Cheap, cheerful and easy potato dish

Happy New Year one and all. I hope Santa brought you all you wanted (or at least what you needed.) I thought you might like to share in something we ate on New Year's Eve at Chez Tante Anne.  I did pheasant casserole with cider and cream, but I won't try to get you to do that until you're feeling a bit more adventurous with your cooking. (It was the first time I ever cooked it so I've been wary of it for a long time.)

However, I did these very simple and yummy spuds alongside the meal and they are just so easy you'll kick yourself for not cooking them before.

Heat your oven to about 180C (that's fan temperature. a little higher for standard ovens, though it's not critical). While it's warming up, grease an ovenproof dish. I like using the one in the photo because you can see how things are progressing while it cooks, but that isn't essential. A lid is though. (If you don't have a lidded dish, use foil.)

Peel some potatoes. Any kind, although larger ones look nice when you're done, and cut them into thin slices.  Do the same with a couple of onions. If you like garlic, peel and squish a couple of cloves of that too.

Now layer the whole lot into the dish. Start with onions and end with potatoes. Every couple of layers dot the spuds with s bit of butter or a smear of oil. Not too much! And add a sprinkling of salt (JUST a sprinkling - we're not breeding heart attacks here) and a hefty grind of black pepper.

Add enough chicken stock to come about a third of the way up the side of the dish. PLEASE don't use a whole stock cube if you have those nasty, salty commercial ones. A VERY tiny amount will be sufficient.

Now put it in the oven, on the bottom shelf will do, and ignore it for about 40 - 45 minutes. (The first time you cook it you might like to check after half an hour, just in case it's drying out.) If it looks a bit dry, add a small amount of water. (This is where the glass sides come in handy.) After 45 minutes it ought to be browning on top. You CAN leave it for up to an hour and a half, depending on how crunchy you like the top layer, but I find an hour is about right.

It goes with practically any roasted meat. Maybe some fish. If you want, you can even top it with grated cheese about 15-20 minutes before it's done and eat it by itself. Perhaps some sliced tomatoes with the cheese. Brown sauce goes well with it. If you can bear to leave any, it's pretty good cold on the following day too!

Lentil stew - no, don't click to another site yet!

Times are hard and we all have to save money wherever we can. One of the places that a lot of people waste money is on office lunches. Yes, I know it's easy to nip down to Pret and treat yourself to a brie and bacon wrap (or whatever) but before you know it you've spent five or six quid a day and that's a whole lotta cash!

Auntie Anne makes her own (and Uncle K's) sandwiches at the weekend and freezes them in poly bags. Batch-making sarnies is quick and easy and it saves time in the mornings as well as cash. Just take a bag out before you leave in the morning and it'll be defrosted in time for lunch.

Any kind of cooked meats (ham, corned beef, chicken, turkey) can be frozen for a few days without suffering a loss of texture and flavour. Choose different breads each week, and vary the fillings by adding pickles and chutneys, mayo rather than spread, Marmite, Gentleman's Relish, etc. Tinned fish works well mashed in with mayo and a bit of tomato sauce too. Or you can even grate cheese and make yourself a cheese and onion or cheese and pickle sandwich. Don't be tempted to try and freeze tomato slices though - it really doesn't work.

But right now it's a bit chilly isn't it?  And maybe you fancy something a bit more warming as you sit at your desk Facebooking your mates in your break. This only works if you have access to a microwave at work, of course.

Here's how to make it
Get yourself some green lentils. They are incredibly cheap and go a very long way! 

Pour a handful of dry lentils per portion into a sieve. Give them a quick once-over to make sure there's no small stones in among them. (Depends where you get them - some are less likely than others to have stray bits.)  Now rinse them well under cold running water for a couple of minutes.

Put them in a pan and cover with fresh, cold water. DON'T ADD SALT! Bring it to the boil, stir once, then turn down the heat to a simmer, cover and let them cook for about 20 minutes.  Skim off any scum that forms on the surface (though if you washed them well it probably won't). Eat one to test if it's cooked. (Think baked beans for the required texture.)

While they're cooking, chop up whatever veg you have handy into small cubes - mushroom stalks, green beans, carrots, onion, leeks, sweetcorn kernels, parsnips - and fry them off with some garlic in a little oil. You can also add whatever herbs or spices you like/have in your cupboard. Add a good squidge of tomato puree if you've got some and put in some water. Simmer it together until you get veg in a sort of tomato sauce. Leave on one side till the lentils are cooked.

When it's all done you mix the lot together and now's the time to salt it if you need to. Portion it up and freeze it, or pack it up for tomorrow's lunch. If you make a big batch you can do both.

It's cheap, filling, tasty and easy. And all your colleagues will want to know what you're eating because it smells divine!

Comfort food

There's something about the food you remember from your childhood.  It can be very comforting to return to it as an adult. One of my favourites was what used to be called 'spuds and onions in the pan' because it didn't need a fancier name.

