Category Archives: Mains

Jun30

Chicken and Bacon Ranch Macaroni

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I’m a bit of a sucker for macaroni cheese and have loved it since I was a kid. Recently Steve went away for a week for work, which, for the sake of my sanity, proved to be the perfect time to try this recipe – I made it one of the first nights he was away and then the kids and I ate it every night for the rest of the week. Having long loved mac’n’cheese, I think I can safely say this is my favourite version of it – the ‘secret’ ingredient of chicken soup in the cheese sauce takes this family favourite to a new level. If you’ve got left-over barbeque chicken from Sunday lunch, this recipe is a great way to use it up. Quick and simple to make this recipe makes enough to serve 10 and costs around $12 to make.

  • 500g uncooked elbow macaroni
  • 3 rashers bacon, finely chopped
  • 250g skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 2 tablespoon canola oil
  • 2 tablespoon plain flour
  • 3 cups milk
  • 1 cup condensed cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup, undiluted
  • 2 cups grated cheese + 1 cup extra
  • 1 onion
  • 1 capsicum, diced
  • 1 can of corn kernels, drained
  • 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • salt and pepper to taste
  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius and cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat; drain.
  2. Cook bacon, onion and garlic in a large nonstick frypan over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon from pan, reserving drippings in pan. Increase heat to medium-high. Add chicken to drippings in pan; sauté 6 minutes or until done.
  3. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat; sprinkle flour evenly into pan. Cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly with a whisk. Combine milk and soup, stirring with a whisk; gradually add milk mixture to saucepan, stirring with a whisk. Bring to the boil; cook 2 minutes or until thick. Remove from heat. Add cheese, capsicum, corn kernels, frozen peas and salt, stirring until cheese melts. Stir in pasta, two thirds of cooked bacon and chicken.
  4. Spoon mixture into a large roasting or lasagne dish coated with a little cooking spray. Sprinkle evenly with reserved bacon and extra grated cheese. Bake in oven for 5-10 minutes or until cheese melts, but no longer or it will start to dry out.
Jun3

Chorizo Pilaf

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Boredom with cooking drove me to trawl through the budget section of taste.com today and this three step, all-in-one dish caught my attention in the process. The flavours appealed to me lots: onion, garlic, chilli, cumin and paprika, and the effort level was just right for how tired I was feeling! Sausages of any kind go down a treat with my kids so I decided to give this a try – and I’m glad I did. The kids came back for seconds and the spicy – but not too spicy -flavours warmed us all up just as the evening started to chill. While the original recipe calls for six chorizo sausages, I thought this was a little over the top – four is plenty and you could even get away with three. If spicy food isn’t so much for you, simply halve the amount of chilli listed below. This yummy, simple and cheap recipe costs less than $10 and serves 6. Serve with steamed greens or a side salad.

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 4 chorizo sausages, sliced
  • 2 brown onions, halved, thinly sliced
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 red chilli, deseeded, sliced
  • 2 teaspoons paprika
  • 1 tablespoon ground cumin
  • 2 cups basmati rice
  • 4 cups chicken stock (I use powdered)
  • 1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped (if you have it)
  1. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook chorizo for 2 to 3 minutes each side or until golden. Cut into circles and drain on paper towels.
  2. Heat remaining tablespoon of oil in saucepan over medium heat. Add onions. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add garlic, chilli, paprika and cumin. Cook for a further 2 minutes, stirring, or until soft.
  3. Stir in rice. Add stock and chorizo. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover. Simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Stand, covered, for 5 minutes. Stir through parsley, and salt and pepper. Serve.
Apr8

Pork Stir-Fry

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Last week on My Kitchen Rules Jake and Elle won the People’s Choice Award with this yummy dish in the Budget Challenge. The show itself gets on my nerves for lots of reasons, but still, I find myself watching it with some regularity. I was so glad I saw this episode! It was easy to find the recipe online and it truly was a fast, easy and cheap meal to make. And the whole family loved it. I love how it uses mince rather than pieces of expensive meat which I always seems to murder in the stir-frying, resulting in tough bits of meat that are hard to eat. But this pork mince stir-fry is wonderfully forgiving – a great one, I imagine, to teach teenagers to cook for themselves when necessary. At the most, this tasty stir fry will take 15 minutes to prepare and another 15 to cook, and using the quantities listed below will cost around $10 to make. Serves 4, though I stretched it out to serve 6 by adding more noodles and it worked a treat.

