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 ...

Bite size cooking

10 minutes here, 10 minutes there – Part 1

Everyone cooks differently - if you are a household of only two it's probably more difficult not to waste food. For example, buying a smaller chicken isn't necessarily better value – you're paying for less meat.

If you're giving this “getting organised” malarkey a go you can use the slow cooker principle even in a household of two in fact it's very economical, all that happens is divide your ultimate pie into portions that suit your family appetites and freeze what's left. It's the beginning of your ready-meal stash in your freezer that now has heaps of newly created space.

You may pass the “meal deals” by, thinking you can't take advantage because there's too much or it's not convenient this particular weekend, but that ain't necessarily so – invariably whole chickens are part of the deal and they can be frozen whole but I appreciate that freezer space may be an issue – aim for a weight 1.5kg – 1.75kg. The cost is £3.33 ish – ignoring the bottle of wine in the equation. Instead of using chicken fillet in the pie recipe, slow cook a whole chicken and get the best value for your money.

It's the easiest recipe :

Slow cooked whole chicken

1.5kg chicken

1 chicken stock pot

generous sprinkle of oregano or

garlic Italian seasoning

2 tsps of garlic paste

Place your chicken in the slow cooker and mix the garlic and stock pot together and spread over the chicken. Sprinkle with herbs. Switch your slow cooker on low and leave it for 8 hours – no liquid required.

The resultant juices give you approximately half a pint (300ml) of stock. Strain the stock, cover and refrigerate until cold, ready for use or freeze if preferred.

Similarly don't rule out the deals on gammon joints - they usually have a good use by date because they are vac packed or they can be frozen. The gammon joints can usually be found at 3 for £10 – aim for a weight between 500g – 750g.

If you're following “getting organised” I'm taking it as read that you'll already have cooked, baked jacket potatoes and a box of grated cheese stashed in your fridge.

What follows is a series of 10 minute bites of time that, pulled together, create a supper and freezer stash using inexpensive ingredients and smart shopping! Each bite of time can be fitted in to suit you.

I should point out that you won't produce a dish until all the 10 minute bites have been completed. The idea is that you have a spare 10 minutes one day and may be two separate 10 minute time bites the next day and so on. Every element along the way is easily fridgeable so you can pull it all together when the mood takes you. If the mood doesn't take you, you can freeze it all and use when it does – a practical and efficient way of cooking!

Here we go ...

Option 2 – not as healthy – Option 3 - somewhere in between!

This is definitely a luxury version, perfect for a supper with friends.

Replace the soup with a Velouté sauce. A Velouté sauce is one of the “Mother Sauces” - a light white sauce made with chicken or fish stock and a roux – it is also used as a base for other sauces, for example, a Sauce Supreme, known as a “Daughter Sauce” using Velouté and then enriched with cream.

Here's the Sauce Supreme recipe :

half a pint (300ml) of cold stock

15g unsalted butter

15g plain flour

½ tsp Dijon mustard

200ml double cream

salt and black pepper

Melt the butter, take the pan off the heat, add the flour and whisk. Return to the heat and cook out the flour for 2/3 mins, stirring continuously – do not walk away.

Then tip your cold stock straight into the roux and whisk until smooth, then cook on a low heat for 30 minutes. Season with salt and black pepper.

Add the mustard and cream and simmer for 5 minutes.

Fold your gammon, chicken and leeks into the sauce.

Top your sliced potatoes with seasoning and 2/3 knobs of butter, finish with a mixture of grated Red Leicester and mature Cheddar cheese. Bake as before.

Option 3 – somewhere in between

Omit the potato, butter and cheese topping and replace with a puff pastry lid. This option can also apply to Options 1 or 2. Bake as before. You could “hit the middle” and make Option 1 enriching the tinned soup by adding double cream. The world is your lobster or in this case your pie!

For those sceptics among us who think that a slow-cooker is only capable of producing stews and casseroles I hope you might be persuaded otherwise.

Bite size cooking to follow ...

I have a plan … liberation!

I find slow-cooking liberating – not a word that immediately springs to mind where cooking is concerned – there'll be no bra burning!

It might sound a touch dramatic but to illustrate how much time, effort and money you'll save I give you, the gammon, chicken and leek pie. There are three options here from the same recipe. The first is a healthy version, the second is not and the third is somewhere in between.

I will concede that you'll have to think about your shopping list but if you are now subscribing to “getting organised” you'll have jacket potatoes on your list ready to bake.

Here we go :

Option 1 – healthy

Gammon, Chicken and Leek pie

Serves 4 generous portions

You'll need a casserole or foil tray 23x23cms/9” square

Gammon joint – smoked or unsmoked to suit your taste – approx 500g

4 chicken breast fillets

2 stock pots – chicken or vegetable

4 medium leeks, topped, tailed and sliced thickly

Rapeseed oil – approx 1 tbsp

black pepper

2 tins (295g) of Campbell's condensed low fat chicken soup (this is now low salt, low fat and only 77 calories per serving)

3 large jacket potatoes, baked, cooled, then peeled and sliced

Salt and black pepper for potato topping

Seal your gammon joint and slow cook in the stock pots, repeat with the chicken fillet. If your slow cooker is big enough cook them all together. 4 hours is fine. Leave to cool.

