The Garden Fence - help and support in tough times

Knit_Witch

Hearty Meatball Stew if done with pre-made meatballs (or Quorn ones!), if takes about 20 - 30 mins

[Deleted User]

Cheese and Tomato Puff Pastry Tart

1 packet of ready made puff pastry ready rolled to save time
1 pack of supermarket own cheapest soft cheese
tube of tomato puree
pack of cherry tomatoes
grated cheddar to your taste
salt
pepper
dried basil
sprinkle of sugar
little oil to drizzle top

Grease baking sheet and line with the pastry. spread tomato puree over base of pastry season with salt, pepper and a sprinkle of sugar and a good sprinkling of dried basil top this with the pack of soft cheese and dot the cherry tomatoes evenly over the top. Season again and sprinkle with a little more basil then top with as much grated cheddar as you like and drizzle with a little oil. Put into a hot oven 200degC/180deg Fan and cook until the pastry is risen and crisp and the cheese filling is golden, about 25 - 30 minutes. Nice hot or cold, keeps well and survives well in packed lunches. Serve it with a salad.

FairyPrincessk

Another variation on Lyn's puff pastry suggestion is to use goat's cheese and asparagus (if the girls like those things).

I remembered that BBC Good Food magazines often have several 15 minute and 30 minute recipes and I've found many of them friendlier than Jamie's. On the website you can search for 'under 20 minutes' here:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/under-20-minutes

Although many of my favourites from magazines my MIL passed on aren't up and I'm not sure how family friendly they are since I mostly just cook for me and OH.

cutestkids

Fuddle our favourite quick dinner is as follows.

Boil some pasta and add some frozen peas for the last few mins drain
Add two big spoons of pesto either red or green whichever you prefer
Add about 100g of soft cheese
Add some finely chopped ham
Mix
Serve with a salad

Other variations are smoked sausage ring chopped up, instead of the ham, or use a small tub of smoked salmon pate instead of the cheese and pesto. The one I use is from Lidl and only around £1 a tub.

nuatha

fuddle wrote: »

I'm looking for a miracle in terms of quick, easy, healthy, tasty and reasonably priced. I'm hoping that series can help somewhat but haven't seen the series and don't have the book :rotfl:

Possible alternate take. This evening I started by dicing some chicken breast and marinading it in yoghurt with a mild curry paste.
the rest of the chicken breast was browned in the wok, then split in two. I then put a kilo bag of diced frozen onions in the wok and stir fried until just colouring, this got split into four. A kilo of frozen cauliflower florets went into a pan and brought to a gentle boil for 6 or 7 minutes. One part of the browned chicken went into a casserole with a quarter of the browned onions, frozen peas, diced carrots and gravy then into the oven. I diced a couple of peppers, The cauli was drained, mixed with one quarter of the onion and half of the diced pepper. I made a basic white sauce, added a pinch of mustard and a handful of grated cheese to make a cheese sauce, this then went into the oven. Spare oven space was used for four large spuds - which will be jackets for work lunches Friday (microwaves at work) and an apple crumble (stewed apples from freezer, flapjack mix from freezer and - gasp - instant custard) While these were baking, the marinated chicken was stir fried and onion and chopped peppers added halfway through. This made two filled tortilla rolls each and had some bagged salad leaves added. Total time was just under an hour and a half, and that's meals done for the rest of the week bar a few minutes nuking them. Given we're currently in chaos it was a worthwhile 90 minutes, far cheaper and healthier than takeaways. If I'd had to prep all the veg from scratch, I would not have bothered, frozen prepped veg can be your friend (generally I batch prepare sacks of onions etc, currently I'm just buying a few bags from the supermarket.)
By the time we'd finished eating, everything was cool enough to be fridged, tomorrow's lunches will be cauliflower cheese some two portions were packed up ready just to grab in the morning.
HTH

Softstuff

fuddle wrote: »

I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience in making Jamie's 15 minute meals?

I've tried a couple of the meals out of there and they're very nice. The thing with them, timing wise, is that you're just always doing 3 things at once. Which is fine by me, because I usually work that way in the kitchen anyway. They're pretty dear though to my mind, so I can't use them often.

My little trick for an easy series of meals is bolognese. A giant pan of bolognese can be spag bol, lasagne, add kidney beans and chilli for chilli con carne, put the aforementioned chilli in tacos or enchiladas or on a pizza... one starting pot with a bit of cooking makes many easy meals.

Photos of the renovated flat as promised:

Knit_Witch

Softstuff wrote: »

Photos of the renovated flat as promised:

Oooh nice! It makes me wonder why you wanted to leave?!

silvasava

Oooh looks lovely Softstuff - you've really worked hard. I think lots of us would move in!now!! Sure it will sell quickly for you

nursemaggie

Softstuff you have really done well. It is lovely I would move in tomorrow if I had any money.

Fuddle how about what we had tonight.

You can use chicken fillets, diced chicken or even cooked chicken for this. It is also nice with cooked turkey after Christmas.

Put a couple of tablespoons of frozen sweetcorn in a casserole dish add chicken according to your needs, one tin of condensed cream of chicken soup. Half the can of milk.

Mix the milk in with the condensed soup and pour over the chicken and sweetcorn. cook in the oven @ 180 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. Cooking time depends on if you use cooked or raw chicken.

I always serve it with either roast or jacket potatoes because they can be in the oven while it is cooking too. It looks best if you serve it with a green veg and carrots as it is so pale.

Use frozen veg and you have time to have a cup of tea while it cooks. This dish freezes well so you can make double. It does not work very well with ordinary cream of chicken soup as the sauce is rather thin.
My mother gave me this recipe about 35 years ago and I still enjoy it as much as when I first made it.

Softstuff

Thanks all for the comments, they're reassuring. Knitwitch, now it's renovated I'm thinking the same! Things that made us move were nearly $8000 a year on body corp fees, not being able to control our own outside maintenance, wanting a garage, wanting a pet and wanting a veggie garden. It didn't look like that 3 months ago either, I lived for 8 years with the most awful bathroom and 6 years with only 1 working hob!

Living there you get all your gardening done, all your exterior maintenance, 4 pools, 3 spas, a tennis court, a sauna and an onsite restaurant with a head chef from a 4* hotel. Which is nice, but if you're handy like I am, you can do all of that for less than $8000 a year. Without blowing my own trumpet, renovation I can do and do well. It has one bedroom which was fine for us, but it'll be nice to have a study in the new house for the hubby who works from home.

I'll show you the new house when it's done (some time from now!), at the moment it's not very impressive at all what with the folding table and chairs and the mattress on the floor :rotfl: