Paprika Chicken from The Recipe Queen

*Phew!*

Right then, after all the excitement of the Strawberry & Rhubarb Pie recipe, let's get back to reporting on the last few days of the menu calendar for this week.

Yes, I finally got around to making the Paprika Chicken which had been on the menu list since last week.

As I'd booked it in for a Friday, I was quietly hoping that it would be a stress-free recipe to create as I'd about had enough of everything by then and was just hoping for a quiet day or so in which to catch up with my brain.  I only have a finite amount of energy and the ability to stand up each day and I can find that my brain runs away developing lists of things I should be doing and will often make stuff up when there isn't much to worry about.  So I was hoping for a bit of down-time.


Sadly, a bit of a jacket potato crisis blew that hope apart at the seams, but a long-lost half bag of frozen oven chips came to the rescue.  So, in the end, I had a jacket potato (which was E-NOR-MOUS and far too much) and the chaps had oven chips to go with the chicken.  I think hubby was fairly happy with his chips (over a jacket potato, anyway), but son & heir pouted a little, right up until he tasted the chicken whereupon he forgot all about the potato issue.

I deviated from the recipe only in three areas.  One, where I used streaky bacon instead of pancetta (price issue), two, where I used three teaspoonfuls of paprika instead of two (hubby's taste issue - he likes strong flavours) and three, where I put the pan into the oven to cook for the 45 minutes.  Oh, and of course I served it with potato instead of crusty bread.


Son & heir particularly enjoyed his as it didn't appear to involve any readily discernible vegetables.  Following on from the reports of E-Coli and death-cumbers, he's got a total downer on vegetables and has to be told the origin of each before he'll deign to eat it - and then he'll do so whilst looking suspiciously at me, just in case I'm telling fibs.  ~rolls eyes~


I won't reproduce the recipe here, as it is on The Recipe Queen's blog (just click on the name there) and really easy to find.  I commend it to you!  :)


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Menu plan : 31 May - 6 June 2011

Here we are again with the meal plan for this coming week and already we're two days into it.  Mind you, we did take one day out to drive around the New Forest and see this year's crop of foals, which was a lovely sunny day which everyone enjoyed.  We took a picnic and stopped at Bolderwood where they've got a well organised picnic area with loos and even an ice cream stand.

This week's menu is following on with the lighter, less calorific, fresher meals - well, as much as is possible!

One deviation from this is Saturday's curry, which is taken from the Gurkha part of the British Army Cookbook - a copy of which (just the Gurkha part, not all of it!) was given to me by the generous Willie who I am sure you will have noticed in the comments sections of my blogs.  Goodness only knows where he got it from - and we won't ask.  ~taps the side of her nose knowingly~  LOL

So, this is how the week's menu has shaped up :

Tuesday : Chicken Jhalfrezi, basmati rice and Peshwari naan

Wednesday : Turkey meatballs in tomato & fennel sauce, with wholemeal pasta & doughballs

Thursday : Chilli Prawn Noodles

Friday : Paprika chicken with Jacket Potatoes

Saturday : Fried Pork Curry with sauce & mushroom rice

Sunday : Pork Shoulder, roast potatoes, carrots, corn on the cob, spring greens & apple sauce

Monday : Chilli con carne & rice.

As I am writing this on the Wednesday evening, we have already sampled the Chicken Jhalfrezi, which was spectacularly successful.  I was a little bit dubious about it, as it was a "healthier" recipe which didn't sound like any curry I'd ever produced.  Not that that's a bad thing - it's always good to learn new techniques.  I was just a little concerned that it would be a bit left-field for the menfolk.

The curry itself was made with chicken marinated in yoghurt, tomato puree, chilli and lemon juice.  You cook the onion and green pepper and add the marinated chicken, cooking the whole thing until fairly dry.  Then - and this was the left field bit - you serve the curry on a bed of salad leaves (I chose watercress, although spinach would be good too) that have been dressed in lemon juice & sea salt.

It was, as they say, blindin'.

This evening's fare was a dish of home-made meatballs in a tomato & fennel sauce.  The meatballs were made with turkey mince which is as economical as it is gentle in flavour.  However, with a clove of garlic, some breadcrumbs and lemon zest - not to mention a good hit of sea salt & freshly ground black pepper - a fairly uninteresting pack of mince turned into some cracking good meatballs.  The sauce was great - the fennel seeds gave it an interesting fragrance and a hint of aniseed on your tongue.  I'll be blogging this one once I've done the Jhalfrezi!

Thursday is hubby's night to cook and he's trotting out his famous Chilli Prawn Noodles.  I can't wait, as I really enjoy this dish - and we've a few interesting ingredients in the cupboard now that we didn't have previously.  Hubby may opt to stay with the approved recipe - but with things like Mirrin and Fish Sauce just sitting there, they'd be hard to resist.

Friday brings the second attempt at the Paprika chicken that got bumped from last week's menu.  Fingers crossed, it makes it this week.

Saturday is Ghurka curry night and, because I couldn't rustle up 10 or 50 friends to come and share, I'll be having an interesting time scaling the British Army's recipes down to suit 3 of us!

I'm really looking forward to Sunday's roast.  I haven't done a roast for a few weeks now and have been yearning for a piece of pork.  I figure a slow-roasted piece of shoulder will fit the bill perfectly.  I've managed to accumulate enough dripping in my fat cup for roast potatoes, and we'll be having Chantenay carrots, corn on the cob and spring greens.  I'll try to avoid doing Yorkshire puddings, in the interests of keeping the whole thing on the lighter side of "thumping great roast dinner".

