Tarragon Chicken & Leek Pies

Based on the Chicken & Vegetable Pies at taste.com.au, only adapted for a slow cooker.

Tarragon Chicken & Leek Pies
1kg chicken thighs, cut into 2cm chunks
2 leeks, white part only, finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/3 cup white wine or water
2/3 cup chicken stock
2 large carrots, diced
400g baby potatoes, diced
200g mushrooms, sliced
3 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
1 cup frozen corn, cooked
300ml thick cream
100g baby spinach
8 sheets puff pastry, thawed

Toss the diced potatoes and carrots into your slow cooker. Top with the chicken, leeks, garlic and mushrooms. Pour the wine and stock over the top, and add the tarragon. Cook on LOW for 8 hours or HIGH for 4 hours.

Add the corn, cream, and spinach, and stir through until the corn has thawed. Preheat your oven to 200°C. Lay out each sheet of pastry on a oven tray lined with baking paper, with the corner pointing up. Drain some of the chicken mixture, and place in the centre of the pastry. Fold each corner over the chicken into the middle, to close the pie. Repeat with other pastry sheets and chicken mix.

Cook for 25 minutes or until golden. Extra pies can be frozen once cooked.

2 for 1 Creamy Lemon Chicken Pasta (Bake)

I know by now you are all aware that we are very fond of my Creamy Lemon Chicken Pasta, but tonight I made it slightly different, and more of it. I'm trying to get a buffer up, of a few meals that can feed all of us during the upcoming move. Moving is never fun, less so with children, and I'd prefer not to have to feed them junk every night while we settle in. This was surprisingly easy to expand into two meals, and what's easier than a frozen pasta bake, ready to pop into the oven?

2 for 1 Creamy Lemon Chicken Pasta (Bake)
500g pasta (we used hi-fibre spirals)
3 small carrots, sliced
2 small heads broccoli, cut into florets
200g mushrooms, sliced
175g bacon, diced
1 onion, diced
1 red capsicum, chunky diced
1 cup corn
1/2 cheese, + more for sprinkling
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 jar Chicken Tonight Creamy Lemon Chicken

Put some water on to boil for the pasta, add some salt to taste, and the carrots. Add the pasta when the water is boiling, and cook to preferred stage of 'doneness'. About 4 or 5 minutes before the pasta is done, throw the broccoli florets into the pasta water to cook gently. You have to time this well, as too long will result in soggy broccoli, but not long enough will result in semi raw broccoli. Err on the side of caution in which your family is most likely to eat. For instance, my kids will eat broccoli any way it comes, raw or mooshy, but Master One can't eat raw broccoli yet. So I tend to overcook rather than undercook my vegetables when I don't know what I'm doing. You get a feel for it eventually.

While the pasta and boiled vegies cook, fry the onion, bacon, capsicum, and mushrooms in a pan. Add the corn last if you are using frozen like I did, or whenever if using canned. If you are using fresh corn kernels, then you are a better mother/cook than me, and you should know how long it needs anyway :P
Once all that is browned and cooking away nicely, add the soup and sauce, and cook down until everything is cooked and smooth and yummy. You'll have to use your own discretion for this.

Drain the pasta and vegies, and tip back into the pot. Pour all the sauce into the pot, and mix to combine thoroughly. Dish out enough for everyone to eat that night. Then tip the rest into a disposable foil tray. Washing dishes, like cooking, is also something that isn't much fun while moving. And even if you aren't moving, it's always nice to have few dishes on a lazy dinner night.
Add the 1/2 cup of cheese and mix in well. Sprinkle a bit more cheese on the top if you like. Cover with foil, and cool before freezing.

Frozen pasta needs to be thawed, before baking at 180C until golden.

Ready for freezer. Note the anti-dishes foil tray

Don't forget to think (and cook!) pink for the Virtual Night In, raising money and awareness for Breast Cancer Research.

Empanadas

Look! Fancy folded edge and everything!

