Made this tasty and very quick to cook sausage casserole, posted by my friend Simon Burgess on Facebook.
Category: Recipes
The Different Daily Dish Challenge of 2021
Apparently my wife(Bronwyn), was getting tired of my request for chicken pie and mash potato every few evenings, so she requested that we challenge ourselves to eat a different dish for dinner every day for a month. I think she also wanted to improve and/or expand her cooking skills. The rules were simply that when together we must have a different dish every day for dinner. The only exception being if one of us were away from the house, then you’re allowed to eat what you like. As it was November 2020 with a Tier 4(which soon became a Tier 5) Lockdown in London and there weren’t any pubs, restaurants or entertainment venues legally open + both of us would be in the house most nights(aka trapped with no excuse or escape), so 1st December seemed like a good time to start this challenge.
Update: We made it to 4 months (March 31st) and now Bronwyn wants a month off for some chicken pie 😀
We managed to get through the first month without many problems, I did happen to be away for dinner a couple of nights(caring for my mother), so had Fish & Chips), but other than that it was quite fun and rewarding to try to think up and cook such a variety of meals. I then suggested we carry this on to make the challenge 3 months long, as that should be much more challenging, so we did.
Once we hit the 3 month barrier, I then wondered if there was some kind of World Record for this, but haven’t found the answer yet. Anyways we’ve decided to keep going and maybe try to travel the world – so far we’ve been to England, Scotland(Hogmanay), Wales(St.David’s Day), France, China, Japan, Korea, Israel, Italy, Spain, Morocco, Turkey, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, the Caribbean, . Any suggestions or comments are welcome 😀
Here are the meals we have eaten so far :
December 2020
Dec 1 Chicken Kiev
Dec 2 Pork loins with cous cous
Dec 3 Dry Chicken noodles
Dec 4 Spaghetti Bologonese with pork mince
Dec 5 Venison and beef special anniversary dinner at The Richmond Hill Hotel 🙂
Dec 6 Left-over bologonese mix but with salad + jacket potatoes
Dec 7 Thai green curry
Dec 8 James’ nice chicken/celery pie + pastry top
Dec 9 Dominoes Pizza
Dec 10 X Ate separately (James had pie & pizza left-overs, Bronwyn Steak & Ale Pukka Pie).
Dec 11 Beef meatballs with harissa sauce
Dec 12 Chinese from The Chef takeaway
Dec 13 Beef brisket roast
Dec 14 James’ Israeli chicken Sofrito
Dec 15 X James ate at the Wetherspoons pub before lockdown and had a panini.
Dec 16 X James ate Fish n’chips with his Mum.
Dec 17 Pork shepherds pie
Dec 18 Chicken, olive + tomato + potatoes bake
Dec 19 Indian Cottage takeaway
Dec 20 Katsu curry by James
Dec 21 Pork chops with mashed potato and carrots
Dec 22 Sausage casserole by James
Dec 23 Beef burgers from mince by the Bronwyn
Dec 24 Gammon and pease pudding
Dec 25 Christmas turkey + vegetables + trimmings 😀
Dec 26 Turkey stew by James
Dec 27 Turkey curry
Dec 28 Turkey casserole
Dec 29 Chilli con carne
Dec 30 Fallafel and cous cous salad (James)
Dec 31 Roast lamb leg
James’ Chickpea & Chicken Curry Recipe
This is a fine and most nice tasting chickpea curry recipe. Invented this back in 2018 by modifying two recipes for chickpea curry from the BBC Good Food website – motivation was having an old tin of chickpeas in the cupboard and they are meant to be very healthy etc.
Cook time: about 45mins.
Peruvian Chicken with Chilli Rice & Potato Chip Slices
On a random outing to Shoreditch last year, I was given a packet of Schwarz Peruvian Street Food spice mix! Finally decided to use it last night and here is the result – Peruvian Chicken with chilli rice & potato chip slices. It turned out to be remarkably tasty and good food.
Leek and Venison Shepherd’s Pie
Ingredients:
1 x onion chopped
1 x leek sliced
2-3 cloves of garlic chopped
2 x carrots sliced
2 x celery sticks sliced
300g Waitrose New Zealand Venison Mince
1 teaspoon Herbes de Provence
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon cornflower
approx half a pint of vegetable stock
some butter and oil for frying
6 x medium potatoes for the topping
Recipe
Had some frozen venison sitting in the freezer, so decided to make a venison shepherd’s pie. Takes about an hour to cook.
James’ Master Chef inspired paprika & ginger breadcrumbed chicken with Hasselback potatoes, carrots and onion in a cranberry gravy!
Originally made this on March 21st 2018. It might look a bit stodgy, but tastes fantastic!
Cook time = about 1 hour
Main Ingredients:
Chicken breast cut and flattened with a rolling pin. You can probably make two bits from one breast this way.
A large jacket potato or two.
