As the restaurant is a favorite of the Royal family, it was fitting I had a starter cocktail called the Kate Middleton “29″ with Sipsmith, Pinky Vodka, Lillet and Crystellised Violet & Rose Petals.

For starters Chris had the pressed wild rabbit terrine with black pudding, cider jelly and mustard with grilled sourdough. I had traditional potted shrimp for the first time. Both were incredibly fresh and full of flavor.

As we did nearly five years ago, we ordered the roast beef for two with all the trimmings. And from looking around the room it was pretty clear that this was the menu favorite. This has to be THE best roast meal I’ve ever had and it was just as good as we remembered it to be. The meat was perfectly cooked rare and seasoned just right. The Yorkshire pudding was massive, and the creamy horseradish was homemade. But the potatoes.. Oh my.. I am not normally a potato lover. I eat them but I’m never dying for them. But these must have been The most incredible potatoes I’ve ever had. They were so crispy and golden that you really had to push your fork into them. Apparently they are roasted first in goose fat and then deep fried in the same fat! Yum yum yum… This dish is a classic example of how food does not always have to be complex to be good. Great, fresh ingredients treated with care can be absolute perfection!

* Be economical
* Be healthy
* Be simple
* Be quick

And it’s really not that easy. Breakfast items are one solution. Eggs are healthy in moderation. Salads and store-bought soups are good too. But they’re not all really cooking. So last weekend I was craving hot white rice and not the microwaveable kind. So I had to come up with something to have with it that didn’t require a lot of different seasonings or several ingredients. Did I mention the fridge is really tiny too?

So my solution is a sort of spin on fast stroganoff – creamy chicken with mushrooms.

Recipe for two (or leftovers for lunch)

1 packet boneless chicken thighs (~5 thighs)
1/2 packet mushrooms
1/2 yellow onion
2-3 garlic cloves
2 beef stock cubes
Salt & pepper
Couple heaping tbsp of either cream, creme fraiche or sour cream
Optional – white wine
Hot white rice (~1.5 cups)

Rinse the rice in a medium saucepan. Strain and repeat again. Add about water about 1.5 times volume of rice. Or add enough water so that when you gently shake the pot to level the rice out, the water comes to the first line on your index finger when you stick it in the middle of the pot to touch the rice. Sounds odd but it works! Bring to the boil, reduce to simmer and cover. Check after about 10-15 minutes. When the water looks like its evaporated, turn off the heat but leave the lid on. Fluff the rice after another 5 minutes. Or you could just buy some ready made rice

Meanwhile chop the onion, garlic and mushrooms. Heat some oil in a large frying pan. Add the onions and cook on medium heat for a minute or so. Add the mushrooms and garlic. Might need to add a bit more oil. Once it’s softened after a couple minutes. Pour into a bowl and set aside.
Chop the chicken into bite size pieces. Add more oil to the pan and add all the chicken. Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. Cook on one side until the edges are beginning to cook and flip all the pieces over. Cook for another couple minutes. Strain some of the fat off if you’d like.
Add the mushrooms back in. Sprinkle the stock cubes over and pour about 1/2 cup of water (preferably hot water). Gently stir to dissolve the stock cubes. Let this summer for a minute. Taste and season accordingly. If you’d like a lot of sauce then add more water but let it reduce again to thicken. After another minute add the cream. Taste and season again. Let it heat through another minute or so and serve on top of hot steaming rice!

So one solution is the quick and cheap quesadilla. Really all you need is two tortillas and cheese. If you want to jazz it up, you can add any of these options:

* Butter to add a nice golden crisp
* Thin slices of any meat such as ham, chorizo or even chunks of chicken
* Mix up the types of cheeses you use (pepper jack, cheddar, red Leicester, goats cheese, etc)
* Thinly sliced vegetables can go in raw like peppers, mushrooms or onions. Or you could quickly cook them to soften.
* Serve a salsa or creamy dip on the side if you’d like too

All you need is a large frying pan. The key is to be on a low to medium heat. You don’t want a burnt tortilla with hard cheese inside. Let some butter melt. Place your first tortilla. Add cheese and other filling. And top with your second tortilla. Wait a minute or so and check if your bottom layer is browning. Then flip over with another bit of butter.

If you’re not in the mood to wash a pan, just turn your oven on and turn your quesadilla into a pizza! Just as yummy!

Happy eating.

There are many ways to eat mussels but my all time favorite is the classic Moules Marinieres.

The mussels are cleaned and checked for only live ones. You can do this by gently tapping them with the back of your knife or with a fork. They should open and if they don’t close again then discard.

Chop garlic and shallots. Soften in a large pot with butter, dash of oil, bay leaf and some sprigs of thyme. Add wine and bring to a boil. Add the mussels, cover and let steam for 3-4 minutes. Remove the bay leaves and thyme. Add some cream and chopped parsley and serve! A side of fries with mayonnaise dip are a perfect complement.. Along with a very cold pint of beer! Yum yum!

