Let down by Celery Soup, bonus Baked Apple & an unexpected supper

With roasted butternut squash - just in case you wondered!

You might remember that I was, last week, planning on making a Chicken Supreme.  The intention was to use (as per the recipe) a tin of Cream of Mushroom Soup to make the sauce.  What happened though, was that I picked up the tin of Cream of Celery Soup instead (in error) and had opened it before I realised my mistake.

I was committed to using the Celery soup then, as I wouldn't be able to use it the following day for lunch (I had half a stir-fry mix to use up).  I had a bit of a ponder and thought it might do.  So I put the mushrooms and garlic back in the fridge and went with chicken and sweetcorn.


Oh dear.  Well, it wasn't disgusting or unpalatable - but it was bland.  Very, very bland.  Oddly, it seemed to be quite rich as well because both hubby and I had problems getting through our chicken ration.  I'm sure we wouldn't have had those problems with the mushroom version.

So, there's two lessons learned.  One, look before you open the can and two, Cream of Celery Soup needs some help when used as a base for a sauce.

One day last week, I forget which now, we had our lunch and dinner upside down (lunch at dinner time and dinner at lunch time), which meant I missed out on my dinner (for some reason which I've also forgotten!).


Later on that evening, after sitting for a while listening to my tummy growling, hubby went out in the kitchen and rustled and clanked with packets and plates.  Eventually, this is what he turned up with :

Isn't it just lovely?  He'd tried to keep it all within the anti-inflammatory diet guidelines and did so very well with that.  From the top, we've got smoked salmon & capers on rice cakes, then a blob of taramasalata with two celery sticks with which to eat it.  A pickled gherkin, some pickled onions, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and a piece of cheese.  Gorgeous!

Something else that wasn't especially planned, was the two baked Bramley apples that I made for Son & heir's (and my) dessert recently.  Hubby doesn't like baked apple, so he abstained.

The recipe is very similar to my Rum Soaked Baked Apples, in that I drizzled rum over them before baking, but this time I filled them with sultanas and glace cherries (2 at the bottom, 3 at the top), then added the brown sugar and butter.

Half an hour in a medium oven (mine was 180deg C) and they're bursting with juice and delightfully foamy.


Somehow - goodness only knows how (hollow legs, I think!) - son & heir managed to eat his entire apple in one sitting.  Mine lasted for two and was just as good second time around as it had been the day before.


I tend to forget about baked apples, but I really should make them more often.  Son & heir loves them - and I really enjoy the smell of them baking, as well as the eating part!


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Kebabs to Pork Loin - the menu plan

Last week's menu plan finished in style.

The pot-roast gammon was, as always, succulent, juicy and totally delicious.  In fact, we ate almost all of it in the one meal - that's how good it was.  I enjoyed it alongside the Baked Gnocchi and thought it made a very nice Sunday dinner.  Made a pleasant change to have a Sunday Dinner that didn't leave me feeling like a limp rag once I'd cooked it!

I poached the gammon in a stock that included onion, garlic, carrot, parsley, celery, apple and some mustard seeds.  The piece we had weighed around 1kg and I poached it for around 2 hours or so, taking it out to rest for 20 minutes prior to carving.  The meat just fell apart and melted on the tongue.

I made use of the remains of the meat for breakfast the next day, pairing it up with a lovely egg and some sauteed mushrooms.  Glorious, but not good at being anti-inflammatory, unfortunately.


The following day, we had pork steaks that I was trying the butcher's BBQ Glaze with.  It was a bit underwhelming in colour and impression, but had good flavour once cooked and I think we might try that again.  I served the pork with beautiful baked sweet potatoes with chilli cream - which is always so good, plus a few green peas for colour and interest.  Far better for being anti-inflammatory, racking up a very positive value of 478 per person.

For some reason - probably trying to keep within the guidelines for anti-inflammatory food - trying to put together a menu plan for this week was "twisting my melon, man!".  I must have changed the list a good three or four times and still couldn't think of anything to have on Tuesday evening.  It's ridiculous, really, as Tuesday is supposed to be the day when hubby and I are free to have whatever we want, as son & heir is happily occupied with a pizza.

However, between the astronomical price of fish and trying to stay anti-inflammatory, it all got terribly complicated and we wound up having a Doner Kebab!  Well, it could have been worse from an inflammation point of view, plus I did have salad with it and left the pitta bread, but the fat content was probably astronomical.  Still, it was nice - and provided hubby with a naughty lunch for the following day.


So here's how this week is looking :

Tues : Pizza/Doner Kebab

Weds : Kate & Wills' Wedding Pie (Jamie Oliver) with carrots, peas & tenderstem broccoli

Thurs : Sausage, creamy lentils & rice

Fri : Bipins Chicken Machi Masala curry with rice & minty raita

Sat : Chicken Supreme with rice & roasted butternut squash

Sun : Roast Loin of Pork, roast parsnips, sweetcorn, green beans, brussels sprouts

& apple sauce

Mon : Fish in batter with hash browns (baked sweet potato for me), baked beans & peas.

Wednesday's Kate & Wills' Wedding Pie came about through Jamie Oliver's PR peeps getting in touch and asking whether I'd be interested in joining in the "Snap and Share" promotion they had going over on their "Jamie's Great Britain" Facebook page.  It basically meant cooking one of the recipes from the show and posting up a photograph of same to the page.