Tonight I made Empanadas. I've been wanting to make these for absolutely ages, but they kept getting put off as things cropped up. I was a little intimidated by the amount of work involved. Then I found this recipe for Beef and Sultana Empanadas over at Taste.Com.Au. The filling is simple, and it uses frozen shortcrust pastry. I followed the instructions, but somehow ended up with 24 instead of 18. So I have 14 in the freezer for an easy meal some other time. Everyone seemed to like them. Miss Two only ate one and a half, but that may have been because Master Four left the table, and she wanted to go play too. She certainly didn't seem hungry afterwards, and she said she liked them. Master Four ate three. My cold ones tasted good, but I didn't get back to the table in time for hot ones. I'll be making these again. And I don't just mean cooking the frozen ones either, I mean more batches. I liked these.

Don't forget the competition running over at The Martha Blog, there's some tips for newbie bloggers there too!

Bolognese ala SilverMoon

I went totally overboard with quantities, both with sauce (which I sort of planned, so I could freeze some) and the pasta itself. I ended up with enough pasta and sauce for tonight's meal and one full meal for all four of us to freeze, plus enough sauce to freeze for another meal on top of that.

Sauce level after serving dinner

Sauce level after putting aside leftover fettucine

Dinner is served!

Master Four gives it the Chin Seal of Approval

Miss Two wonders why her fingers are orange

Sauce for freezing

I don't know how I ended up with quite so much sauce, enough for three meals, when all I did was double my standard recipe

Basil & Cheese sausage rolls

Sausage Rolls
2kg sausage mince or 50-50 mince meat
2 cups breadcrumbs
2 large onions
4 celery sticks
2 cooking apples
1 large potato (opt.)
1 tbsp mixed herbs
dash pepper
dash garlic salt
1kg pkt puff pastry sheets (6 or 7 sheet pkt)

Place onions, celery, apples and potato in a food processor and mince very fine.
Place in a large bowl with the sausage mince, add breadcrumbs and mix thoroughly.
Cut pastry sheets in half and roll out a bit thinner, place sausage mince on pastry.
Wet it one side and roll into a large sausage. Cut into required lengths and bake in 220c oven for 35min.

That's the basic recipe. I've made these before, so I felt justified in tinkering a little. Not that they aren't very nice on their own mind you. But, you know me. I left out the optional potato, because we didn't have any, and used about 2, maybe 2 1/2 tbsps of chopped basil from a tube, to use it up. I skipped the mixed herbs. Then after mincing the vegetables, I realised I didn't have any breadcrumbs, so I made some with two slices of the bread I baked this morning. Fresh bread isn't ideal for breadcrumbs, but it seems to have worked ok. I also added a cup of grated cheese to the food processor while I was chopping the breadcrumbs, just for a change (and because it was in the fridge). A word of warning too - unless you roll the pastry enough (which is hard if the sheets are still too frozen, and harder if they've thawed to soggy stage) you'll need more than 6 sheets for this recipe. I used 8.

I baked my first trayful for the full 35 minutes, but I thought they were a bit dark, so the next lot came out after 23 minutes, and DP said they were too light. So the next lot I cooked for 28 minutes, and they were just right. This made 72 of varying sizes. We only ate 16 between the four of us for dinner, so the rest are going into the freezer for snack type foods and emergency dinners.

Bolognese ala SilverMoon

I posted the recipe for this the other day, coincidentally when it was cooked - tonight I just reheated a defrosted bag of sauce from the freezer. Well, mostly defrosted. Actually, that's not really true. I pulled the bag out of the freezer at 1pm, and by quarter to six, about 1cm deep all around was defrosted. But it was enough for me to be able to break it into chunks, which then defrosted in exactly the same amount of time it took for my big pot of salted water to boil for the pasta.

For DP and the kids, I served it as is, just topped with a little cheese, but in what was left I added a bit more salt and some freshly ground pepper, and a little squeeze of pre-chopped basil I had in a tube - not a usual purchase. That I dished up for housemate and myself, also topping with some grated cheese. Nothing extra special, but nice all the same.

The camera is due to arrive tomorrow, so hopefully this will be the last post with tiny, blurry pictures.

Cooking up a storm

Beef ragu

So with my cube steak that I had sitting waiting, I whipped up a little ragu. At least, I guess that's what you'd call it. Chopped an onion really chunkily, added a clove of Australian garlic (it's stronger than the foreign sort)and a slice of chucky chopped bacon and threw in the meat. Seasoned it with a hefty sprinkle of Season-All and about 1 teaspoon of curry powder. Added a can of diced tomatoes and a few bay leaves, and then thickened it up with some gravy powder. Smelt really good actually.

