The bites of time

10 minutes here, 10 minutes there Part 2 – The bites of time

The first ten minutes …

is taken up with prepping your whole chicken and placing in the slow cooker as per the recipe given in Bite size cooking.

Next ten minutes …

When the chicken is cooked and cooled strip it and cut into medium chunks, wrap and fridge. Strain the stock into a jug, cover and “fridge”.

If you wanted to be exceptionally economical you could place the carcass in a large saucepan with an onion, leek, carrot and celery, garlic, mixed herbs and 12 black peppercorns, cover with water, bring to the boil and then simmer for 1½ – 2hours. Your very own home-made stock, which can then be frozen in small amounts, ready to use.

Next ten minutes …

Seal a gammon joint (smoked or unsmoked to suit your taste) and slow cook in vegetable stock (or chicken if you prefer).

Next ten minutes …

Remove the gammon joint and cool, cut into similar sized chunks as the chicken, then wrap and fridge – reserve the stock and when cooled freeze it for another day and don't forget to label and date – as previously mentioned small amounts are more practical.

Next ten minutes …

Make your Velouté sauce and/or your Sauce Supreme using your stock from the slow cooked chicken – cool, cover and fridge. At the same time you can multi-task and sweat 2 leeks, sliced, in a glug of rapeseed oil and an optional knob of unsalted butter – this will take 2/3 minutes on a low heat. Cool, box and fridge.

Next ten minutes …

Assemble all your elements to create your pie. In a large mixing bowl combine the chicken, gammon and leeks, sprinkle generously with black pepper and then fold in the sauce. Tip your pie filling into a casserole or foil tray. Top with sliced cooked jacket potatoes and sprinkle with grated cheese. (You shouldn't need any salt, you've already seasoned the Sauce Supreme and there's salt in the smoked gammon, the stock and in the cheese topping).

Bake in a pre-heated oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6 for 30 minutes until your cheese is golden. Freeze two portions individually, for another day.

You might want to add the Campbell's condensed chicken soup to your store cupboard – there's a mushroom version too – another very useful emergency stand-by for making another sauce.

Now for a sample menu ...

Fast food for the working week … do you cook a Sunday roast?

My ethos has always been the same – since time is such a precious commodity I like to make the most of it. If I'm in the kitchen cooking a Sunday roast then I multi-task, I fill the oven, use my slow cooker - the net result is that I have part prepped and cooked my suppers for the following week.

The best way to illustrate what I'm going on about is to describe the last few days. Last weekend I'd taken advantage of a meal deal which included a chicken, ready to roast in its tray and bag. Whilst the oven was on I added 6 large jacket potatoes to bake. I also grated a bag of cheese and fridged. I marinated and baked the Asian Spiced Salmon.

Sunday evening supper, a roast chicken with trimmings – remembering of course to allow for deliberate leftover veggies. I fridged the remains of the chicken, cooled and covered of course!

Monday evening supper … no huge surprise, fast and meat free – a baked jacket potato, a sprinkle of grated cheese and baked beans. Nothing amazing I grant you but it took the time to split the potato and microwave, followed by the beans. Delicious and nutritious.

Tuesday evening supper … the Squeak – leftover potatoes and sprouts from the roast, diced chorizo and topped with a poached egg.

Wednesday evening supper. You might think what follows is completely random but bear with me. My friend's husband has been very ill in hospital but thankfully is now back home recovering after heart surgery – phew! What sort of “get well” gift do you take – a meal, for them both. The meal needed to be “one pot” and easy. It's my personal experience that the “carer” needs the support too not just the patient so an evening not having to think about food might help.

I need to consider all sorts of stuff – not too rich but plenty of flavour, nothing heavy duty like pastry - it's difficult to digest – no red meat again due to personal experience even patients who normally enjoy red meat find it too much. I need to appeal to the taste buds!

Time for a rummage – firstly the fridge - I had a 250g punnet of chestnut mushrooms as well as a pot of double cream – a good start. I check the freezer, I'm after stock and my rummage is rewarded, a bag of anise flavoured stock always taken from slow cooking a whole chicken. It's liquid gold and perfect for my morphing supper dish.

Read on for what happened next and photos too!