So last weekend (as I wrote about yesterday) I made a huge batch of chicken stock. I was craving soup for a light weekend lunch (as dinner was going to be heavy). But I didn’t really have many fresh vegetable options. Plus you can have only so much curried carrot soup before you get sick of it. So I thought of this mysterious cream of onion soup. And really there’s hardly much to it and yet full of flavor! And don’t worry – there’s no smelly breath from this soup. The onions are quite sweet so go easy on the sugar! There are a couple recipes out there but here’s a straight forward one for my Creamy Onion Soup.

Recipe for 4

INGREDIENTS

3 medium or 2 large yellow onions
~3-4 tbsp butter
Fresh thyme if you have it
Sea salt
Pinch sugar
~heaping tbsp flour
~1-2 cups milk
~2 cups Fresh chicken stock

DIRECTIONS

Peel and slice onions. Heat half the butter in a pot on moderate heat. Add the onions, leaves from a couple sprigs of thyme and a pinch of salt and sugar. Cook until the onions are soft for about 5 minutes. Tip into bowl and set aside.

Heat the rest of the butter on low/medium heat until foaming. Sprinkle the flour in and combine well. It should be equal parts butter and flour. Cook for about a minute, stirring constantly. Slowly pour in the milk a little at a time. Combine until smooth before adding more each time. Add enough milk so it’s like a thick gravy. Add enough stock until it’s a soup consistency you’re happy with. Add the onion mixture and let cook for a couple minutes. Then blend with a hand blender. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired. Serve hot with some bread and enjoy!

Heat the oven to about 450F/230C. Rub the spices over a few chicken legs and wings. Spread onto a baking tray (flat but with slight lip on edge to catch any juices) and drizzle a little oil all over.

While the oven heats up, get started on the rice and finely chop one red onion (yellow would be fine too) and 1-2 chilli peppers. On moderate heat, cook in a pot with a bit of oil and butter until soft.

The oven should be hot now, so add the chicken into the oven on the top shelf. With a fan assisted oven this should take about 25-30 minutes. Pierce a thick part of the leg to check if juices run clear.

Add about 2 cups of rice and coat with a bit more butter. Add a heaping tsp of cumin, large pinch of salt and a good couple tbsp of ketchup. Mix well and add about 3 to 3.5 cups of chicken stock (or just a bit more than 1.5 times volume of rice depending on how you like it). If you don’t have homemade, add a stock cube and hot water direct to rice. Let simmer on low/moderate heat covered. Stir occasionally so it won’t stick to the bottom. As the liquid is nearly evaporated, keep the lid on without peeking for a couple minutes so it can steam. Stir to fluff the rice and add a drained can of corn. Taste and season as necessary. This should take about 10-12 minutes (may vary on how high a heat you cook it!).

Once the chicken is done, plate them. While they’re resting take the baking tray and put on a very low heat. Add a small splash of stock or water and gently scrape up all the good bits. Pour into a small bowl for a bit of sauce on the side. Serve up your rice with a little bit of chopped coriander/cilantro and enjoy!

The chicken should be moist and full of flavor. If possible, marinate the chicken overnight or as long as possible. I used chicken legs and wings that I had carved from whole chickens earlier in the week. It really is such better value for money. I bought two medium sized chickens over the weekend and carved them into breasts, legs and wings. Just got it all done with plastic wrapped the different portions. I used the carcasses to make stock with 1 carrot, 1 celery, half onion, bay leaves, whole peppercorns and sprigs of thyme. And I just let it go on low simmer for about an hour and a half although it probably could’ve done with 45 minutes. So from 2 chickens, I made a dinner for 4, a dinner for 2, lunch for 2 and have enough stock to make soup for 8-10 people. All of that for £6! Add to that low cost ingredients like pasta, rice, canned corn, olive oil, onions and carrots! It’s such a great way to have several homemade meals and save money. Happy cooking!

After using the chicken breasts for Parmesan crumbed cutlets with spaghetti and marinara I had the chicken tenders (or goujons) and legs left. So for a quick dinner I made Spicy Breaded Chicken Tender Melts.

Seeing as I didn’t have any breadcrumbs I improvised. I toasted a slice of plain sandwich bread and blended it until it looked like breadcrumbs. Do let the toast cool a bit or there will be too much moisture when you blend it. I lightly seasoned them with garlic salt and pepper and spread them onto a large plate. On two other plates I put plain flour and hot sauce (buffalo sauce to be exact). Heat up a large frying pan with enough oil to coat the bottom on a medium heat. Also heat up your oven or grill. When the oil is shiny but not smoking (a couple minutes), take your chicken tenders (using one hand) and lightly coat in flour, then hot sauce, then breadcrumbs. Do all of them before putting in the pan. Very gently add them to the oil and clear your counter. Using a spatula check the first piece which should be nicely browning after about 2-3 minutes. (I used heat #4 out of 6) gently turn them over to cook for a further 3-4 minutes. If they’re starting to brown too quickly turn the heat down. Touch with your finger and it should be pretty firm. If you’re not sure cut into a piece.

