One Week in Sarah's Kitchen: Tuesday

The second day started well with 30 mins of circuits followed by an early start in the office. Again I'd prepared most of my food the night before so pretty much stuck to plan.

Food and Drinks:

Breakfast: first thing I had lemon, ginger and hot water. After exercise I had an almond protein shake for my breakfast


Morning snack: Thai Chicken and Lettuce Wraps. To make these I mixed some left over roast chicken with 1/2 teaspoon of green Thai curry paste, added a sqeeze of lemon juice and a tablespoon of 0% Total Greek Yoghurt and then used iceberg lettuce leaves instead of wraps to wrap them up. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo

Lunch: Roasted Cauliflower and Cumin Soup followed by a plum and a pear

Afternoon snack: Low Fat Moroccan Spiced Hummus with cherry tomatoes and sticks of carrots, celery and cucumber

As it was a late night in the office I also had a cocoa made with oat milk about 6pm

Dinner: due to a very late finish in the office I raided the freezer for a 'ready' meal I'd frozen when I'd made extra dinner one time.I had a chicken and veg stew with some steamed broccoli, cabbage and spinach

Evening snack: an orange
Water: 2 litres
Other drinks: 2 mugs of decaf tea with skimmed milk
Organised for tomorrow: gym kit, soup for lunch and snacks

Exercise and Walking

Walking: 50 mins
Exercise: 30 mins circuits - elevated rear leg lunges x 10 (on each side), squat jumps x 10, burpees x10, tricep dips x 10, pushups x 10, bicycle crunches x10 (on each side), plank (30 secs), side plank (30 secs each side) - all repeated 3 times

Relaxation and Sleep

Relaxation: Reading a chapter of a book in bed before sleep
Meditation: ~10 mins
Bed time: 9.45pm
Estimated hours of sleep: 7.5 hours

Before bed I always eat a few walnuts and take a magnesium supplement. I also sleep with a black out blind and sleep mask and use a pulse aromatherapy oil made of relaxing oils.

Chunky chicken and vegetable soup

This soup is great as you can use whatever veg you have left over and in fact whatever meat. Some left over roasted lamb would be good for example, or just leave it out. You could also add your choice of beans. I think butter beans would work well. Just put in what you fancy/have. It's as simple as that!
I placed the following in a pan, you could fry the veg and chicken up first for more flavour but I didn't bother. I just chucked it all in and cooked it on the hob. What could be easier!
- 1 leek roughly chopped
- 2 carrots roughly chopped
- 1 pepper roughly chopped
- two large handfuls of kale roughly chopped
- 2 garlic cloves crushed
- 2 tins of tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon of tomato purée
- two chicken legs with the skin on (just throw them in as they are)
- 1/2 litre of chicken stock
- salt and pepper
Boil the above for about 45 mins until all of the vegetables are soft. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar and cook for a few more minutes. Remove the chicken legs and allow to cool slightly until you can touch them without burning your hands. Remove all of the meat and discard the bones. Chop the meat into smallish pieces and put back into the soup and stir.
Serve immediately or cool and refrigerate until you want to eat it. I make two big soups on a Sunday and eat them through the week. Just remember ones with meat in might not last for a week so eat these first!

Diana Henry's Vietnamese Chicken with Nuoc Cham

I have admired Diana Henry's simple but very tasty recipes in the Waitrose magazine, Waitrose Kitchen, for some time. When I saw the fantastic reviews her recipe books had on Amazon I had to put one on my Christmas list. I was lucky enough to find a copy of her book Food from Plenty under the Christmas tree.


Here is the first recipe I have tried from it. It is in the section which is a collection of recipes to use up left overs. This one is for left over roast chicken, which I had in the freezer from the last roast I made. I've made a few adaptations, some for choice and some through need, as I haven't been shopping in a while!

I started by making the nuoc cham which is a Vietnamese sauce which is hot, sour, salty and sweet in equal measure.


I then cooked the rice. She uses white rice but I prefer the taste of brown rice, plus it's healthier so I substituted this for brown rice (and slightly smaller quantities). It's cooked using the absorption method. Brown rice needs about 40 mins cooking time.


I also didn't have any spring onions so used some lightly stir fried cabbage and also added a few thinly sliced carrots. I also didn't have shallots so used onion instead and cooked them for a little longer than she suggested.