  • 400g egg noodles
  • 1/3 cup kecap manis
  • 1½ tbs fish sauce
  • 2 tsp vegetable oil
  • 1 onion, peeled, finely chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, peeled, crushed
  • 500g pork mince
  • ½ bunch coriander, chopped
  • 1 bird’s-eye chilli, finely chopped
  • 1cm-piece fresh ginger, finely chopped
  • 2 carrots, julienned
  • 1 bunch bok choy, chopped
  • Coriander, to garnish

1. Cook noodles in a saucepan of salted boiling water according to packet instructions. Drain noodles and set aside.

2. Combine kecap manis and fish sauce in a small jug.

3. Heat oil in a wok or large deep frying pan over high heat. Add onion and cook for 2 minutes or until onion softens. Add garlic and cook for a further 1 minute. Add pork mince and sitr-fry, stirring with a wooden spoon to break up any lumps, for 5 minutes or until browned. Add remaining ingredients and cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes. Add sauce and noodles and stir through for 2-3 minutes or until heated through.

4. Garnish with coriander to serve.

Notes:

• You can also use chicken or turkey mince in this dish.

• For variety, this spiced pork mixture would also be great served in lettuce cups or with rice.

• You can add any type of extra vegetables to this dish – try sliced red capsicum, baby corn or bean sprouts.

Mar30

2 Ingredients Pizza Scrolls (well, almost)

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No sooner had I posted Kath’s contribution of 2 ingredients Cookies, did she sent me this next 2 ingredients recipe of Pizza Scrolls. Tonight I found myself trying it out, and oh my goodness, if I put on weight this winter it will be because of these super fast, delicious and comforting pizza delights. And I suppose I should come clean – the 2 ingredients in the title refers only to the amazing bread-like, not-scone-like, base for the scrolls. But I think this is forgiveable as the fillings come from whatever veggies and bits of deli meat you have lying around in your fridge, and although they’re necessary, they’re incidental in ways that keep the food bill down. Rapidly going off in my fridge was some pre-grated cheese, 3 slices of short cut bacon, 4 mushrooms, 4 rings of tinned pineapple and half a red capsicum. So that’s what went in! We enjoyed our scrolls for dinner (and the kids loved them), but they’d be terrific as a weekend lunch option when having friends over and, cut into quarters, would make a yummy and affordable church morning tea option. I didn’t bother costing these cause it wasn’t worth it, given how they came into being. Thanks again, Katherine!

Base

  • 2 cups Self Raising Flour
  • 1 1/2 cups Natural or Greek Yoghurt

Filling

  • Pizza sauce/tomato sauce/crushed tinned tomatoes/pasta sauce, enough to cover the mixture when rolled out to 2cm thick
  • Grated cheese, about 2 cups
  • 1 onion, diced finely
  • Whatever meat and/or veggies you have to use up. Make sure you chop everything finely so that they get caught up in the rolling of the scroll without falling out too much.
  1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Mix flour and yoghurt together. I did mine really quickly using my bench mixer, but this is not at all necessary.
  2. Knead on a well-floured bench top, adding extra flour to aid in process. Roll the dough out to about 30cm x 20cm, which should end up being around 2cm thick. Don’t stress at all about this – these scrolls are meant to be rustic looking, almost free-form.
  3. Spread tomato base, sprinkle with whatever fillings you’ve chosen, and using a rubber spatula or egg flip, start rolling at the end closest to your waist, using the spatula underneath the dough to encourage it off the bench and into the roll. Again – don’t worry how lumpy or uneven it is, just aim to get it rolling together.
  4. Cut your log in the middle using your biggest knife, cutting each section into halves until you have 16 scrolls, each about 2 cm wide. Spread out biscuit style, on lined baking trays, ingredients showing upwards, giving plenty of room for them to rise. Bake at 200 degrees for 10-12 mins. Enjoy immediately or later – whichever you need.
Feb25

Chilli Beef & Bean Pasta Bake

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Oh my goodness life is busy at the moment. My five year old has started school and there’s so much to get my head around (news, library books, computers, home readers, buddies, making friends at the school gate, getting out the door on time and the endless cycle of making lunches – I could go on). The uni year which has been amping up began to reach one of its crescendoes with O week which started today (exciting times!). There’s been lots of slack dinners lately but thankfully my friend Belinda shared this recipe with me and it lasted us three nights in a row – economical on both time and money. And it’s a sensational tasting dish too. This mexican beef and pasta bake was scoffed down by my kids (perhaps because it wasn’t Weet-bix?) and us grown ups loved it just as much. And don’t worry, it’s not hot in the spicy sense at all. The pictures above represent a double quantity and using those listed below this dish will set you back between $10-12. Serves 6. Thanks Belinda – this one’s already part of our family.

