Yellow Thai-ish Chicken and Vegetable Curry.

Ingredients

• 400g chicken thighs $7.75
• 500g pumpkin $1.24
• 1/2 small cauliflower $2.19
• Bunch of coriander $2.45
• 3 Shallots $1.50
• Knob of ginger $0.80
• Sweet potato $1.41
• 1 stalk lemon grass $1.98
• 2 green chillies $0.65
• tsp coriander seeds $0.25
  
• tsp cumin seeds $0.25
  
• tsp ground turmeric $0.50
  
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon $0.05
• 2 cloves garlic $0.50
  
• Coconut cream 400ml $2.19
• 2 Roti $2.00
  Total $24.71
  

Method

1. Dice pumpkin, and sweet potato, par boil until nearly tender.
2. Break cauliflower up into florets
3. Grind spices
4. Roughly chop shallots, lemon grass, chilli, garlic toss in blender with spices and process until it forms a paste.
   
   
5. Slice chicken up into strips and fry in a deep pan with a little oil.
6. When brown remove from pan and toss in paste and fry until it smells nice.
7. Pour in the coconut milk and stir.
8. Dump in chicken and vegetables and stir until everything is hot.
9. Chop up coriander and stir through curry. Season with salt or fish sauce if you like.
   
10. Serve with roti to sop up the juices.

Time to cook: 40 minutes
Family Verdict: Vegies were a little firm, would have been better if they were softer. Wife ate the lot, 4 year old liked the curry wrapped up in roti and the 2 year old just ate whatever I stuck in his mouth. All in all a success.

Linguini with smoked chicken, asparagas and brocolli

Ingredients

• 2 skin on smoked chicken breasts $7.15
• 200g linguini $0.98
• Tin of anchovies $4.25
  
• 2 cloves of garlic $0.25
  
• 400g broccoli head $2.50
  
• 10 spears of asparagus $2.49
• dash of cream $0.50
• splash of chicken stock $0.50
  Total $18.62
  
  

Method

1. Stick an enormous pot of well salted water on to boil
2. Chop the chicken into bits, the broccoli into florets and the asparagus into slices.
3. When the water is boiling fiercely, stick the veges in small batches to blanch and turn bright green. Run them under cold water when you are done to stop them from cooking further. I think it does something chemically to the chlorophyll to keep 'em a pretty green when you finish cooking them later.
4. Put the pasta in to cook when you are done
5. Chop the anchovies and the garlic into a fine mince.
6. Fry off in a little oil (I used the oil from the anchovy tin) until the anchovies dissolve and the garlic is soft.
7. Chuck in the chicken and fry until a little browned.
8. Deglaze pan with chicken stock and add in vegetables and cream and heat through.
9. When the pasta is done drain (save a little pasta water just in case you need to loosen the sauce later) and pour into the sauce, stir through to coat all the pasta.
10. Serve with garlic bread.

Time to cook: 20 minutes
Family happiness: All and sundry ate with gusto.
Leftovers: 1 serve.

"Plenty of Pre Packaged Produce" Pasta

Ingredients

• 500g pre-packaged pasta $3.98 (I used chicken and mushroom ravioli)
  
• 500g chicken thighs $6.85 (no free range here)
• 200g swiss browns $3.98
• splash of stock $0.25
• 100g cheddar $2.20
  
• 100g colby $1.50
  
• 100g parmesan $3.50
• 250ml cream $1.28
• 1/2 pre-packaged garlic bread $1.98
• 1/2 head garlic $0.50 (special from the market)
  Total $25.49 (had another meal leftover though)
  

Method

1. Stick garlic bread in oven to melt/crisp up.
2. Chop up chicken thighs into very small bits
3. Slice mushrooms
4. Finely chop garlic
   
   
5. Fry the chicken thighs in a little olive oil (very little, they'll render out a fair bit of fat themselves). Make sure you let them get carmelised, otherwise they will taste insipid. Season them when they are about done.
6. Put the pasta in piles of salted water to cook.
   
7. Remove from pan and crank the pan up to stupid heat, toss in a pile of butter, the garlic and a splash more olive oil and fry the mushrooms. If they aren't sizzling they are stewing, so remove some from the pan to get the heat back up. Season the 'shrooms just before they are done and remove from pan.
8. Deglaze pan with splash of stock and dump in cream
9. Stir in cheeses and melt.
10. Add 'shrooms, chicken and cooked pasta into the pan and heat through.
11. If you've got it garnish with parsley (I didn't)

Time to cook: 20 minutes
Family contentedness: 2 year old had to be helped but ate it all, 4 year old ate the garlic bread then declared he didn't like mushrooms and had to be cajoled into eating the lot (which he did), wife ate the lot and reluctantly shared garlic bread with 4 year old.
Leftovers: another meal for 4 (sans garlic bread)

Spiced Sausage Rolls

Ingredients

• 500g lamb mince $7.00
• 3 sheets puff pastry $4.89
• 3 carrots $0.75
• 1/2 cabbage $1.20
• 3 spring onionds $0.50
• Bunch of mint $2.45
• 2 cloves of garlic $0.50
• Mayo $1.00
• 1 egg $0.50
  
• Dips: (didn't use much so not full price)
  hummus $1.00
  spring onion $1.00
  tzaziki $1.00
  
• Spices: $2.00 (*shrug*)
  hot paprika 1tsp
  tumeric 1/2 tsp
  cinnamon 1/2 tsp
  nutmeg 1/2 tsp
  allspice 1/2 tsp
  ginger 1/2 tsp
  cummin 1/2 tsp
  coriander 1/2 tsp
  Total $23.79
  