Finally it was a case of assembling the dish by mixing the chicken, rice and veg and topping with the onions and a sprinkling of nuoc cham and shredded mint leaves.



This really was a delicious way to use up leftover chicken and this dish is definitely a sum of more than its parts. The only thing I would do differently next time is to either reduce the amount of garlic or cook it a little first as for me the raw garlic flavour was slightly strong.

Recipe

Serves 4

For the nuoc cham:
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 red chilli, finely chopped
Pinch of salt
Juice of one lime
2 tbsp fish sauce
4tsp caster sugar

For the chicken and rice:
300g brown rice
600ml chicken stock
4 slices of fresh ginger root plus a little for grating
1 tbsp oil
1 onion thinly sliced
400g leftover roast chicken shredded
6 large cabbage leaves
2 carrots finely sliced
A handful of mint leaves, torn
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Start by making the nuoc cham by mixing all of the ingredients together in a small bowl. Set to one side

2. Put the rice, sliced ginger, seasoning and stock in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Put the lid on and reduce the heat and leave to simmer gently for about 40 mins. Do not stir but if the rice starts to stick add a little boiling water. Remove the ginger slices, add a little finely grated ginger and set aside with the lid on.

3. When the rice is almost cooked fry the onions in a little oil until golden and slightly caramelised. Set to one side.

4. Stir fry the carrots for a couple of minutes. Add the cabbage and the chicken and cook until heated through.

5. Stir the chicken and veg into the rice and share between 4 plates. Top each one with the onions and mint leaves. Serve with the nuoc cham.

Gorgeous Slow Cooked Duck Pasta Courtesy of Jamie Oliver

I never used to like duck and not just because I was a vegetarian for most of my teenage years. I always thought it was a bit of a fatty meat. Roll forward a few years and duck is a real treat, the breast served pink, the leg as duck confit or this gorgeous pasta dish from Jamie Oliver. It's not at all difficult but does take a very long time so it's best to give it a go when you need to be at home for the day anyway or even roast the duck the day before. It's great to impress friends in an understated way. I'm still staying at my parents and on Friday had this for dinner.

The first time I make a recipe I always try to follow it exactly, but as I have made this a few times I have tweaked Jamie's recipe a bit so I hope he doesn't mind!

You start by slow roasting the duck. For four people I only use half a duck but use the same amount of sauce as Jamie recommends. Mainly due to the cost of duck and that I think there is still plenty of meat for four people. If you were using wild duck you'd need more, probably a whole one.

Next, it's time to make a yummy tomato sauce with pancetta and cook it for about an hour until it is quite thick and all the flavours have melded together. Jamie then says to add the shredded duck and cook for half an hour but I think it needs more like an hour. Ten minutes before the end add sultanas and pine nuts. They aren't critical but add a good extra dimension.

Once the sauce is nearly cooked it's time to put the pasta on. Again I use much less than Jamie says, 300g for 4 people, which is more than enough served with a bit of salad. Cook the pasta until it is al dente, drain (retaining some of the cooking water) and stir the pasta into the sauce. Finish the dish by taking it off the heat and stirring in the orange zest (careful to get just the orange outer part of the skin not the white pith as it's very bitter) and juice (I only use half of the orange and still think it tastes very orangey, but taste it and add a whole one if you think you need it), chopped parsley, a good slosh of vinegar, butter and Parmesan. Give it a good stir adding a little of the pasta cooking sauce if it's a bit thick. Serve with more grated parmesan on the top and a green salad.

Here are the photos of the finished dish.