If you’re having these with bread, lightly toast in the oven. Add a little bit of mayonnaise and top with the chicken pieces. Add slices of a good melting cheese like Swiss, mozzarella or Jarlsberg and melt in the oven. Serve with extra hot sauce on the side if you’d like!

Overall it was a pretty quick meal to make – probably about 15 minutes. I’ve seen this method before in other recipes where you “replace” the egg coating with a different liquid, so I wanted to try it. For the coating it worked perfectly. From a flavor perspective it didn’t ave AS much punch as I would have liked. Next time I might add spices to the flour or maybe double coat in flour, hot sauce, flour and sauce again. Either way though the chicken was very moist and the homemade breadcrumbs were a success. You could easily serve this with a salad or some sweet potato fries. Enjoy!

A simple recipe for tomato sauce is garlic, onion and a can of chopped tomatoes. But if you have it it’s always nice to add in carrots, celery and some bay leaves. Sometimes I feel like a chunky sauce but today I wanted one a but smoother.

If you have a small chopper, blitz one carrot and one stalk of celery. Finely chop a small onion and a few cloves of garlic. Heat a large deep frying pan (with lid). Soften the onion in some olive oil for a minute or two. Add the vegetables and garlic and cook for a couple more minutes. Crumble a couple beef stock cubes and a pinch of mixed Italian herbs. Add in two cans of chopped tomatoes. Add a pinch of sugar, pinch of salt and a bay leaf. If you have fresh thyme, add a few sprigs. And if you like spice, add some dried red pepper flakes. Let simmer on low heat for a half hour or so. Remember to taste and add more sugar if it’s too tangy!

Meanwhile, add a couple tablespoons of bread crumbs to a large mixing bowl. Add a tablespoon of milk, pinch of salt and crumble a beef stock cube. Crack two eggs and add the pork (about 500 grams or 1.1 lbs). Sprinkle some more salt or garlic salt if you have it and some black pepper. Get your hands messy and combine the mixture well. It should be pretty wet. Make small meatballs and pop them into the pan of tomato sauce. Once you’re done, slowly turn each of the meatballs and let them all simmer for another 25-30 minutes.

Cook some spaghetti al dente and add straight to a plate. Drizzle some extra virgin olive oil, spoon over sauce and meatballs and top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese!

** I have to admit these were the softest and moistest meatballs I’ve ever made! And yet they held their shape too. Think this recipe might have to come back!

But there are so many recipes out there for meatloaf. Traditionally, it’s cooked in a loaf tin (hence the name). But doing this usually means you’re looking at at least an hour and half or 2 hours of cooking time. And with our work schedules, I knew my husband and I wouldn’t want to wait that long on a week night. So I went for a recipe for Ina Garten’s Individual Meat Loaves. My sister has made this recipe before and she’s always raved about it. But of course me being me, I wanted to put my own spin on it. I’ve been reading a lot recently about lentils being used as a meat supplement or to “beef” up a meat dish. A lot of recipes out there have half meat, half lentils. This way you get your meat flavor and you not only decrease cost but also increase the healthiness of your dish.

So instead of using the full 2.5 pounds of ground beef (mince), I used 500g (~1.1 lbs) of ground beef and about a cup of red lentils that had been soaked overnight. I only used one egg and 1 large yellow onion and chose beef stock instead of chicken. But once you combine everything, you’ll see it’s a pretty soft texture. So you may or may not need an extra egg depending on how much meat you’d like to use. Remember to season the meat directly before adding the onion mixture with a good pinch of salt and pepper. I made fairly small portions laid out on a baking tray and I baked them at about 190C/375F. As it was a week night and I was getting hungry, I actually took them out after 35 minutes and they were perfectly cooked. They were so moist and full of flavor! To make our meal a tab bit healthier, we chose to make a sweet potato mash instead of regular potato mash. I also made a beef gravy on the side.

Overall, I highly recommend this recipe! Both my husband and I ended up having leftovers for lunch, and it was just as delicious the next day. I bet this would be a big hit with kids too!

INGREDIENTS

~2 cups of cooked rice or single package of cooked rice
~2 (bell) peppers
1 red onion
1 can of corn
1 can of taco beans
1 packet seasoning (either chilli, fajitas or tacos)
~3 eggs
~couple of spring/green onions
~large handful grated cheese

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 200C. Chop peppers into a dice and toss into hot frying pan with dash of oil. Meanwhile chop red onion. When the peppers start to soften, add the onion and cook for few more minutes. Add some of the seasoning packet. Add the rice and combine. Heat through a couple of minutes. Fold through the corn and beans.

Scramble the eggs in small bowl with rest of seasoning packet. Chop the spring onion and mix through the rice. Fold the eggs through. Pour mixture into casserole dish. Sprinkle with cheese and bake for about 15 minutes. Enjoy!