Okay so this week I am going to turn over a new leaf. I have been lax with planning and even worse at preparing the planned food so I am going to make a real effort to try and get a full week on plan.
This should help me get rid of those few unwanted pounds before the winter really starts creeping in. I really have no excuse because I have all the food I could possibly need in the house but just have not cooked it.
A reasonably successful week was had everything went well barring the incident with the slow cooker that burned tea and rather than a fish pie on Sunday we ended up with Fish FInger Sandwiches or my “Something Simple.” We followed the plan almost to the letter!
So this week I am home all week and hopefully will be cooking something decent every day. I know it is Wednesday but at least I am getting planning.
STARRY PIE – CHICKEN, MUSHROOM & LEEK PIE
Starry Pie
Ingredients – (Serves 4 easily, 6 if you add potatoes as a side dish)
2 Chicken breasts cut into bite sized pieces
1 large Leek
4 large Portobello mushrooms
1 large onion
1 teaspoon garlic (I use lazy garlic – about 1 clove if you use the proper thing)
3 eggs hard boiled
Sauce ingredients:
300ml milk use more if you want a thinner sauce
2 tblsp butter
2 tblsp flour
1 tsp Mustard powder (English mustard)
100g Cheese (to suit your taste, I use Mature Cheddar)
In a little oil fry the onion in a pan adding a teaspoon of chopped garlic. When browned add the chicken and fry those off until they are almost done, add chopped leek and chopped mushroom. Cut the mushroom into bite sized pieces or slices if you prefer). Once the leek has softened and the liquid from the mushrooms has almost cooked off transfer the filling to the pie dish.
Cut the boiled egg into quarters and arrange them on top of the filling in the pie dish.
Melt the butter in a pan and when melted add the flour and mix together to make a roux. Add the milk little by little mixing in continuously to keep the sauce smooth. To this add 1 level teaspoon of English mustard powder (more depending on how you like it). Once you have added all the milk and the sauce has thickened nicely take it off the heat and add about 100g cheese.
Pour sauce over the top of the filling ensuring you have covered it fairly evenly.
Top with pastry of your choice, I used pre-rolled puff pastry and brushed beaten egg over the top of the pie using a pastry brush.
Bake in the oven at 200°C (220°C in a non fan assisted oven) until golden and puffed up. (If in doubt use the pastry baking guidelines on the packaging.)
Serve with your choice of vegetables.
YORKSHIRE PUDDINGS
Using this recipe exactly I pointed each pudding at 1 Weight Watchers Pro-Point.
My easy to make recipe for Yorkshire Puddings – I have never yet had a failure.
Ingredients – Makes 12
Preheat oven to 200°C (mine is a fan assisted oven so I would suggest 220°C on normal ovens and Gas 8 or 9 on Gas ovens)
Using a cupcake tin (old one) add 1 tsp oil to each of the 12 cavities and put this in the oven as you start warming it up.
In a bowl or shaker mix together plain flour, eggs and milk (I use skimmed milk).
You can add a pinch of salt but I don’t because I find I eat these with gravy so don’t need any additional salt.
Refrigerate until you need the mixture – you can make it the day before if you want to. Once the oil is hot, pour in the mix evenly into the 12 cavities.
Try to do this quickly and don’e let too much heat out of the oven.
Bake them for about 20 to 25 minutes until they are light to medium brown and they have puffed up.
If they look ready I would wait another few minutes before opening the oven just to make sure. If you want to make more, my recipe changes slightly:
Ingredients – for 24 puds
I should have know than planning last week would not be easy to stick to, what with going back to work! Still I did try but success was not really ever going to be an option if I was truly honest. I also did not make my Weight Watchers meeting because I was visiting London. Still this was probably a good thing as I have found that I am shovelling food in my face at a speed of knots! I would do better doing a review of the restaurants I ate at last week.
Wilbur's Mum 