Recipe for Gorgeous slow-cooked duck pasta from Cook with Jamie

1 duck (or leftover roast duck)
olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground pepper
1 orange
1 lb pasta (rigatoni or occhi di lupo work well)
2 knobs of butter
1 large handful of freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus extra for serving
a small bunch of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
zest and juice of 1 orange
red wine vinegar
For the sauce:
olive oil
6 slices of pancetta, finely diced
1 red onion, peeled and finely diced
2 carrots, peeled and finely diced
2 sticks of celery, trimmed and finely diced
6 springs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked and finely chopped
1 stick of cinnamon
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
2x14 oz cans of good quality plum tomatoes
1/2 a 750 ml bottle of fruity red wine (Valpolicella of Barbera works well)
chicken stock
a handful of raisins
a large handful of pinenuts
Preheat the oven 350ºF/180C
Stuff a duck with a quartered orange; rub the outside with olive oil, salt, and pepper; and roast, breast-side down in a roasting pan, for two hours, turning every 30 minutes. Let it cool, and pull off all the meat.
Pour some olive oil into a large pot. Fry the diced pancetta until golden. Add red onion, carrots, celery, rosemary, cinnamon stick, and sliced garlic cloves. Cook slowly until it all softens up (about 10 minutes). Add the plum tomatoes and red wine. Let simmer for about an hour. Shred the duck meat and add it to the sauce. Cook for another half hour, adding water or chicken stock if it becomes dry. Remove the cinnamon stick, and add a handful each pine nuts and golden raisins. Continue to simmer while the pasta cooks.
Cook the pasta in plenty of boiling, salted water. Drain (preserving some of the cooking water).
Toss the pasta into the sauce. Remove from the heat and stir in a knob of butter, a handful of grated Parmesan, the zest and juice of 1 orange, chopped parsley, and a splash of red wine vinegar.
Loosen the sauce with the reserved cooking water if necessary. Check seasonings. Served with parmesan.

Autumnal Soups

I intended on posting this last night in order to keep up with my aim of writing a post everyday for a week but unfortunately ran out of time.

I always love soups, especially for lunch, but as the weather starts to turn autumnal soups come into their own. Warming and filling they are decidedly satisfying.

I made three batches of soup which I have optioned up and put in the freezer to take out for lunches either at work or home.

As most of my previous posts I'm afraid I haven't got a 'proper' recipe'. I have a tendency when cooking to cook by tasting as I go and experimenting with flavours I know complement each other, borrowing from memories of recipes I may have followed at some point in the past.

The first soup I made was a Spiced Pumpkin Soup with Mint Yoghurt. I started by peeling and roasting a pumpkin with 2 onions and 3 cloves of garlic (I know this sounds a lot but once roasted it takes on a lovely sweet and mellow flavour). I then added this to a large pan with some homemade chicken stock I had in the freezer, some ground chilli, cumin, corrinader, turmeric and garam masala (which I had dry fried for a few seconds first) and seasoned it well. I left it simmering for about 30 mins and the. cooled slightly before blending it until smooth. Taste to check the seasoning and add more if needed.

It's great served with a generous blob of mint yoghurt (I use Greek yoghurt mixed with chopped mint and seasoning).






A couple if years ago I went on a wonderful cooking course in a farmhouse in the hills just north of Rome, Italy http://www.cookitaly.it/recipes.htm

Twice daily the cook came down from the village to teach us to cook and this soup is one of the recipes I've made many times since. The original had a small potato in it added at the beginning and some risotto rice added about 15 mins before the end so feel free to revert to the original. The result is a very thick, filling soup so could even be eaten as a light dinner.

You start by frying a diced carrot, onion, celery tops and a clove of garlic in a pan. Once slightly browned and softened add a cup of dried green lentils, about 5 diced cherry tomatoes, seasoning and about a litre of stock. Simmer for about 45 mins, checking if more liquid is needed every so often. It should be thick by the end but you don't want it to dry out or burn on the bottom of the pan. About 5 mins before the end add another 5 diced cherry tomatoes and a handful of chopped parsley. Check the seasoning and serve.






The final soup I made was a Chicken, Vegetable and Barley soup. I love barley anyway and think it's a wonderful grain but in something like this simple soup it comes into it's own.

I started by sautéing finely diced carrot, onion and celery as a base (the same idea as an Italian sofritto) I then added a crushed garlic clove, a cup of barley, seasoning a handful of shredded roast chicken (don't worry you really don't need a lot) and about a litre of brown chicken stock (this is made by taking the carcass from a roast chicken and putting it back in the own until the bones and any remaining chicken are quite brown. The carcass is then boiled in plenty of water for an hour or so to make a very tasty stock. You can also add veg to the stock pot but on this occasion I didn't). Cook this for about 45 mins until the barley is soft. Check every so often that there is enough liquid and add more water if necessary. About 5 mins before the end add a handful of chopped parsley.

Sorry for the less than pretty serving bowl but this was ready to go into the freezer when I thought to take a photo!