Just in case …

… you were wondering

PICCATA is a method of preparing food where the meat is sliced, coated, sautéed and served in a sauce. It originated in Italy using veal. It's very popular in the USA, using chicken.

The sauce is made by de-glazing the pan after having flattened and sealed the chicken on both sides and set aside. To finish the sauce add lemon juice, white wine or stock to the de-glazed pan and reduce. Shallots or garlic can be added with capers and slices of lemon. After reducing butter is added to finish the sauce.

An escalope is a piece of boneless meat that has been thinned out using a mallet, rolling pin or butterflied. The tenderising i.e. bashing with a mallet, breaks down the fibres in the meat making it tender and the thinner the meat the faster it cooks with loss of moisture.

Thought you might like a smidge of information!

Your Autumn Arsenal – take 2!

Next comes a chicken idea that ticks all the boxes - with a couple of different serving suggestions too, to suit your mood.

Miso Maple Glazed Chicken

4 chicken breasts

1 tbsp baking powder*

4 fl oz/½ cup maple syrup*

2 fl oz/¼ cup white miso paste*

Mix * together, add the chicken breasts and

marinate for 24 hrs

Sprinkle with chopped spring onions

Bake in a pre-heated oven 180 fan/200c/Gas 6

for 35 minutes

By the way, if you marinate the chicken in one of my famous, washing-up free foil dishes, it can go straight from the fridge, into the oven.

Serve with :

Maple Glazed Veggies

100ml dark soy sauce

50ml Maple syrup

1 tsp garlic paste

2 tbsp light olive oil

black pepper

You can choose any veggies you like, here's my choice :

Mange tout – cut in half diagonally

Baby sweetcorn – cut in half lengthways

Carrots – peeled, topped and tailed and cut into batons -

5 cms long x 1cm, as a guide – you'll get approximately

28 batons from 1 large carrot

Red Romano pepper – topped, tailed, de-seeded and

cut into a similar size to the batons

Salad onions – topped and tailed and cut diagonally.

If you can't be bothered or don't have time to prep the veggies, as an alternative you could, at the same time as the chicken goes into the oven, add another foil tray of new potatoes to roast and another tray of beetroot to honey roast, using vac packs (recipe is on the blog) – if saving time is your thing then this option would be perfect.

Note to self - add white miso and maple syrup to pantry shopping list!

Your Autumn Arsenal

Before we begin our multi tasking I'm making a slight detour but one with a purpose. It's true to say we are all creatures of habit, consequently food becomes boring – we tend to stick with what we know and then lapse into bad habits, hence the takeaway. It's ideas we need but, more to the point, quick and easy ones.

In the post “Get yourself organised” I mentioned the frying pan suitable for “hob to oven” or in my language “froven” – time to put it through its paces.

I think we'd all agree that chicken is a popular protein. The only trouble is it definitely falls in the boring category and it's easy to spoil. What follows are ideas using chicken, making the best use of the frying pan and also extending your pantry by adding ingredients that might not otherwise be there. These suggestions and the ones next week using potatoes are to show that you've more than one option for any supper dish with chicken or leftovers dish with potato, that appears in the multi tasking grid.

First up :

Chicken Piccata

4 chicken breasts

30g grated Parmesan

50g plain flour

salt and black pepper

4 tbsp olive oil

60g unsalted butter

120ml chicken stock or dry white wine

1 tsp garlic paste

3 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp capers

1 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley

**500g approx cooked potato, cubed

Pre-heat oven to 160 fan/180c/Gas 4.

Flatten your chicken breasts between two slices of cling film – or you can buy chicken escalopes ready flattened! Mix the flour, cheese and salt and pepper. Coat each chicken escalope with the seasoned flour.

Using your new frying pan, heat the oil and 30g of butter. Brown the chicken on each side for 2/3 minutes. Place the chicken on a baking tray (i.e. with sides) and pop into the oven. Add garlic paste, ** de-glazing the pan and then add stock/wine, lemon juice and capers, reduce, then add the remaining 30g butter to complete the sauce. Place the chicken on serving plate and drizzle with sauce and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Optional

If you wanted to create a one pot dish, **add cubed pieces of cooked potato, saute, de-glazing the pan. When the potatoes have a light brown colour add the stock (or wine), lemon and capers, reduce a little and then add the remaining 30g of butter.

There's more to follow and by the way – you might want to add a jar of capers to your pantry shopping list!

Get yourself organised!

Part of the process of getting organised is by equipping yourself with pieces of kit that make your life easier but that don't cost a fortune, for example :

In my kitchen I have certain essential pieces of kit, the smallest of which is a timer – inexpensive and comes into its own when you're doing your circus juggling act. There is nothing more infuriating than spoiling the supper because you've forgotten what's in the oven whilst supervising homework, sorting laundry or splitting the atom.

Many moons ago I invested in a frying pan (available with or without lid) that is suitable for use from hob to oven. It did not cost a fortune and has been worth its weight in gold. There are loads to choose from but, as a rough guide, approximately 30cms diameter costs £30ish. I've had mine for a few years now and the best recommendation I can give is that when it finally wears out I'd replace it immediately.