Method

1. Toast and grind whole spices.
   
   
2. Make a coleslaw, I used the food processor then clean it out
3. Process mint, lamb, garlic, 1 carrot (2 others were for the slaw) until finely minced.
4. Roll into logs and place onto pastry, I cut each sheet in half so I ended up with 6. Roll up pastry and brush with egg and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
   
5. Bake in oven for 15-20 @ 200c
6. Serve with slaw and an assortment of dips.
   

Time to prepare: A suprising 50 minutes
Family Contentedness: 2 year consumed everything in sight and was spotted removing the pastry from the meat so he could get at just that, 4 year old consumed with a minimum of whining, albeit slathered with tomato sauce, with a little wheedling he ate the slaw too. Wife came looking for more.
Inspiration: Lifted lock stock and barrel from the pages of the sept 2008 delicious magazine.

Veal Saltimbocca or was that marsala

Ingredients

• 400g veal "schnitzel" $11.00
• 4 slices prosciutto $3.20
• 1 bunch sage $2.45
• 1 bunch carrots $1.90
• 1 bunch brocollini $2.30
• 2 squash $2.10
• 50g butter $0.50
• 100 ml white wine $2.00 (yep the picture has marsala, I changed my mind mid-cook)
  
• 1 lemon free from the tree
  Total $25.45
  

Method

1. Cut the veal into equal size pieces and pound the crap out of it to make it uniformly 5mm thick.
2. Slice the veg up into roughly equal sized pieces. I like to cut the carrots lengthwise.
   
3. Pick and place sage leaves on veal and then cover with prosciutto. Fold a corner over and pound some more to hold things in place.
   
   
4. Lightly coat both sides of the veal in well seasoned flour and fry in a little olive oil, start with the prosciutto side down over a medium heat.
5. In another pan, heat some oil and chuck in the veg.
   
6. When the veal is nice and brown, flip it and crank up the heat.
7. Pour about 50ml of water into the veg pan and cover to allow steam to soften the veg.
   
8. With the veal still in the pan, deglaze with the juice of the lemon and the white wine.
9. Once it starts to boil, turn down the heat and stir in the butter. (note it's important to let it split, like I did. Umm, that's a joke, I messed up it looks ugly but still tastes okay)
   
   
10. Toss the garlic in the veg pan and turn off the heat.
11. Season the sauce and serve.
    

Time to cook: 20 minutes
Family Contentedness: 2 year old scoffed the lot, he seemed to really like the softness of the veal; 4 year old whined about a sore tummy (4 year old speak for I don't like the look of that) and had to be cajoled into eating it, wouldn't touch the squash at all; wife is 24 weeks pregnant now so small meals are the go, but she liked the lemony bite to the sauce.

Chicken with Thyme and tomato

Ingredients

• 400g free range chicken thighs $8.90
• 800ml tomato passata $2.95
• 1 bunch thyme $2.45
• 400g cannelini beans $1.85
• 1/2 Garlic bread (I cheated and bought it) $2.45
  Total $18.60
  

Method

1. Trim the chicken things of excess fat
2. Whack garlic bread in preheated oven.
   
3. Strip 5-10 sprigs of thyme to make about 3 tbps of leaves and chop 'em up.
   
4. Fry thighs until nice and brown in a little olive oil, flavour the oil with a few springs of thyme if you like, use a big pan and be sure to remove the sprigs when the chicken is done
   
5. Pour in the passata and bring to the boil
   
   
6. Add the chopped thyme leaves.
7. When the tomato is good and thick, stir in the beans and heat through.
8. Serve with garlic bread for sauce sopping.

Time to prepare: 20 mins
Family happiness: 2 year old slurped it up and came looking for more (be careful he doesn't gag on any of the sprigs of thyme if you miss any, mine did), 4 year turned up his nose at the beans and ate the chicken, passata and garlic bread. Wife seemed happy, but she had it nuked so not really a reasonable test.

Pad Thai Lie

Not an authentic pad thai, hence the name, but tasty and quick none the less.
Ingredients

• 400g free range chicken thighs $7.20
• 1 capsicum $0.75
• 1 head brocolli $1.80
• 50g chopped peanuts $1.00
• 100g beanshoots $1.50
• 1 bunch coriander $2.45
• Rice noodles 400g $2.99
• 2 cloves garlic $0.50 (did end up using it)
  
• 1 stick celery $0.40
• 1/2 jar pad thai paste $2.45 (I used asia at home brand, seems to be free of numbered ingredients and actually consists of the stuff I'd use to make the sauce albeit with a lot more sugar)
  
• 8 snow peas $1.20
  Total $22.24
  

Method

1. Slice up all the veg into smallish bits, I like to cut on the bias to give more surface area to collect sauce and char.
2. Soak noodles in hot water to separate
3. Slice chicken thighs into strips.
4. Chop coarsely the coriander
   
   
5. In batches stir fry the chicken until 95% cooked, remove from heat and keep warm
6. In batches stir fry the veg, except bean shoots, until tender.
7. Add chicken back to pan (all at once) and stir in sauce.
8. Add veg back to pan and add more sauce.
9. When chicken is done, add noodles and mix.
10. When noodles are hot, remove from heat and stir through bean shoots and peanuts
    

Time to cook: 15 minutes
Family happiness: 4 year old eats chicken, noodles and veg avoiding the bean shoots; 2 year old won't feed himself with this but happily eats when fed (BTW 2 year olds don't really chew their food so bean shoots tend to trigger the gag reflex when they try and swallow); wife gobbles and comes looking for more.