Archive for March, 2009

Twecipe day 2: Gluttony

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

The pie and soup I made yesterday has fed two people for dinner, lunch and dinner again. So it looks like my chicken will actually stretch over four days. Today I cooked a chicken, chorizo and rice bake and I made some white bread for the side. I think I should have let the bread to proof for longer than I did (i.e. rise in the bowl before you cook it) but it looks and tastes fine. I can’t eat anything more today, so I won’t try the rice bake until tomorrow. I did take the liberty of changing the recipe to include 200ml chicken stock (from yesterday) and 200ml water. Having only 400ml water sounded a little lacking in flavour….but what would I know.

More than one person has told me that I must be an excellent cook and have tons of gadgets in my kitchen. Both are incorrect. I like to cook, but I’m not a great cook. For example, I forgot to take the pips out of the squash yesterday…I’d get fired from a restaurant for that, but it still tasted great to me. Secondly, here’s a picture of my preparation surface. I have a knife and chopping board! They’re all my gadgets. Oh, maybe apart from my N810. I use twecpie on the N810 whilst I cook. Finally, you may also pick out a bowl of yesterdays soup I was eating as I was waiting for the bread to proof :)

Twecipe day 1: Bust the budget

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Ok, so I spent £47 on food for the week. But I can justify it by saying that the chorizo, parmasan and oils will last me about 2-3 weeks. So really I’m only borrowing £7 from the next two weeks budget :) I also bought an expensive organic chicken. It’s not that we’re all organic in this house, but there are some things that I prefer organic, for example, organic onions are worth the extra 50p or so. Organic potatoes are not.

Anyway, I can make the chicken stretch. I took the breast for a chicken, leek and apple pie today. The legs and wings are for baked chicken and rice tomorrow and the rest of the carcass was picked clean for chicken meat balls on Wednesday. I then made a stock from the bones and used it as the base for a Thai-style butternut squash soup.

Today we had chicken, leek and apple pie with a butternut squash soup for starter. The squash soup was fantastic and the pie was pretty good, if a bit enemic. I had too much lard to butter in the shortcrust.

Picture time:
Butternut squash soup

Chicken and leek pie