes. I’ve used canned artichokes, mixed with capers, lemon juice, parsley and mustard as the sauce. There is a big range of prepared artichokes available – my current favourite is a jar of artichokes marinated in oil, mint and…
Baked mackerel with fennel and pine nuts
This is such a cheap and easy tray bake it hardly needs a recipe at all. I originally wanted to make something with fresh sardines but couldn’t find any in the supermarket so went with mackerel instead. Mackerel is incredibly cheap and sustainable and a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids, I’m going to eat…
Creamy cauliflower tagliatelle
Here’s another recipe to celebrate Veganuary (although I should say I’m not doing the full vegan diet this month, just using this time as an incentive to cut down on meat). This recipe is from Miguel Barclay’s book Vegan One Pound Meals – part of his fantastic One Pound Meals cook book series which is…
Black bean vegan burgers
I’m not a big fan of processed, shop bought vegan burgers – I am still on the hunt for one that I really like, both in texture and taste. In the meantime I prefer to make my own with pulses or as I did once with beetroot. This recipe using black beans is nice and…
Butternut squash lasagne
I love this recipe because it is so seasonal – the butternut squash was in my Oddbox recently and I already had most of the other ingredients in stock (including sage from my garden). I just needed to buy the ricotta and mozzarella. One of the pleasures of subscribing to Oddbox is that I start…
Stuffed cabbage
I’ve recently signed up to Oddbox, a brilliant way to reduce food waste. Basically it’s a solution to the 40% or so of all produce in the UK which would otherwise be thrown out even before it leaves the farm just because it doesn’t look right (eg mis-shapen looking fruit or veg). Oddbox also coordinates…
Creamy chicken and mushroom pappardelle
The inspiration for this recipe was the ingredients I just happened to have in my fridge. It’s a bit like the TV show ‘Ready, Steady Cook’ where contestants have to create a dish from four or five random ingredients. I used to love watching ‘Ready, Steady, Cook’ when I was in between work contracts (a…
Mushroom Wellington
This is a recipe from Miguel Barclay’s book ‘Vegan one pound meals’ and like all of his recipes it’s beautifully simple and easy to make. I love the way he creates tasty food with a small list of ingredients and all his recipes are for one, so you just multiply quantities for more people. I…
Smoked mackerel pasta
This is my version of a Nigella recipe (from her Nigellissma book) which in turn is based on a traditional Sicilian recipe – pasta con le sarde (pasta with sardines). I’ve eaten pasta con le sarde in Sicily, in a small village, in a traditional family run restaurant where it was the house speciality. The…
Soy and sesame salmon tray bake
I normally love cooking but I currently have a kind of lockdown lethargy where I want to eat delicious fresh food without spending any time in the kitchen. Tray bakes are the answer and I’m kind of obsessed with them at the moment. What could be easier than spending five minutes washing and chopping some…
Lentil cottage pie
This used to be one of my staple meals but I haven’t cooked it for a while. But then my son requested it for dinner a couple of Saturdays ago (he’s in my lockdown bubble so he comes over most weekends at the moment). Lentil cottage pie is such a comforting recipe and I think…
Roast squash
I was trying to think of a Halloween themed recipe but in all honesty I almost never cook pumpkins. When my children were small we loved growing our own pumpkins to carve for Halloween, or getting them from the local pick your own farm. But unlike other people who made soup or desserts out of…
Paprika chicken
Recently I’ve been looking for recipes which are really quick, as well as cheap, fresh and easy. This paprika chicken recipe only takes about 15 minutes but doesn’t compromise on flavour. Using chicken thighs also adds to the depth of flavour – I nearly always prefer chicken thighs to breasts (they’re cheaper too). I absolutely…
Chargrilled baby gem lettuce
I’m always trying to avoid food waste but so often I don’t succeed and I get very annoyed with myself. Just this evening I threw out half a big bag of spinach I’d completely forgotten about – the spinach was way too yellow to salvage. And I’m always finding bags of soggy and yellowing bags…
Vegan paella
I’d really like to be in Spain now, sitting at a beachside restaurant and eating paella filled with chorizo, langoustine, chicken and clams. Who knows when we’ll be able to go off on our foreign holidays again? In the meantime here’s a dead easy vegan version of paella from Miguel Barclay’s Vegan One pound Meals cookery…
Thai yellow curry
This is based on a Miguel Barclay recipe from his Vegan One Pound Meals book, except my version isn’t anywhere near as photogenic (and definitely not as yellow). Miguel Barclay keeps to a basic list of ingredients using aubergines and baby sweetcorn as the main vegetables but I’ve piled in some other veg which needed…
Roast cauliflower with anchovies and garlic
This is a recipe I made a couple of weeks ago when I fancied a roast which I had been craving all day, but I didn’t have any meat. I had a couple of cauliflowers in the fridge which needed using up so I made this recipe with one of them. I broke the other cauliflower…
Turkey meatballs
Lockdown is a great time to do batch cooking. Over the long Easter weekend I had planned to make a whole load of different meals for the freezer using the food from a home delivery from about 10 days before (not sure when I’ll get another delivery slot). In the end I just made a…
Chickpea curry
I’ve been stocking up my freezer with home made ready meals. This is partly to reduce my food costs (and batch cooking is one of the easiest ways to do that) and partly to have a big selection of quick meals to choose from in January when I know I’m going to be busy. I…
Chicken pizzaiola
The last time I went to Jamie’s Italian I had the chicken pizzaiola and it was so tender, spicy and delicious I wanted to try making it myself. It’s served with a puttanesca-type sauce (minus the anchovies) which I love, not just because of the flavour but because it’s so easy and quick to make….
Cheap, fresh and easy 