  • 200g spiral pasta
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 brown onion
  • 1 red capsicum
  • 400g beef mince
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 30g packet Taco Spice Mix (generic is fine)
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 400g can diced tomatoes (generic is fine)
  • 2 zucchinis, chopped
  • 400g can red kidney beans, drained (generic is fine)
  • 310g can corn kernels, drained (generic is fine)
  • 1/2 cup grated cheese
  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees or 160 degrees fan-forced. Lightly spray a 2L oven-proof dish with oil. Cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling salted water until just tender. Drain.
  2. Meanwhile, heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add onion and capsicum and cook, stirring for 5 minutes until softened. Add mince and cook, breaking up any lumps, for 5 minutes or until browned. Add garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until fragrant.
  3. Stir in taco spice mix and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Add tomatoes, zucchini and 1/2 cup water and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for 5 minutes or until zucchini is just tender and mixture has thickened. Add pasta, beans, corn and mix to combine.
  4. Combine mixture into prepared dish, sprinkle with cheese and bake for 20 minutes or until cheese is golden.
Jan30

Weet-Bix for Dinner and Other Time and Money Savers

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Crumbinone

This post has been bubbling away in the back of my mind for some time as I’ve reflected on the ways I try to save my own sanity and hip-pocket when it comes to feeding our family. What follows are the three main ways I find work for our family. I hope you’ll find them helpful.

1. Weet-Bix or Porridge for Dinner

We seriously do this at least twice a week, more often when life is more hectic than usual. When we first started doing it, our kids were quite little – the eldest around 2 years old. At first, to make it ‘normal’ we used to put some fun music on really loud and dance around the house singing “It’s breakfast for dinner tonight!” but we only had to do that a couple of times and it became a normal part of our family culture. These days the kids don’t bat an eyelid when told it’s a porridge night. Make it special by adding grated apple, a handful of sultanas and a dollop of yoghurt. Home brand quick cooking oats are less than a dollar a packet and I keep large stocks of these in the pantry ready to go.

2. Make Enough for Two Meals

My friend Nicole does this all the time and I often do too. Its cost effective because there are less ingredients used and needed over the course of the week and it saves time only needing to cook every second day. Throw in a porridge night each week and you only need to cook three times.

3. Meat and Three Veg

If you stick to cheaper cuts of meat such as chicken drumsticks, sausages, rissoles and anything that’s on a good special, meat and three veg meals are amongst the easiest and cheapest dinners. My favourite version of this right now is cheap fillets of fish such as Whiting or Basa, tossed in White Wings Crumb in One and panfried in three minutes flat. Just add some microwave steamed veggies and your favourite seasonings such as Tartare Sauce or lemon juice. It tastes terrific and it’s dinner cooked in ten minutes!

What do you do to save time and money when feeding people?

Jan21

Zucchini Slice

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Zucchini Slice has got to be one of my favourite money saving meals and it gets a regular workout around here in the summer months. Rather than spending money on expensive meat for a barbeque when having people over, I often choose some good quality sausages to cook on the barbie accompanied by Zucchini Slice and a fresh salad. As well as being so affordable, this little number has two other benefits: first, from dicing the onions to chopping the bacon, to whisking the eggs and grating the cheese, it can all be made using various blades of the food processor. Second, it can be made up to a couple of days ahead and stored in the fridge to avoid cooking stress on the day your guests come over. To make this slice, originally from the Women’s Weekly, using the quantities that follow, costs around $6 and serves 6+. The photo above is a double quantity which neatly fits a roasting sized dish.

  • 375g zucchini, grated
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 3 rashers of bacon, sliced or chopped
  • 1 cup grated cheese
  • 1 cup self raising flour
  • 1/2 cup oil (I use rice bran oil)
  • 5 eggs
  • salt and pepper
  1. Grate unpeeled zucchini coarsely, finely chop onion and bacon. Combine zucchini, onion, bacon, cheese, SR flour, oil and lightly beaten eggs, season with salt and pepper.
  2. Pour into a well-greased or baking paper lined lamington tin 16cm x 26cm, bake in a moderate oven for 30-40 minutes or until set and browned.
Nov28

Crusty Chicken Casserole

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Last weekend we enjoyed the generous hospitality of my husband’s parents, and as always, it was so good to get away and enjoy some good times together – parents, kids and grandparents. My mother-in-law Pauline, is a terrific cook and like my own mother, has taught me lots about hospitality, both specifically and by osmosis. On this recent visit she cooked this delicious, almost retro, chicken casserole for us and it was so tasty, warming and comforting after the car trip from our place to theirs. Our kids devoured it that night and again the next. It’s dead easy and it’s one of those dishes that could easily stretch to serve more by adding extra veggies, rice or bread to the offering. For all these reasons, I’m pretty sure I’ll be making it often. Depending where you buy your veggies from, this dish costs around $18 to make (less still if you use a green grocer), and easily serves 8.