Then I made my family's favourite pasta sauce. It lends very well to freezing, and cokking straight from frozen with little advance warning, so it's a great standby to have. I made a double batch, with two lots of mince, but I'll give the recipe for a single batch, and you can double it, or adjust as you see fit.

Pasta sauce

SilverMoon's Pasta Sauce (Serves 4)
400g mince
1 onion, finely chopped
2-4 cloves of garlic, depending on size, strength, and love of garlic, chopped to preference
1 finely chopped short cut rindless rasher of bacon
1 medium sized zucchini, diced
5 or 6 (or 8, if you have that many) mushrooms, diced or sliced to your preference
1 can diced, peeled, tomatoes
1/2 jar pasta sauce or 3 tbsp tomato paste & 3 tbsp water (that the pasta cooked in if possible)

Melt a little butter in a large pan - not too much, but just enough to stop the bacon sticking to the pan. When pan is hot (don't burn the butter!) add the onion, garlic, bacon and zucchini, and stirring constantly, fry until golden. You can add the mushrooms at this point too, to get a lovely golden colour, but you'll need more butter, and I prefer to add them after the mince to soak up all those lovely pan juices. Clear a space in the pan directly above the flame, or where ever your pan is hottest, and add the mince, making sure to break it into small bits. Give it a bit of colour, then stir through the vegies, so nothing burns. Now add your mushrooms, as the meat will be starting to let off a lot of juices, and you don't really want this to be stewing just yet. Then add your tomatoes and sauce, and any seasonings, like rosemary, thyme, freshly ground salt and pepper, Season-All (yeah, I put that in everything lol). Let the lot simmer till you get your preferred consistency, or thicken with a little bit of gravy powder, or add more tomato paste if you used that/have any.

Serve over pasta, or let cool completely, then place in freezable containers/zip-loc bags and freeze. Tasty!

Cauliflower soup and homemade rolls

Cauliflower Soup
50g butter
1 onion
pinch of caraway seeds
50g plain flour
3 litres water.
3 beef cubes
1/2 cauliflower
1 potato

Melt butter, fry onion and seeds. Add flour, add water slowly. Crumble in beef cubes. Add vegies and mash all together. Cook until vegies are cooked and soup is thick.

At least, that's how my sister sent it to me in an email years ago. I usually don't try to mash the vegies before cooking them. I just boil the lot till the vegies are mushy, then use a stick blender in the pot (take the pot off the heat source first!), or if I'm feeling pedantic, I'll pour it in a blender. A blender needs to do a few batches, because this makes quite a bit of soup, and you have to be careful with hot liquids and blenders.

And to go with, I made rolls for the second time ever! Last year, for winter solstice, I made bread rolls from scratch, following the recipe on the back of the yeast box. They were so-so... didn't rise quite enough in our cold kitchen in the middle of winter.
Today, I just used my usual bread recipe, but used the dough setting on my bread maker, instead of bread. Since it was so hot, I had no problem getting them to rise. And they came out of the oven right before dinner... mmm, melty butter goodness!

Broccoli and Bacon Pasta Bake

I actually made this two weeks ago, but froze both batches. Since we were off at a birthday party this afternoon, I thought today would be a good day to try it. Yes, Master Three had his first non-family birthday party invite, and although Miss Two and I came along, it was still a big step. At least I thought so. I don't think he thought it was that significant. *sniff* My babies are growing up so quickly! They both had a ball though. Was a bit hot for me, but a very nice party.

Anyway, the dinner was nice, the top layer a tad overcooked - don't listen to my DP, this cannot go in the oven still frozen, even if there is no meat that could harbour salmonella. It just doesn't thaw/heat quickly enough, even in a fanforced oven. Ah well, there's still one in the freezer, so I'll know for next time. Was still pretty tasty, and once again, I seemed to be the only one who minded the single failing (in this case, a crunchy top layer so dehydrated it could pass for uncooked pasta). Like I said, shouldn't happen when thawed properly. Miss Two even had seconds! Master Three didn't eat much (must have had too many m&m's!) so she polished off his as soon as he left the table!