Start by slicing up some potatoes and onions. New potatoes won't work in this dish. Wash the spuds well and slice them. Don't bother to peel. Slice the onions into rings.

Put about two teaspoons of cooking oil in the bottom of a heavy-bottomed frying pan. Layer the onions and potatoes, starting with onions. Season it well with salt and pepper and add about 200ml of water. Put a lid on the pan.

If you don't have a lid - use a plate! Put the pan on a medium heat and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Check regularly to make sure it hasn't boiled dry. Test the potatoes from time to time to see if they're cooked.  It'll take about 10-15 minutes depending on how thickly you've sliced the spuds.

When the spuds are cooked, take the lid off and boil it rapidly to reduce the liquid. It's done as soon as the onions start to stick. See the picture at the top to see how they should look.

Goes well with a thick slice of corned beef, or a couple of rashers of bacon.

I make a good soup



Introducing Potato Pete. He was a character from WWII who was designed to help people make more of the food that was available to them. Back then it was because enemy action prevented boats from bringing in supplies of foreign foods. These days it's useful to know because money's tight and getting tighter by the hour.

Luckily spuds are still cheap and plentiful and the weather's still cold enough to appreciate a bowl of soup. Soup's easy and even if you don't use potatoes as the main ingredient you can still use them to thicken other types.

BASIC SOUP RECIPE (serves 2)

1 onion, peeled and chopped

2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped

1 pint of stock (any kind)

1 tablespoon of flour

Glug of cooking oil

Salt and pepper

A few dried herbs (any you like)

Heat the oil in a heavy based saucepan and add the onions and potato. Fry gently for a few minutes until the onions start to soften. Add the flour and continue cooking for another minute or so. Stir well with a wooden spoon while you are doing that. 

Now add a splash of the stock and keep stirring until it blends in. Keep adding the stock a little at a time until it's all in the pan. If you don't add it a bit at a time and you don't stir well it will all go lumpy.

Sprinkle in the dried herbs and add salt and pepper.

Cover the pan and simmer the whole thing for about 20-30 minutes until the potatoes are soft. Allow to cool slightly then put it through a blender. Serve with a swirl of yoghurt or a sprinkling of grated cheese and a good chunk of bread.

VARIATIONS

* You can add any kind of vegetables you like at the frying stage. Leeks work well in place of the onion. Carrots give an interesting colour. Celery is good. Sprouts are great - add a few chopped walnuts at the end and see how that tastes.

* If you don't like the finished soup colour, put it back in the pan, add a squeeze of tomato puree and cook it for another couple of minutes.

* If you've used a meat stock you can add chopped meat after the blender stage. Heat the soup thoroughly before eating. Chicken is good. Use sage as your flavouring herb and you'll have a hearty bowlful!

* You can also add chopped cooked vegetables after the blender stage. Cooked pulses go well at this stage too. Small tin of chick peas or similar.

* Add some tomato puree to the blended soup and simmer for a couple of minutes then throw in some cooked pasta shapes. Small ones work best.

Weekend soup

Yesterday morning we went shopping and when we came back from the supermarket we put everything away, as usual. Of course, as always happens, we had to move out the old bits to make way for fresh food.

As usual I turned the leftovers into soup for lunch. It's quick, easy and, if you were planning on throwing the old food out, free!

You can make weekend soup out of any old raw and cooked vegetables but this one consisted of:

Half a head of chinese leaf (it was Chinese New Year during the week and it didn't fit in the stir fry)
The tail end of a swede
An onion

I chopped it all up then threw it into a saucepan with a tablespoon of oil and a couple of cloves of garlic. (Start with raw vegetables only. If you're including cooked ones they go in later.)

First thing to do is sweat it all down until the veg starts to wilt and the onions start to go translucent.
 
 When you've done it right it will look sort of like this: (That dark green stuff is lemon thyme that I happened to have around.)

Then you need to add some thickening.  If your leftover vegetables included potatoes you won't need to do this bit because the starch in the spuds will do it for you. If not, add some flour and then cook it for a couple of minutes longer, stirring it all the time so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

Once it starts to look thick and sticky you need to add liquid. You can add either water or stock. Add the cooked veg at this stage if you're using them. Add enough liquid to cover the veg. Bring the whole thing to the boil and then turn down the heat to a simmer. Let it cook for about 10 to 15 minutes then taste it. If it's short on flavour add something to make it tastier.  This one was a bit thin so I added a sprinkling of Chinese five spice powder and a good splash of soy sauce. (But you can add chilli, curry powder, herbs, Worcester sauce, leftover meat, tomato puree, celery salt, anything you like.)

Once you're happy you can blast it through a blender. You might find you need to cool it down before you do, then heat it up again before you eat it. Pour it into bowls and if you want to be really swank you can swirl in some cream or yoghurt and sprinkle it with a few fresh herbs (like in the top picture).

You see - there IS such a thing as a free lunch!