Which brings us back to Monday, when we'll be trotting out another old favourite - Chilli con Carne.  Well, it is possible to make it without incurring the wrath of the calorie police, plus Son & heir really enjoys a good chilli.  It won't be the mega-chilli of late, which involves beef shin, but a more demure version using minced beef.  I've got a few aces up my sleeve that were used in the mega-chilli, so it'll be interesting to see how they translate in the more demure version!

So there we are.  It would seem as though meat-free Monday has taken a bit of a back seat again, which is very naughty of me.  I'll have to do better for next week!

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The menu plan for 24 - 30 May 2011

Coming along! Our Gooseberry bush.

It suddenly occurred to me to include the date in the title to these menu plan posts.  At least, that way, if I ever want to analyse how I'm doing on the "cooking seasonally" front then I've got half of the information!

I'd been looking at recipes in the low fat and "healthy" range, but it occurred to me that "low GI" is another category of healthy meal that it would be worth investigating.  Not least because of hubby's mild diabetes.  If we can keep it at the "mild" stage, then that'd be fantastic.

The weather doesn't seem to be able to make up it's mind whether we're in summer or still in spring, at the moment.  However, with summer in its infancy, it's a foregone conclusion that we're heading into a time of salads and a lighter style of eating.  Personally, I'd love to eat the Mediterranean way - lots of fish, lamb, lovely vegetables and bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Gorgeous!  However, it's not that easy to do when you're having to balance your meals around everyone's likes and dislikes.

Jonty sunbathing on a warm day

Still, I figure that if I try everything in lots of different orders, eventually I'll hit on a repertoire of styles that suit everyone!

So, this week's menu looks like :

Tuesday : Pasta with Bacon, Goat's Cheese & Savoy Cabbage

Wednesday : Paprika chicken with Jacket Potatoes

Thursday : Indonesian fried rice with smoked Mackerel

Friday : Chicken Jalfrezi with rice

Saturday : Health in a Bowl with Ciabatta

Sunday : Dinner with my parents

Monday : Pie, new potatoes and vegetables.

Beginning with Tuesday, this Pasta dish really is the epitome of simple.  Just fry off the bacon, drain all but a teaspoon of the bacon fat (into the fat cup again) and cook the red onion.  Meanwhile, cook the pasta to which you add shredded cabbage in the last couple of minutes.  Melt a creamy goat's cheese in with the bacon & onions, let it down with a little of the pasta water and combine.  Add loads of parmesan to the plate and tuck in.  Does it get any more simple than that?  I don't think so!

Wednesday was originally meant to be the Paprika Chicken, however as I write this it is Wednesday evening and the chicken dish got bumped owing to the fact that I was needed to drive into town and collect hubby and his new stereo (brilliant bargain!) at exactly the time I would normally have been cooking.  ~gallic shrug~  What can you do, eh?  Couldn't leave the poor chap to juggle it all the way home on the bus!

In the end, we had a sort of mini high tea.  Ham sandwiches and a swiftly purchased box of cakes.  Son & heir definitely approved - that's his sort of dinner!

So tomorrow, Thursday, is the Indonesian fried rice with smoked mackerel.  It is another really simple dish to prepare - I'm pretty sure that the longest thing involved in it is picking the bones out of the middle of the mackerel!  This is one of the low GI meals, so it will be interesting to see how well received it is and whether it manages to keep us full for long.

Friday was to have been another low GI dish - Chicken Jalfrezi.  However, as Asda forgot to send me all the ingredients for it, I'm tempted to make this one into the bumped Paprika chicken - as I've got all the ingredients just waiting to go for that!  It'd save us having to shop for the Jalfrezi until next week, anyway.

Saturday brings about the return of Health in a Bowl.  Unfortunately it got bumped from last week for a very similar reason to the Paprika chicken.  I was supposed to be driving to collect a telescope for Son & heir's use, but unfortunately the chap decided not to sell in the end and we didn't go.  Shame really, because I had intentions of taking a quick spin around the New Forest to see some foals, plus Son & heir would have had fun looking at the stars - and I'd have been able to make the Health in a Bowl.  Hubby thinks I'm stark raving mad to even consider this dish, as he reckons it will contain everything that Son & heir dislikes in a meal.  For me, I reckon that if you combine ingredients in the right way, then you've every chance of a recipe turning out to be delicious.

Now I've seen Anthony Worrall-Thompson making his Health in a Bowl on t.v. and it intrigued me then.  It looked absolutely bursting with flavour and so very good for you, that as a Mum trying to feed her brood (and "brood" includes hubby) healthily, it is just too much of a temptation.  Of course, there's every possibility that the way in which the ingredients are combined for this dish, isn't the way that either hubby or son & heir enjoy having said ingredients presented - but as I said at the beginning, I'll try anything once!

Sunday is easy for me, as we've been invited over to my parents' for the day.  Hey, as they live in the New Forest, I might get that spin around, looking for foals after all!  I'll just lay in some nice sandwich fillings for when we come home.

Monday, even though it is a Bank Holiday, is a work day for me but hubby will be at home for Son & heir, who is on holiday that week.  Hence a nice easy pie with vegetables (as yet undecided) and new potatoes.  Fingers crossed we can get hold of some Jersey Royals still with their dirt on - as they seem to be the ones with the best flavour!  I know the season for Jerseys is almost over, but knowing how the supermarkets delay seasons, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

So there you have it.  Even before I've managed to blog the week's meal plan, it's gone awry - but I'll keep on trying to make the best of what I've got before me!