chicken stir fry

Using up: spring onions, red pepper, the last bit of courgette, half a lemon

The thing about a stir fry is you can lob pretty much anything in it, but you need to have it all ready before you start.

So, as you may see, I chopped four spring onions, a red pepper, a small piece of courgette.  Garlic and ginger were whizzed in the most useful kitchen gadget known to (wo)man.  Pete chopped up a red chilli.

Out of the larder came sesame seeds, and I had a tub of cold roast chicken in the freezer that was pressed into service - I marinated that in some shoyu and a teaspoon or so of sesame oil for about 20 minutes.

Into the wok went the sesame seeds, garlic and ginger for a minute or so, then added the white bits of the spring onion, the pepper and courgette.  Stir fried till done, then added chicken and marinade, the lemon juice and a teaspoon of five spice powder.  Oh, and a dribble of honey.

Left it to bubble while we boiled up some noodles, and realised it was a bit thin, so mixed up a teaspoon of cornflour with some cold water, and hurled that in.

Drained noodles and put them in the wok, mixed it round a little.

Served into bowls, then sprinkled with the chopped chilli and the green bit of the spring onions.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

pasta bake with red pepper

Using up: a red pepper, mozzarella

We’re off for a week’s holiday on Friday (hurrah!), so meals this week are going to be quite odd, I suspect :)

Here’s one of our standby meals; we eat this kind of thing often.

Cut one red pepper in half, remove the seeds and pith, cut into thin strips.  Chop 3/4 of a courgette (I wanted the last bit for a stir fry) into dice, ditto an onion and some garlic (whatever you feel appropriate - we like *lots*).  Sauté these in some olive oil slowly until the veg are softed - you want a nice silky feeling for the peppers.  Add a chopped dried chilli if you like such things; we do.

Boil some pasta - conchiglie are nice for this; they’re the ones that look like conch shells.  When the pasta is cooked, drain it and hurl it into the veg pan, and stir it all together.

Then decant into an ovenproof dish, and top with a mozzarella, cut into cubes.  Some basil or parsley works really well on the top too.

Bake for 25-30 minutes on gas mark 6.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

red pepper and feta pasta

Quick, easy and delicious

Sauté a chopped onion and a few cloves of garlic in some good olive oil.  Add half a jar of grilled red peppers from Lidl (these are utterly gorgeous), sliced up.  When the pasta is done, drain, add some cubes of feta and the vegetable mess.

Powered by Bookmarkify™