Tarragon has a mild aniseed flavour and pairing it with chicken is a classic French dish (poulet a l’estragon). This recipe is from one of my favourite old recipe books – Pan-cooked chicken dishes around the world. I bought the book years ago at a charity shop and would never want to be without it. In that…
Category: Main courses
Chicken, chickpea and chorizo stew
I can make this from scratch in about 40 minutes which is enough time to cook on a weekday evening after work. It’s perfect comfort food on an autumn evening. There isn’t very much work to do – just a bit of chopping and slicing and then stewing everything for around 35 minutes. You don’t…
Quick and easy mushroom stroganoff
This is one of my regular recipes. I prefer it to beef stroganoff as it’s incredibly cheap (the mushrooms only cost around £2 or £3) and so fast you can rustle it up in about 10 minutes. I like to use a mixture of mushrooms, in this case chestnut mushrooms and some large Portobello mushrooms…
Chicken with fennel and orange
This is a slightly different version of a Nigella recipe (from Simply Nigella) which I used when I was on the look out for fennel recipes this summer. Fennel is really expensive in the supermarket – about £3.50 per bulb – but at Surrey Street market in Croydon I could buy three bulbs for £2. Bargain!…
Spaghetti with minty aubergine and sun-dried tomato sauce
Aubergines are cheap and nutritious and make a great base for a spaghetti sauce. I watched Rick Stein make something similar to this recipe based on a Sicilian dish but he used tinned tomatoes which I didn’t have (very unusual for me) so I made it with a few sun-dried tomatoes and tomato puree instead….
Celebrating a win with slow cooker beef bourguignon
I made this on Saturday to have something for myself and my son to have ready to eat after football (we support Crystal Palace). I wanted something easy and comforting to come home to after what we thought would be yet another demoralising defeat – we were yet to score a goal (or gain a…
Big batch vegetarian chilli
Batch cooking is one of the best ways to keep costs down and you don’t have to lose out on flavour just because you’re on a budget. I regularly make up a big pot of vegetarian chilli which I freeze and then cook with other ingredients to bulk out the meals. Using this recipe as…
The first supper
I was away in North Yorkshire at the weekend and on the way home my friend and I started talking about what we were going to cook for our respective suppers. I always think that first supper home after a trip is important – you want something easy and tasty but also something that keeps…
Cheap, fresh and easy 