I liked the look of the Pie because it involved the use of beef shin and sounded like it could be a lovely rich pie.  Perfect autumnal food!

Thursday's Sausage with creamy lentils is a recipe that I have done before and blogged about.  Although there were some doubts amongst the audience that lentils would ever be nice involved in any dish, I reminded them that they had liked it the first time around.  In fact, they had given it a 9 out of 10 and demanded it be done again.  As it helped to reduce the chipolata mountain that we find ourselves with (they really are nice chipolatas!), it was worth doing just for that.  Hubby wasn't mad about it, but enjoyed it all the same.  Son & heir absolutely raved about it and declared it "the one lentil dish that you've ever come up with, that I absolutely adore".  Wow!  Praise indeed!

The inflammation factor in this dish is one of those balancing acts between the positive values of the onion, garlic, carrots & celery -v- the negative values of the sausage, lentils & cream.  Ultimately, it would seem as though it comes out in favour of the positive - which was a relief, even if it did mean I had to leave 90% of my rice on the plate, uneaten!

Bipin's Machi Tikka - yum!

Friday's Chicken Curry is just an anti-inflammation fest.  There's absolutely no doubt that (even with the rice & chicken) this will come up on the positive side.  Bipin's Masala paste contains three types of chilli, one of which is Serrano - which carries a positive score of +3019 for a half a cupful.

I'm a bit leery of how hot the Masala paste will turn out to be (leery in a good way, you understand!), so am planning on making a minty raita to accompany it - just in case!

Now then!  Excitement!  I've just come back from shopping for the weekend and lo and behold, after all my whining about not being able to buy Celery Soup - what did we find?  Campbells have brought back a Condensed Cream of Celery Soup!  Am I a trendsetter, or what?

I am now torn as to whether to use the Celery soup in the Chicken Supreme on Saturday, or stick with the traditional Mushroom.  If I use the Mushroom, then we could have the Celery for lunch one day - but would it be as nice as my home-made, or disappointing?  Oooh, the indecision!

Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to do roast dinners again on Sunday - yet what do we have on the menu plan for Sunday?  Roast Pork Loin.  Well, I was press-ganged into it by a special offer in Asda - plus they looked so yummy, I had visions of pork & apple sauce floating past my eyes.  So sue me for breach of promise, but another roast dinner is hoving into view.  I've tried to make this one as simple as possible, so fingers crossed I won't suffer too greatly.  Yeah, right.

You remember my saying what a problem I had putting this week's menu list together?  Well Monday's dinner is a product of that difficulty.  If all else fails, fall back on crunchy fish or cornish pasties.  In the hope that I'll be able to shuck the fish from its batter coating, I went for fish.  The boys will be happy with their battered fish, hash browns & baked beans, while hopefully the fish, a baked sweet potato and some peas will do the job for me, without inflicting too much damage.

This "eating for a reduction in inflammation" malarky is requiring a fair amount of forethought, but appears (trying not to speak too soon) to be having a positive effect.  Yes, I still get the intense, sharp pain of arthitis in my knees (particularly when rising from being seated plus in the evenings), however, I have noticed a lessening in the grinding, low-down, nagging, dull aching pain from the arthritis - which is a total blessing.

Where the Polymyalgia Rheumatica is concerned, again, if I were to do a task that requires repeated actions (such as brushing my hair, or hanging out washing), then I would experience the muscle burn that PMR brings.  However, driving the car has become more comfortable (traffic queues used to become excruciating), plus I don't ache so much from sitting at the computer here.

It's all good - and very worth persevering.  If this is what happens after nearly two weeks, it will be interesting to see how I'm feeling after a month!

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What do you do with the other half of a roast chicken? Why, Chicken Supreme, of course!

Chicken Supreme : with black pepper added by me!
Be careful with salt, as the soup can be quite salty already.

We'd managed to find a lovely big fat chicken for dinner last Sunday and very nice it was too.  Apart from a bit of deliberation over whether you could cook Yorkshire Puddings in silicon muffin "tins" (which we decided, on balance, we'd have a go at - but not this time), it all went to plan.  Nothing glamorous, just a nicely roasted chicken with Bay leaves in the cavity and fresh Rosemary (both from the bushes in the front garden) sprinkled over, with salt & pepper.

That left us with half a chicken looking for a job to do.  Our normal use for half a roast chicken is to curry it, but we had a tin of condensed mushroom soup in the cupboard - which just yelled "Chicken Supreme" at me.

Because we'd had roast potatoes the day before, that rendered potatoes off the list, so we went with just plain white rice as an accompaniment.  I'd been looking forward to it for days, and my keen anticipation was very well rewarded as it was delicious!

It was hubby's day to cook, and here's how he did it :

CHICKEN SUPREME (serves 3)

Ingredients :

an onion, diced fine
a clove of garlic, chopped fine
olive oil
small can of sweetcorn
1 can of condensed cream of mushroom soup
200ml water
worcestershire sauce
half a cooked roast chicken, taken from the bone and diced
3-4 sprigs of parsley, chopped fine

Method :

1.  Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the onion & garlic gently until soft and just beginning to colour.

2.  Add the soup, water, sweetcorn and a splash of worcestershire sauce and mix well to combine.  Once up to temperature,

3.  Add the chicken and mix through gently, so as not to encourage the pieces to break up.  Allow the chicken to heat through.

4.  To serve, stir through half the parsley and sprinkle the remaining half over.

Serve with : carrots & white rice.