Chicken risotto in the pressure cooker

Today I have tried to cook a couple of meals to have ready to go in the fridge this week.  One of them was using up a Maggi Pressure cooker meal mix I have had in the cupboard for a while.  It certainly was a quick and easy meal to make.  I doubled the amount of chicken the packet suggest and went easy on the baby spinach (knowing I will be pulling it our for some of my customers).  It tastes pretty good although a bit bland.  In comparison it has nothing on the Chicken cacciatore risotto that I often make, nor the bacon and leek risotto I have also blogged about before. 

This week's food is bought to you by...

A big pantry clean out which found a number of recipe bases stashed away and two books that I picked up at the second hand book stall at the school fair.

Today I have tried the pikelets from the Women's Weekly book.  They are made with wholemeal flour so will be in the lunch boxes this week.  There were quite a few other baking recipes in there I would love to try, but I had run out of eggs. My online shop is due tomorrow evening.

Menu plan - back to pen and paper

Oh dear, I am struggling to regain control of our menu plan!!  I visited the lovely shop Typo on the weekend and fell in love with their on-the-fridge menu plan.  I have also seen these at Kikki K.  You can also make up your own or there are plenty of free downloads online.  Anyway I have decided to stop regularly publishing my menu plans online each fortnight.  Do not fear, I will post them from time to time.  It's just that I much prefer blogging about recipes and tips than menu plans!

Not to mention you can always choose the menu plan label link on the left of the blog to review any one of my many menu plans already published.

Don't click unsubscribe and stay tuned because I still have plenty of recipes on my "to try" list!

Taking stock

Having large containers of stock in the pantry is essential.  But most of the recipes I cook, I always end up with some left over.  If I am clever with my planning I pre-empt this and cook two different dishes requiring stock close together to make the best use of it.  I hate having to throw leftovers out!  Of course most people know you can freeze stock and many people suggest ice cube trays.  I prefer freezing in 1/2 or 1 cup quantities personally because that is how much I am likely to need at a later date.

Be careful, I only recently read up on freezing and re-heating home made meat-based stock, and it is more complicated than the store bought variety.  There are a variety of use by options and methods on line.  I read through loads and the most important thing I think I learnt was to remember to not freeze the meal you end up making with it.  Now I am no expert of food safety, so if you are not sure about this make sure you read up on it too!

Plenty of parsnips

Sorry readers, life is hectic at the moment so I apologise for the reduction in posts.  I had planned a great chocolate cake post over the weekend, but alas it fell apart in the tin.  Hopefully version 2 will be more succesful.

But last week I was the recipient of 15 lovely parsnips.  After baking them with a roast one night, and still having plenty left over, Pip offered the suggestion of baking them with leeks and bacon.  Now I am a firm believer that most dishes that include leeks and bacon have to be a bit of alright, so I gave it a whirl.

• 6 large parsnips, peeled and chopped into chunks (3-5 cm)
• 500g bacon cut chunky (about the same size as the parsnip)
• 2 leeks cut into 5 cm lengths
• 1 tsp honey
• olive oil

1. Put oven on to about 160 C
2. Line a large baking dish with baking paper
3. Mix together parsnips, bacon and leeks in baking dish (stand the leeks upright)
4. Drizzle over very finely the honey
5. Drizzle with olive oil
6. Cover dish with aluminium foil
7. Bake for about 2 hours (keep checking it and make sure the oil covers the veges evenly)
8. Remove the foil for the last 30 minutes

We ate this as a side dish with a bbq and salad.  It was a lovely change from potato salad or potato bake.  Highly recommended. Thanks for the help Pip!

Baked cheesecake

I made this Baked Lemon Cheesecake last week to take to a friend's place for dinner.  If you think cheesecake is on your too hard list, think again.  You can't really get much simpler than this recipe and its great for the hip pocket (but maybe not the hips).  I'm going to try it next time with some violet crumble instead of the lemon.

Cream cheese is a great thing to keep stashed in the fridge, it usually has a really long used by date.  Same thing with some arrowroot or other plain type biscuits.  These are some simple ingredients that you can have on hand to make some scrumptious desserts.