One large carrot (peeled and chopped in two)
An onion
Bisto gravy granules, dash of Worcestershire sauce and some cranberry juice for gravy
An egg in a bowl to help coat the chicken
Chicken, carrot, onion and gravy pie de Chef James
I literally chucked this thing together and the result was a most top, tasty and delicate home-made pie!
try it out and impress your friends!
Serves about 2 people.
Ingredients:
1 x cooked chicken breast *
2 x carrots (peeled and sliced)
1 x large onion (diced)
1 packet of ready rolled filo pastry – or about 4-5 sheets!
Cooking oil – be it olive, sunflower, whatever, to brush over the pastry
2-3 tablespoons Bisto gravy granules
Optionally:
sprinkles of black pepper, Herbes de Provence
some thyme to garnish (if you have any spare)
Project Kapsalon aka Rotterdam kebab
Try this delicious Dutch recipe…
James’ Most Excellent Ham Noodle Stir Fry!
I was really in the mood for something quick and preferably noodles. I didn't have any peppers or bean sprouts, but thought I'd try see what I could cook up anyways. I also used a non-stick saucepan instead of a wok! Turned out to be delicious, perhaps even better than with the bean sprouts.
Ingredients (names/specifics are only here for reference, you can use what you like):
olive oil
1 small onion chopped
1 clove organic garlic chopped
half an organic carrot chopped
small dollop of tomato puree
some water 😉
1 x nest sharwoods noodles
1/3 lemon's juice
Blue Dragon oyster sauce
Blue Dragon soy sauce
Schwartz ground ginger
unrefined cane sugar
2 slices Morrison's carvery cooked ham
1/4 pack Morrison's simple side salad (endive, radicchio, carrot and cabbage).
Cooking The Dish
- heat non-stick saucepan with small amount of olive oil
add onions + garlic to pan, fry for 3mins
add 1/3 of the carrot
add a small amount of tomato puree (hey it was to hand) and mix
add some water and reduce heat to level 1 (quite low) - boil some water in another pan, add rest of carrots and when boiling, add noodles
cook noodles for 4mins
meanwhile remember to keep stiring the onions/garlic to stop them burning. - drain noodles/carrots and add them to the onions/garlic,
turn up the heat to max! 🙂 - stir liberally until onions are mixed in with noodles
- add a good tbsp oyster sauce and stir, adding water if it's getting a bit dry
add tsp of ginger, stir
add tsp soy sauce, stir
add half tbsp cane sugar, stir + add some water
add in 1/3 lemon's juice
add bit more oyster sauce and some water and stir til it's all hot again - add 2 slices ham, stir 🙂
- add handful salad mix for 1minute, stir again and stir/cook for one minute
- serve!
TA!DA!
P.S. I say tbsp/tsp but personally I just chucked it in the mix, guessing.
Wonderful Tasting Chicken Pasta
Just 'invented' a particularly wonderful tasting chicken pasta recipe that's extremely simple and quick to make! In fact it was so delicious tonight that I've decided to put it on here and list exactly what went into it 🙂
Ingredients
Some pasta from a 500g pack of Morrisons Organic Pasta (how much is up to you, usually approx 100g per person)
2 x sprays of Fry Light Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 x 400g tin Heinz Classic Cream of Tomato soup
2 pinches of Schwartz Basil
5 taps of Saxa Ground Black Pepper
Half the breast from a Morrisons cooked chicken with stuffing
Tablespoon or two of Morrisons Organic Cream
How To Cook:
1) add pasta to a pan of cold water, spray in oil (helps stop pasta sticking together)
2) bring to boil and cook pasta for 10minutes
3) drain pasta. Add tin of tomato soup. Simmer the soup for 30 seconds, add the basil and pepper. Stir.
4) Simmer for 2 mins, then add the chicken breast (tear into sizable chunks) and stir in.
5) Simmer for another minute and add the cream. Simmer for a further 5 mins.
6) Serve! YUM!
Comments
Yeah I know it's pretty obvious, but am I not a genius for using a tin of soup instead of a jar of pasta sauce, eh?! also the reason this is on here is cos tonight this stuff tasted better than anything I can remember that's resulted from a pasta sauce jar!
Morrisons Fan
Yes, as you can see I'm somewhat a fan of Morrisons stuff. I should start with their pasta – I don't know why, but Morrisons Organic Pasta (it comes in shells and twirls) tastes better than ordinary pasta, I don't know why, but it just does! try it if you don't believe me.
Their cooked chicken is also very nice and their beef(esp their Prime Sirloin) lamb and pork is known to be the best of any supermarket (I know someone who works for a government food agency and they tell me this too). Sainsbury's SO Organic meat is also pretty good. I'm not a hugely taken by Morrisons eggs, they're alright, but I get organic free-range farm eggs from a newsagent which are actually cheaper and better. Also Co-op bacon and sausages top the bunch for me.
Anyways hope you enjoy the recipe if you try it out.