Leek Tart

That cooking I did a few weekends ago now was leek tart, recipie here. It was really easy to make and was very yummy!

Weekend Experiment, or Credit Crunch Part 1

This week I bought a medium sized chicken for exactly £3.

On Friday I made a simple roast dinner for 2 - extra ingredients were half a brocolli and roast potatoes cooked in goose fat (YUM). Bit of an odd time to have a roast but it meant having time to use the rest of the chicken for my weekend experiment.

On Saturday I made a chicken pie for 4 - extra ingredients mushrooms, white sauce, shortcrust pastry and the other half of the brocolli and a carrot on the side.

On Sunday I made chicken stock with the carcass - extra ingredients garlic, a carrot and a few peppercorns.

Today with the stock and leftover meat I'm making chicken soup, probably 6 portions - extra ingredients butter, carrots, handful of rice, bread rolls to serve.

Half of the stock will make vegetable soup next weekend if I can work out a way to freeze it????

That's 12 meals out of £3 of meat and £7.14 of extra ingredients (according to Tesco.com, although much of it I had in the cupboards already)...

= average 84.5 pence per meal.

This housekeeping lark is starting to make sense, thank goodness poor hubby isn't fed up with chicken yet. Credit crunch? What credit crunch?!

Eat the seasons

I came across this website on my travels somewhere, I can't quite remember where to. But find it I did and I thought you might like a look, especially if you like your food fresh and green.

Chicken with garlic and rosemary potatoes

During November and December I made more roast dinners than usual to practise for Christmas, so now I'm feeling more confident and able to experiment! Chicken seems the cheapest and most versatile meat as we usually have one roast dinner then use the leftovers for a curry, stir fry or chicken pie.

Normally I melt some butter in the microwave, baste it all over the chicken, sprinkle salt over and just cook it for however long it says on the packet.


Today I did the same and also added garlic cloves chopped into chunks to the bottom of the tray around the chicken and put it in the oven. Then I cut the potatoes into small cubes, par boiled them for about 5 minutes and added them to the chicken tray with a sprinkling of dried rosemary (fresh would probably be better though!) I basted the potatoes occassionally during cooking.

When the chicken was done I took it out of the oven and left it to rest (it's easier to carve then). I scooped out the potatoes and put them on another tray and put them back in the oven on the highest heat to brown. They went more crispy and than they look in the picture.

Meanwhile I made gravy - the potatoes being in the tray had made more juices than usual, so I used my superduper gravy jug to get rid of the fat, made a rue with plain flour and added chicken stock and seasoning.

It was all really tasty! Next time I want to try Jamie Oliver's Spanish chicken which looks more exciting.

Leek and carrot soup

2 medium sized leeks
1 large carrot
25g cooking margerine eg Stork
2 pints of vegetable stock - can be made with Oxo or Knorr cube



Chop the leeks long ways then into small slices. Sweat in a saucepan with the margerine. Add the carrot, chopped into small pieces. Once heated through add the hot stock. Leave to simmer for 2-3 hours. If desired blend half of the soup to make a thicker consistency. Serve hot with fresh bread.

Shrove Tuesday

Delia to the rescue again!