FILLING

  • 1 BBQ chicken
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 shallots, chopped
  • 1 stick celery, chopped
  • ¼ cup water
  • 3 rashers bacon, sliced
  • 60g mushrooms, sliced
  • 440g can of Cream of Chicken Soup (Campbell’s is nicest)
  • 300g carton sour cream (I use homebrand light)
  • Optional: 400g can corn kernels, drained (we love corn!)

CHEESE BATTER TOPPING

  • 1 cup SR Flour
  • 1 capsicum (can be half red, half green)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup grated cheese
  • ½ cup milk
  1. Remove chicken meat from bones while chicken is still warm (much easier), and shred or chop meat roughly.
  2. Place chopped onion, shallots, celery and water in pan, bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer covered for 15 mins (Pauline’s alternative tip: stick the lot in a covered microwave safe dish and zap for 2 mins).
  3. In a hot frypan, add bacon and sliced mushrooms and cook for 3 mins (again, Pauline suggests cooking the bacon and mushrooms in same covered microwave dish for about 2 mins)
  4. Combine the soup, sour cream, chicken, cooked vegetables, corn (if using) and bacon mixture.  Pour into ovenproof dish.
  5. Make cheese batter: Mix flour, capsicum, lightly beaten eggs, cheese and milk until just blended.
  6. Spread cheese batter on top of casserole and bake uncovered in moderate oven for 30-40 mins. Serve with rice and salad.
Nov26

Bircher Muesli

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I’ve always loved Bircher Muesli. Actually, I’m pretty happy with oats of any kind and porridge is an any-time-of-the-day thing at our place, often for dinner on a slack winters night. Despite my love of all things oatey, I’d never even thought to try making my own Bircher Muesli, so when Anna sent me this dead easy and uber-cheap recipe, I was keen to give it a go. I am so glad I did! Perfect for breakfast or brunch hospitality, I’m sure I’ll be making this refreshing and comforting mix of oats, apple, almonds and yoghurt again and again. The quantity that follows makes enough for 4 decent serves, so just multiply away to suit the number of friends you’re serving. Just remember with this one to make it at least a day ahead – and enjoy the benefit of not having to do much the day people come over. Total cost less than $3, with fruit to serve additional.

  • 1 cup rolled oats (not quick oats)
  • 1-2 grated apples
  • ½ cup apple juice
  • 1 large handful sultanas (I used craisins cause I was out of sultanas)
  •  ½ handful of roughly chopped, unsalted almonds
  • ¼ cup vanilla or Greek yoghurt (you’ll need a little extra for serving too)
  • ¼ cup milk
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • Chopped fruit and/or frozen berries for serving

1.   Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate overnight.

2.   In the morning it should be the consistency of cold porridge. Stir and if necessary add a little bit more yoghurt or milk to increase the creaminess.

Serve with fresh chopped fruit and/or berries and some extra yoghurt.

Nov9

Lemon, Zucchini and Chicken Pasta

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This awesome recipe comes from my friend Kate, via taste.com.au. A tasty, cheap, easy and filling dinner for 6 people. Using around half a BBQ chicken, this recipe pairs well with Open Chicken Sandwiches with Lemon and Almonds during a working week or a weekend of having people over – 2 yummy meals that use just one chicken between them. Kate suggests adding a handful of pine nuts to the the zucchini fry-up and if zucchini doesn’t float your boat, add half a bag of baby spinach leaves to the hot pasta mixture at the end and watch them wilt up beautifully. Totalling around $8 to make this is a recipe I’ll be using again and again. Thanks Kate!

  • 500g bowtie pasta or similar
  • 100g butter, chopped
  • 2 zucchini, coarsely grated
  • 2 yellow zucchini, coarsely grated
  • 1 garlic clove, crushed
  • 2 cups shredded cooked chicken (about half a chicken)
  • 2 green onions, thinly sliced
  • 1 large lemon, rind finely grated, juiced
  • 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
  • grated parmesan cheese, optional, to serve
  1. Cook pasta in a saucepan of boiling salted water, following packet directions, until tender. Drain and set aside.
  2. Meanwhile, heat 30g butter in a large, deep-sided frying pan over medium heat. Add zucchini and garlic and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until zucchini is soft. Add chicken and cook, stirring, for 4 minutes or until heated through.
  3. Add pasta, remaining 70g butter, green onions, lemon rind, 1/4 cup lemon juice and parsley to chicken mixture. Cook, stirring, over low heat until heated through. Sprinkle with parmesan, if using. Season with salt and pepper. Serve.