Ginger & Oyster Sauce Chicken Stir Fry

This is just another take on a stir fry with some slightly different flavours.
All the usual ingredients, carrots, mixed peppers, baby corn on the cob, sugar snap peas, spring onions, cashew nuts and obviously chicken! 
I chop ginger into slithers so they cook through but give a good hit when you bite into one. I use dried whole chillies for this dish too. When it's all nearly cooked add a good quality oyster sauce and a dash of water, heat through and serve!

When it comes to Asian cooking ingredients it really is worth a visit to your local Asian supermarket. Choose the oyster sauce with the highest content of oyster extract that you can and don't be scared - it's not in the slightest bit fishy!

Lemon & Herb Chicken | Courgettes | Sweet Potato Chips

This dinner was much nicer than it looks and is again very simple!
Cook chicken in a small amount of oil, once cooked squeeze in the juice of 2 lemons and sprinkle with dried mixed herbs. Leave to sizzle for 30 seconds and served.

Served with grilled courgettes with cherry tomatoes and sweet potato chips. 

Chicken | Mushroom & Cream Sauce | Vege

Fairly simple to do - cut up chicken breasts into large pieces, put in a frying pan with chopped onions and mushrooms and a small amount of olive oil and cook! Add stock and cream at the last minute and it will take up all the flavour from the pan.
I served this with cabbage, green beans and sweet potato mash. 

Break the Rules Chocolate Cake

It was Grants birthday and you have to break the rules sometimes! He loves cake and seen as we don't usually eat cake I wanted to make him a really good one that would be worth all the sugar! I found this Mary Berry recipe and it was lovely. I find a lot of chocolate cakes can be dry but this was wasn't at all - I'll definitely make it again!

For the recipe CLICK HERE

Five Spice Steak | Salad

This is one of my favourite meals and is taken from the Jamie Olive 15 minute meals book. It really is one of the nicest meals I think we have at home. 

I make a few changes as below:

I use Sirloin instead of Rump

I don't add noodles.

I use ginger puree instead of pickled ginger

Chicken | Mediterranean Veg | Sweet Potato Mash

I had some left over tinned tomatoes so I mixed up chicken dish with mushrooms, red peppers and spinach. All the pan with the chicken and add the tinned tomatoes, basil and chilli and cook through. Very simple and quick and gorgeous with sweet potato mash!
You can add whatever veg you have to make this dish, courgettes would be good.

If you haven't made sweet potato mash before you are missing a trick, it's so easy and really tasty:

Put the sweet potatoes in the microwave for about 5 minutes, turn, then put back in for a further 3 - 5 minutes or until soft to squeeze.
Slice down the middle and scrape out the middle with a spoon, mix with salt, pepper and a knob of butter. No masher required!

Beef Meatballs | Sweet Potato Chips | Salad

We bought some lovely beef mince from our local farmers market so wanted to make the best of it!
Simply made meatballs with finely chopped onion, salt and pepper - no egg or flour required!

Served with sweet potato chips with chilli on, plenty of salad and a bit of humus on the side.

Really quick & easy and not a simple carb in site! 

Red Thai Curry | Quinoa

I made a Red Thai Curry with the left over roast chicken, I used mange tout, baby corncobs and for the first time, baby aubergines as they use these in Thailand. They were lovely, I'd recommend them! 

I use 'Mae Ploy' red thai paste, it is the best and most authentic by a long long way. It's cheaper, lasts for ages and is easily found in the World food isle in most supermarkets. 
I also use creamed coconut in block form rather than tinned coconut milk. It is a little more time consuming as you have to dissolve it but its worth it in my opinion and is 100% pure coconut rather than the tinned milk, which has plenty of additives!

Served with Quinoa to soak up the sauce!

Roast Chicken | Corn Cob | Red Pepper Salsa

Roast Chicken - a whole chicken always tastes so much better and you can get another couple of meals out of it too. 
Corn on the Cob
Salad
Red Pepper and Basil Salsa - recipe here:

I roasted the chicken with 2 onions cut into large chunks. Once cooked, I removed the onions and used them for the salsa along with the below
2 roasted red peppers - the jarred variety are fine
1 handful of fresh basil leaves
1 teaspoon of capers
4 cherry tomatoes
1 red chilli - use less if you don't like it spicy!
Salt & Pepper

Chop all the ingredients into smallish pieces and mix together. This is so simple and really tasty, it's a really nice summery take on roast chicken! 

Chilli & Courgette Lasagne | No Pasta

With my left over Chilli I made this lasagne inspired dish. 
Instead of making a bechamel sauce like in standard lasagne, I used grated cheddar and chunks of mozzarella which means I avoided using flour. I definitely didn't miss out on any flavour by not using the standard sauce.
I used thinly sliced courgettes (lengthways) instead of pasta sheets and just layered it all up until there was none left.
Put in the over until golden and bubbling!