Cheesy ham and macaroni bake

Recipe here.
The recipe called for 2 1/2 cups of macaroni, making it 5 cups, since I was making a double batch. But unfortunately 500g only equals just under 4 cups. This might have been a little more filling with that little bit more pasta. Serves 8, my well padded posterior! But we discussed this over dinner, and since the recipe was for cold pasta slice for lunches, we allowed that lunch serves can be smaller since they come with fruit and a juice box, and that eating it hot might serve 4 adults. When feeding 3 adults and two toddlers, you'll need dessert.

Despite an initial refusal to eat from Master Three because it "smells yuck" (smelled fine to the rest of us) I had to act quick to get a close up, since I forgot before dishing up. Again. I think I need a post-it note or sign on my crockery cupboard reminding me to take a photo before dishing up. As you can see, you almost missed out. ;)

The second batch (which I actually cooked first, earlier this afternoon) is sitting in the freezer, and will make a nice light meal with dessert, perhaps fruit salad or something else not too greasy, to counteract all the cheese, or a rather hearty meal for us, on a night when the housemate is not home.

Pasta with cheese and chive bread

I'll be the first person to admit that I can be lazy. Ok, that I am lazy. But sometimes I can be lazy in particularly obtuse ways. Take this recipe for cheese and chive bread for instance.

It calls for the butter to be rubbed in to the flour using a food processor. Well, it doesn't say 'rubbed in' precisely, but I knew that's what they were talking about from back in my days of Tech Foods in high school. In a food processor, this would have taken all of five minutes right? Perfect for a lazy person. But here's the thing. I quite willingly spent about 20 minutes using the old fashioned bowl and wooden spoon method, not because I'm a tradionalist, or because we don't have a food processor in the house - we do, our housemate has a great one he never uses. No, it's because I was too lazy to a) clear a space on the bench for the thing, and b) put it all together, but mostly c) then have to wash all the itty bitty parts, instead of using a spoon and bowl I'd be getting dirty later in the recipe anyway. Yeah, it takes effort to be this slack.

Other than that, I followed the recipe pretty much spot on. While it was baking, I threw some leftover chopped chives in a pan with some chopped Australian garlic (the chinese lady at the fruit and veg shop said it was a lot stronger than normal garlic you get, and she's right... perfect for us, as now I only need two cloves instead of four) and some sliced green parts of leek, grabbed from a bag I'm saving for stock for next week's soup. Fried it up with some mince, added a tin of diced tomatoes, and half a jar of pasta sauce, and left that to simmer over low heat for about half an hour. Which was just long enough for me to boil up some water for pasta and do half the dishes. And for once, everything was ready together.

If I'd had had any leftovers of the sauce or bread (or the pasta with sauce mixed through for that matter) I could have frozen it, but the whole lot got demolished. I think I better make two loaves of that bread next time, as DP ate half the loaf by himself! The kids ate about half their slice each, though they both said it was yummy. But then Miss Two only had about three bites of her pasta, which she normally likes, and Master Three only finished his pasta for the promise of fruit salad (ok, tinned, I'll admit it, but what else can you do with a tin of fruit salad?)

The bread wasvery heavy, so maybe that was it. But it didn't feel it till you'd eaten it... it was just so light and crumbly, not at all dense. All in all, not a bad effort for a lazy, unmotivated Saturday.

Mum's Chow Mein

Tonight was good. The weather has finally eased off a bit, and I had dinner on the table early for a change. Master 3 ate all of his, and came back for seconds. Tonight was the first night in ages he's eaten all his dinner without complaint. Can't go wrong with two minute noodles I guess. And yes, I know they aren't highly nutritious, but it was just a filler anyway.

My mother's fabulous, but probably highly inauthentic Chow Mein
(give her a break... we're dutch)


I'll give you the recipe as my mother told me, then I'll tell you how I do it ;)

750g mince
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 cabbage, shredded
3 tbs rice
1 carrot, grated
2 sticks celery, sliced finely
250g green beans, sliced (I use presliced frozen beans, unthawed)
1 1/2 tsp curry powder
1 pkt chicken noodle soup
1 1/2 cups hot water

Brown the onion in a large pan with a little butter, then add the mince. When the mince is no longer pink, add all the other ingredients except the soup mix and the water. Mix the soup and water, and stir into the frypan. Cover and cook for 45 mins over low heat, stirring often.

