This Months Recipes

Bish Muir	Use-it-all Cookbook

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Chicken Crunch

My whole inspiration for compiling a book about using up leftovers came from this one recipe which is ideal if you have any leftover cold chicken or cooked or raw vegetables. This is also perfect for children as they love the cheesy, crunchy topping.

Ingredients:

500g chicken or turkey meat
200g broccoli or leeks, chopped or peas (cooked or raw)
1 small tin sweet corn (optional)
50g butter
2 tablespoons plain flour
250ml milk/vegetable water
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lemon/lime juice
200g grated cheese
Salt and pepper
1 packet of crisps/3 tablespoons stale breadcrumbs

Method:

• Preheat the oven at 200C/400F/gas mark 6.
• Boil or steam any raw vegetables for about 5 minutes so they are still crunchy, keeping the water from the pan to use later in the sauce if you wish.
• Put the chicken and cooked vegetables into a flat-bottomed ovenproof dish and add the drained sweet corn (if using).
• Melt the butter in a saucepan and blend in the flour.
• Gradually blend in the milk, stirring constantly over a medium heat until the sauce becomes thick and smooth. Use broccoli water instead of some/all of the milk if you wish.
• When you have a reasonably thick sauce, add the mayonnaise, lemon/lime juice and half the grated cheese and stir in well. Add salt and pepper to taste.
• Pour the sauce over the chicken and vegetables. Crunch the crisps into small pieces and sprinkle these, or breadcrumbs is using, evenly over the chicken and sauce, followed by the remains of the grated cheese.
• Bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes until golden.
• Serve with rice or potatoes.

Vegetable and Lentil Bake

Using meat in your cooking is an expensive luxury, especially for those on a very tight budget and lentils are ideal as a substitute. Not only are they filling and nutritious but they are cheap and store for months so try and make sure you always have a bag of lentils in your store cupboard. They also soak up the flavours around them so that they are ideal to cook in a vegetable stew or broth.

This is a very easy recipe and ideal for using up any spare vegetables that get left in the vegetable rack – really any combination will do. Although this is essentially a vegetable bake, if you have a few slices of salami, chorizo or ham, add these to the bake together with any hard ends of cheese – Parmesan, Cheddar, Gruyere etc will also find a home here.

Ingredients:

A good slug of vegetable or olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 large garlic clove, finely chopped
250g combination of raw or cooked vegetables (carrots, broccoli, leeks, sweet potato, swede, turnip, peas etc)
200g uncooked red lentils
Juice of one lemon
250ml water
500ml vegetable stock (fresh or from a cube)
1 teaspoon mixed herbs
120g grated Cheddar (or other leftover cheese)
Handful of pine nuts or sesame seeds
Sliced or cubed ham, chorizo, salami (optional)

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 200C
• Heat the oil over a medium heat in a large frying pan, add the onions and garlic, cook for about 3 minutes, until onions are soft.
• Add chorizo or salami if using and fry for another 2 minutes.
• Add the uncooked vegetables and cook for a further 2 minutes, stirring occasionally to coat the vegetables in oil.
• Add the uncooked lentils, cook for another 2 minutes.
• Stir in the water and reduce the heat a little and simmer until most of the water has been absorbed. Stir in the lemon juice.
• Add half the vegetable stock and simmer until it has been absorbed. Keep adding more stock, as needed, until the vegetables are cooked and the lentils are soft and mushy and no longer absorbing the stock. This takes approximately 25-30 minutes.
• Add half the cheese, any cooked vegetables or leftover cooked ham or gammon and mixed herbs, and mix in well.
• Transfer to an ovenproof dish and sprinkle the top with the remaining cheese and pine nuts or sesame seeds.
• Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until cheese bubbles and turns light brown. Serve on its own or delicious as an accompaniment to sausages, a meat stew or casserole.

Desserts

Banana and Chocolate Digestive Pudding

I defy even those who pronounce themselves the worst cooks in the world not to be able to throw this one together! Not only is this a perfect way to use up any slightly mushy, brown bananas but it also finds a home for any slightly soft chocolate digestive biscuits or the remains of biscuits at the bottom of the biscuit tin.

Recently, I tried this using ginger biscuits and it was fantastic – although it got the thumbs down from the children as it had no chocolate in it! So, chocolate covered ginger biscuits might be a good compromise!

Ingredients:

3 or 4 ripe bananas
250g natural yoghurt (or combination of yoghurt and double cream)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Squeeze of lemon juice
6 or 7 chocolate digestive biscuits (or any other leftover sweet biscuits or crumbs in the bottom of the biscuit tin

Method:

• Mash up the bananas in a flat-bottomed dish.
• Add the yoghurt, brown sugar and lemon juice and mix well.
• Tear off two sheets of kitchen roll (still attached to each other) and lay out flat.
• Roughly break the biscuits onto one sheet of the kitchen roll and fold the second sheet over the top of the biscuits.
• Crush the biscuits inside the kitchen roll with a rolling pin, making sure you crush all the lumps.
• Sprinkle crushed biscuits on top of the banana mix and flatten down with a fork.
• Put the pudding in the fridge for an hour before serving.

Apple (or Pear) and Cinnamon Fritters

Let’s face it, no-one likes eating wrinkly apples and they are often left in the fruit bowl and then thrown away. What a waste of money! This is a great recipe for using them up and making a delicious, cheap pudding.

This recipe works just as well for pears and can come to the rescue if you happen to buy some pears that are not as juicy and flavoursome as they could be. Don’t throw them away, make fritters – the cinnamon gives a lovely spicy taste which disguises any blandness from the fruit itself.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 apples/pears
110g plain flour
1 teaspoon corn flour
Pinch of sugar
Salt
1 egg
¼ pint (150ml) milk

To serve:

Sprinkle of sugar
Sprinkle of cinnamon
Double cream to drizzle (or natural yoghurt)
Honey to drizzle (optional)

Method:

• Heat the oil in a saucepan.
• Peel the apples/pears, core them using a corer or sharp knife and slice into rings.
• Place the flour, corn flour, sugar and salt into a large bowl. Gradually beat in the egg and enough milk to form a batter (about ¼ pint milk).
• Dip the apples/pears rings into the batter and coat well.
• Fry the fritters until golden (about 3-4 minutes).
• Remove the fritters from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on absorbent kitchen paper.
• Sprinkle generously with sugar and cinnamon.
• Serve drizzled with cream and honey.

Bish Muir is author of The Use-it-all Cookbook, published by Green Books.

It can be purchased from Amazon and other sources.

Links:

Essential Kitchen Equipment

Essential Kitchen Ingredients

This Month’s Recipes

 

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