Reacquaint yourself with your slow cooker – if you haven't got one, may I respectfully suggest that you treat yourself, although treat is the wrong word – a slow cooker is an absolute must on every level. An electric slow cooker saves on your fuel bills – much cheaper than using a traditional oven – economical, saving time, money and waste. I could drone on, and on.

If there is anyone out there saying “but they are huge, I'm only cooking for one” - wrong on two counts – I cook for one meat eater using a medium/large slow cooker – I never slow cook for just one meal – I cook and freeze. The theory is that you get into the habit of deliberately cooking more than you'll use. You then create your own home cooked ready meals to freeze, so, if you suffer from what I call “revolving door syndrome” – you know what I mean - everyone coming and going at different times - you're able to pull your own ready meals out of the freezer.

I would accept that the larger versions take up space and not everyone has a large kitchen – you can buy tiny slow cookers, ideal for one person. If you've never used one, you'll never look back. The smallest capacity is 1 litre for one person, 1.5 would be sufficient for 1-2 people. They are inexpensive but shop around, the cheaper supermarkets have great deals so keep your eyes peeled!

Check out reviews – personally I'd go for a larger capacity than you think you'll need – you'll regret not buying a slightly larger version - give it some thought before you invest.

Just imagine coming home to a welcoming casserole on a chilly Autumn night.

I rest my case!

A new broom sweeps clean …

or … time to “spring clean” your pantry/cupboards and throw away all the store cupboard items that are well past their “best before” dates – if you think you've nothing lurking in there you've a shock coming!

The reason I'm suggesting this radical move is quite simply store cupboard stash has a limited life. Herbs and spices for example lose their umph – you'll be surprised what you find.

What we're aiming for is to clear the decks so that you can re-stock your pantry with a list of staples you'll use on a regular basis and some not so frequently. This will be a personal list for you but I'll give you some ideas from my own. You'll see that by creating your stash that the boring day to day cooking becomes so much easier when you know you've already got the basics.

My pantry has the usual suspects, orzo and penne pasta - stock cubes and pots, I really rate the stock pots and the range now is great. Rapeseed and vegetable oil - the best for general use and a light olive oil apart from extra virgin for dressings. A decent quality balsamic vinegar is a must for me, as good a quality as you can afford. My pantry extravagance is Panko breadcrumbs.

You can create the same pantry principle for your freezer and, to a lesser degree, your fridge. In my freezer I generally have an “emergency” bag of cauliflower cheese and I always have petit pois. In my fridge is a block of parmesan – not the ready grated variety – I'm not being a snob here, the blocks have a long life as does cheddar cheese of your choice. I'm not really sure why but cheese is the ultimate emergency staple I suppose because it's so versatile be it in a sauce or in a toasted sandwich in mashed potatoes with sautéed onions, blah blah.

A stock of microwave boxes and foil containers with lids in various (small to medium) sizes – both ideal for freezing individual meals – if you are using your oven for “sides” like baked potatoes, then your defrosted home made ready meals that you're going to create - in a foil tray - go straight into the oven. If you're going to freeze liquids, i.e. stock, soups etc., you can get resealable pour & store bags especially for this purpose – a really good product, very strong and inexpensive – check out your cheap high street shops.

This list will grow with the passage of time!

The aim of the game...

...is that you plan your meals for a week and then make your shopping list from that plan. The majority of the cooking is all done in a morning when you are in the kitchen anyway cooking, for example, a weekend roast.

If you give this a try what you should notice is how little food you waste and therefore how much money you save.

Time to fess up – how much food and money do you throw away each week? It begins with wandering around the supermarket, whether physically or on line and buying food because it looks good, or was on offer, or was a good idea at the time, with no real idea of how the random purchase would fit in to a meal.

How many of these random purchases do you discover, shrivelled and buried in the fridge, forlorn and forgotten, only fit for that not so happy hunting ground for decomposing food in the sky!

By making small changes you can reap massive rewards so plan your week, make your list and do you shopping and try not to deviate – are you really that interested in schlepping round a supermarket?

Sound like a plan?!

Autumn thoughts

… and a refresher course!

We've had a good summer by UK standards, but now we're into October and the mornings are darker until the clocks change at the end of the month and then, eek dark by 4pm!

It's time to re-group and get back into the swing of being organised.

Those who have been with me since the beginning will know that it all began talking about multi-tasking – making the best use of the time you spend in the kitchen. So, time for a refresher and, for those who are new to the concept :

Ask yourself :

“How do you shop and cook now?”

“How many times each week do you visit a supermarket?”

“How much food and consequently money, do you waste each week?”

“Are you constantly asked – what's for tea?”

If your answers are along the lines of, “badly”, “more than I should”, “too much” and “yes!” you might like to read on.

You'll save time, money and stress too, not to mention pick up tips and ideas to adapt to suit you and yours.

Coming up is a repeat of that same multi-tasking formula giving you recipes and suppers for an Autumnal week. As the new season begins so our needs and requirements change, the kids are back at school and although the weather isn't immediately horrible, it is certainly more changeable.

Ugh!