Cinnamon Chicken

2 Chicken Breasts, Cut into 3 pieces each.

1/2 tin chopped tomatoes

4 half roast tomatoes in chilli oil (sacla)

6 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped.

2 sm or 1 lrg onions, finely chopped

2 carrots, roughly chopped

1 red pepper, chopped into 2cm squares

2 cloves garlic, sliced

20 green olives, halved

3 teaspoons of acacia honey

1 4" cinnamon stick

2 cloves

1 teaspoon chiplote chillies (dried, chopped)

1 teaspoon turmeric

Mixed Herbs

1 pint chicken stock made from 2 stock cubes

oil for frying

Fry onion slowly in a wide bottom pan until starting to go transparent. Add peppers, carrots & garlic and fry for a minute or so more.

Remove from pan. Add more oil, and brown chicken on all sides

Return vegetables to pan, and add the tomatoes (all) and olives.

Cook up for a minute, form a well, and fry the spices for half a minute.

Spoon over the honey.

Mix them all up, and add in a bit of the stock.

Put a lid on the pan, and cook for an hour or more. Top up with the rest of the stock (and more water if needed) to stop if running dry.

When getting nice and saucy and the chicken is staring to disintergrate, remove the lid and cook down until the sauce has thickened.

Serve with rice, and green beans & mange-tout.

Serves 2-3

Smoked Salmon & Spring Onion Pasta

1 small pack smoked salmon trimmings (Sainsbury's)

4 spring onions

10 chestnut mushrooms

1 sm pot double cream

Parmesan, or some analogue (about 1 inch of a wedge)

Dill

Garlic Italian seasoning

Lea & Perrins

Grapeseed oil

Olive oil

Pasta for 2 - I used fettuccine.

Serves 2

Top & tail the spring onions, discarding any dried out leaves. Chop the green, leafy part into 1cm rounds and put aside. Chop the white part much thinner; 3-4 mm.

Chop the mush rooms into slices, about 5-6mm.

Fry slowly in grapeseed oil for about 5 mins.

Add the cream, lea & perrins (a good few dashes), a generous sprinkling of dill, and just 2 shakes of garlic Italian. Stir and cook over a low heat.

Put the water for the pasta on to boil, and add once ready.

With only 5 minutes to go, add the reserved green spring onions, and grate in the cheese. Stir, and keep cooking slowly.

Drain the pasta, splash in a little olive oil & give a good stir to coat the pasta. Serve with the sauce on top.

Nut Roast

8 or so chestnuts (from a packet)

1/2 bag (large bag) of mixed nuts

2 eggs

1 large onion

2 small carrots

2 roast tomatoes in chilli oil (sacla)

1 roll's worth of breadcrumbs

garlic Italian seasoning

Veg stock / bouillon (1 tsp made up on about 100ml boiling water)

Oil

Butter

Parmesan

Chop the onion into small bits and fry up until translucent.

Chop the carrots into batons, then into "rounds" so you have small square bits. Sweat them in butter for 5-10 minutes.

All nuts in blender, until somewhere between finely and crudely chopped.

Mix all together with the half the breadcrumbs and the seasoning.

Mix in the veg bouillon. Separately, beat the eggs and then mix them in.

Spoon out into a foil lined oven proof dish (bit of oil to stop burning), cover with the rest of the breadcrumbs and a fine layer of parmesan.

Bake at 180 degrees for about 1/2 an hour.

Serves at least 4.

Teriyaki Chicken

1 pack of Chicken Mini Fillets

1 large onion

1 red bell pepper

1 large carrot

1 inch of fresh ginger

Hand full of mushrooms

groundnut oil

cornflour

noodles

Teriyaki sauce x2:

1 tblspoon sake / rice wine

2 tblspoon mirin

2 tblspoon soy sauce

1 tblspoon sugar (or maybe less?)

Chop chicken into smallish chunks, marinade in 1 of the teriyaki sauces in the fridge for half an hour or so.

Tear the mushrooms into smallish chunks and marinade.

Remove the chicken from the marinade, and brown in a saucepan. Meanwhile, fry up the onions (chopped into largeish pieces) in another pan. Once the chicken is browned, add the remainder of the marinade. Once the onions are translucent and starting to brown, add to the chicken.

Cook for a minute.

Grate the ginger and add.

Add the carrots (chopped into rounds) and the pepper (chopped into 1/2" squares), and cook for another minute.

Add the mushrooms and the marinade they are in. Cook for a while, until the sauce is pretty much gone.

Start to boil a pan for the noodles. Once the noodles are in the pan, thicken the sauce if needed with the cornflour.

Serves 2.