Break up the gammon and the chicken into medium chunks and transfer for the moment into a large food bag and fridge. Reserve the stock and fridge.

Peel and slice your leeks, then soften in the rapeseed oil, set aside.

Tip the soup into a large mixing bowl. Next add a ladle of stock into the soup to loosen it, then fold in the gammon, chicken and leeks. Transfer the filling into your casserole or foil tray.

Place your sliced potato on top, season with a little salt and black pepper.

Pre-heat your oven and bake at 180fan/200c/Gas 6 for 30-40 minutes – check after 30 - until the top is golden and crispy.

Then there's options 2 – definitely not as healthy and 3 – somewhere in between …

Autumn comfort and joy!

Here's the thing – a meal should be a pleasure – it should make you happy – all the more so when the weather changes into Autumn - there's nothing more welcoming than “a comfort blanket” aka a slow cooker full of whatever takes your fancy.

The trouble is we live our lives at warp speed – constantly chasing our tails, juggling balls, whatever the description they mean the same. There are not enough hours in a day and it's so easy to resort to the ding of the microwave and a processed meal or rely on takeaways.

We don't have the time to cook from scratch every day and even if we did I'm not sure we would.

I've had a lot of practice planning meals. Three hours a day commuting to London every day before the advent of home delivery shopping taught me that life was too short to wing it. I planned weekly meals on the train and then made my shopping list. The earlier I made my weekly plan the better – it gave me an opportunity to check my store cupboard for the bits and pieces I'd forget about – you know seasoning, stock pots, condiments blah, blah. I gained valuable weekend time, was definitely less stressed and saved dosh too!

If you've been kind enough to follow my blog for a while you'll know that my mantra has always been to save yourself time, money and stress. If you're in the kitchen then make the best use of the time – what I call the “whilst I'm at it, I might as well” principle.

Here's what I mean :

If you have turned on the oven, fill it.

Bake half a dozen jacket potatoes – they don't take up too much space if, for example, you're cooking a roast. Prick them and wrap in foil – bake for an hour – check – depending on the size they make take a little longer. Set them aside to cool and then bag and fridge.

If you are cooking a roast, get into the habit of prepping extra veggies – you won't be sorry. Bag your extra roast potatoes and parsnips, carrots et al when cooled and fridge.

Slow cook a whole chicken – it takes 10 minutes at the most to place the chicken in the cooker and then spread with garlic and a stock pot (mixed to a paste) then sprinkle with oregano.

If you have sufficient space in your oven you could use a roasting bag until you

buy your slow cooker!

Grate mature cheddar cheese - bag, box and fridge. Grate Parmesan too – bag, box and fridge.

Start thinking about cooking more than you'll use so that you create your own home cooked ready meals to freeze, so, when you're suffering from the revolving door syndrome, it's easy peasy – it's in the freezer.

I have a plan!

Check out your kitchen kit!

My “I can't do without” pieces of kitchen kit range from - the smallest - 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. The largest piece of kit is my slow cooker, so from one extreme to another!

If you don't own a slow cooker, 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.

My final “I can't do without” piece of kit is my frying pan.

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 28cms in diameter costs £15ish – if you shop at the right places.

For the best value check out IKEA – they tick all my boxes :

suitable for gas hobs

induction

glass ceramic

cast iron

they are also oven safe

I've had mine for at least four years now and the best recommendation I can give is that when it finally wears out I'd replace it immediately.

There's a really good range of smaller frying pans too, again suitable as above – definitely worth a look!

Now for some Autumn comfort and joy ...

Then there's your store cupboard

Okey dokey, that's the freezer done and dusted now for your other store cupboard - or pantry if you prefer.

Time to be as ruthless with your store cupboard or pantry as you were with your freezer.

It's no use relying on a store cupboard if you don't know what's in it or more particularly that your ingredients are well within “best before date(s)”.

If you have a reasonably well stocked store cupboard then you'll be able to plan your meals more easily, it will save you time and money. My pantry is one extreme to another, from the usual staples - tuna, small chunk Branston, tomato paste, stock pots, cornflour, passata, suet, Worcestershire Sauce, noodles and orzo – to name but a few - to what some may call the more “out of the ordinary” ingredients, a small tin or jar of black olives, a small jar of capers, Grapeseed oil for stick blender mayo and lets not forget the preserved lemons!

Once again you may not relish the idea but I promise you'll find it cathartic!

If you are easily bored sort and check a shelf at a time – if you want to be really organised you can re-organise as you go – baking and all things relating, sweet and savoury ingredients, tinned goods – again sweet and savoury – everyday stuff – teas, coffee, I could go on!

If you have a separate space for your herbs and spices check these out too – they lose their potency over time, so any that are out of date should be replaced. I should add that unless you use large quantities of particular herbs and spices it's a false economy to buy in large amounts – they'll finish up out of date and will be thrown away.

If you want to be really organised you could make a shopping list as you re-organise of any ingredients that are out of date and need replacing.

Kitchen kit is up next ...