Of course, I am almost incapable of sticking to the exact letter of a recipe, so we make it a little different, but not really any different than Mum has done herself on occasion.

For starters, 750g mince? Not likely. I use around 400g for the four of us, mainly because that what size blocks I freeze. 500g for a standard family would be about right. And I never use 1/2 a cabbage. That is a *lot* of cabbage. I use a 1/4 cabbage, and it still is plenty. The last change to the ingredients we make is to use 2 packs of two minute noodles instead of the rice, because my DP can't eat rice.

(See over stuffed pan size?)

I cook it much the same as Mum, although I have refined the process a little due to not having a frypan the size of hers. After browning the mince slightly, I add the curry powder (or else add it to the hot water and soup later). Then I add the cabbage in small batches, letting it sweat down before adding the next, otherwise my pan would overflow from the start. Then I add the noodles, trying to put them as close to the bottom of the pan as possible. Then everything else gets tipped in, mixed around, and then noodles pushed to the bottom again. All this is done on high heat. Then I tip in the soup/water/curry powder (if not already in) and bring that to a boil before turning down to a simmer. I don't have a pan, so I might add more water occasionally. I don't simmer for 45 mins either... just till the cabbage is soggy, and the beans are cooked. That's the great thing about using noodles instead of rice... they cook in two minutes!

I cooked up a batch for dinner, while that was simmering I sliced all the vegies for a second batch, and after dinner made a huge big bag to go into the freezer. Yes, this freezes well, just tip into a large pan to reheat, or freeze it in microwave proof containers, and reheat straight from the freezer.

Freezable goodness!

Coming up tomorrow, Kids Cooking Thursday (we're making a biscuit recipe off the back of the choc chip packet)

This has been an entry for my very first blog event Monthly Mingle - One-Dish Dinners

***EDIT*** Round up is here

Chicken & Vegetable Pies

Ok, so a 34°C day wasn't the best scenario to make pies. Not reading the recipe all the way through properly since having seen it the first time wasn't a bright idea either. Consquently, I had no chicken stock or tarragon, and no wine (not that I'd had used that anyway though).

And I only started 45 mins before dinner was due. Needless to say, dinner was late. By almost over an hour. But it was worth the wait. and since we only ate half the pies, I get to freeze some before I have to melt in the kitchen again.

It really wasn't that hard though. I just should have either made the filling last night, or not started preheating the oven till the filling was done. Our oven is fanforced, so that meant the entire time I was frying and stirring, I had 200°C air blasting at the top of my legs - like I wasn't hot enough!

On the plus side, my frozen puff pastry defrosted without a problem. On the minus side, it got far too hot by the time I needed it, and I had to very carefully coax it into pies, without it falling apart and stretching to nothing.

But, miracle of miracles, the oven forgave me all this, and somehow managed to produce some lovely pies. The overstretched, misshapen blobs I placed in, came out as lovely, puffed, flaky, rustic looking pies. Of course, everyone was starving by the time they were done, but since they were so piping hot, we still had time to admire them a bit before eating.



Finished off with a bowlful of homemade strawberry and passionfruit ice creams, I think for once my family got a great meal.

Menu Plan Monday

This week's meals, complete with links when applicable.

Monday Mini Meatloaves, mashed potatoes
Tuesday Chicken & vegetable pies
Wednesday Chow Mein
Thursday Chicken kebobs with rice
Friday Fish and Chips
Saturday Pasta with toasted Cheese & Chive bread
Sunday Ham, pineapple & cheese scrolls

We had the mini meatloaves tonight. I forgot to take a photo, but I must say I was unimpressed. DP doesn't like meatloaf, but I thought we'd give it a try anyway, since it was so different from his mother's recipe. Turns out, he just doesn't like meatloaf. But Miss Two and Master Three weren't all that enthused either. So many of the reviews lauded this recipe as a sneaky way to get the kids to eat their vegetables... I would have done better to serve carrot and zucchini in recognisable forms, as they are two of the favourite vegetables in the house. Aside from that, thesse were bland, and crusty/crunchy dry outside, while being rather too moist in the middle, falling apart at the drop of a hat. A pity I was trying to be smart and made a double batch, now we have a whole meal's worth in the freezer. Still, better than having to resort to toast in extreme circumstnces I guess. At least the mashed potatoes went down with no hassles.