Halloumi and Prawn Kebabs

Served over cous-cous & salad

1 pack Halloumi

1 pack peeled prawns - the large ones tiger or king

1 lemon

1 yellow pepper

4 small mushrooms

1 red chilli pepper

4 cloves garlic

oregano (I used mexican - not sure if there is a difference)

olive oil

white wine vinegar

Also:

Cous-cous (50g per person)

Lemon & Herb cous-cous seasoning

Gem Lettuce

2-3 tomatoes

2-3" cucumber

1 shallot

Chop the pepper into eighths, and each eighth into 3 roughly square pieces

Chop the halloumi into 12 squares

Make up 4 kebabs from the peppers, mushrooms, halloumi & prawns. You'll probably have some peppers left over.

Take 2 slices out of the middle of the lemon, chop in half and put on the end of the kebab.

Squeeze out the juice of half the remaining lemon, add a little white wine vinegar, and enough olive oil to equal in volume the lemon & vinegar. Add the garlic (crushed) and the chilli (finely chopped, and deseeded if you don't like it hot). Add a generous sprinkling of oregano and mix well, until the oil & acids are well mixed.

Brush half the mixture over the kebabs.

Cook the cous-cous according to the pack, and stir in the seasoning and a little olive oil.

Chop the shallot, tomatoes and cucumber into small pieces. Add some olive oil, and the juice of the remaining half of the lemon. Sprinkle over a little oregano and mix well.

Arrange the outermost leaves of the lettuce 4 to a plate. Spoon the cous-cous over the center. Form a well in the cous-cous and spoon in the tomato mix, including the juices.

Cook the kebabs in the grill. Once the halloumi is browned, turn and brush the rest of the garlic chilli & lemon dressing over the other side. Turn another 2 times to brown all 4 sides of the halloumi on the kebabs.

Serve the kebabs crossed over the centre of the plates.

Serves 2 (2 kebabs each) somewhat generously.

Cheats Sausage Casserole

3-4 Jumbo Herta hotdogs

1 small (1/3 size) tin of baked beans

1 small (1/2 size) tin of kidney beans

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

Frozen sweetcorn

3 handfuls of pasta (fusilli)

1 chicken oxo cube

lea & perrins

garlic Italian seasoning

Cajun seasoning

Chop the sausages into large rounds. Fry them up until they are starting to brown.

Add the contents of the three cans. Don't drain the beans first; the goop makes a good saucy consistency.

Add a generous shake of the two spices, crumble the oxo cube directly into the pan, and give a good splash of Worcestershire.

Stir and cook for a minute.

Add half a pint of water and the pasta. Bring to the boil and simmer until the pasta is cooked. NB: it will take longer than it says on the packet.

5 mins before it's ready add the sweetcorn - amount to taste.

Serves 2.

Fish Mornay

[[This from Lisa]]

For two; scale up as appropriate.

Pack of two hickory smoked salmon fillets.

1 pack prawns

½ a tub of crème freche

100g ish of gruyere

1 dried chilli

1 large spring onion

Knob of butter

A level teaspoon of vegetable boulion powder.

Ground arrow root.

Paprika

Milk

Serve with steamed charlotte potatoes, broccoli and peas.

Place salmon fillets in bottom of a deep narrow oven proof dish, you want the space to be mostly filled with the fish and prawns.

Place prawns on top (make sure the prawns/fish are fully defrosted if they have been frozen)

Trim roots and take outer skin from the spring onion. Slice crossways very thinly all the way up through the green shoots.

Melt butter in small sauce/milk pan and sweat the spring onion – do not cook on a high heat as they will catch.

Remove seeds from chilli, chop finely and add to the butter and onion.

Add paprika – a level teaspoon ish but to personal taste and stir.

Add crème freche and milk to achieve suffificent sauce to cover the contents of the oven proof dish.

Add boullion powder to taste – remember this is very salty so should not require additional seasoning.

Chop cheese into small lumps, add to sauce and allow to fully melt whilst stirring – you don’t wan tthe cheese to sink to the bottom and burn.

To thicken take a little arrowroot, dissolve in water and add to sauce stirring constantly whilst bringing to the boil, add more is sauce needs more thickening just as you would with cornflower.

When sauce is ready pour over the mixture in the dish. Any left over can be served in gravy boat with the meal.

Wrap dish in baking foil and cook at about 200c for about 30 minutes. You want the sauce to be bubbling through the fish not merely warming it – this is why it is important the fish be fully defrosted before you start.

Whilst this is cooking steam your potatoes for about tem minutes ( make sure chunks are no bigger than 1 ½” or they will take longer to cook) add the broccoli to the steamer and cook for a further 5 minutes, add the peas to the steamer and cook for a final 5 mins or until cooked potatoes and broccoli are cooked to personal preference.

Serve.