Tell me about your simple, signature meals....

[catinboots]

Culinary inspiration desperately needed ..............

ta cat x

this one is super-quick and easy for using up left-over roast chicken

Cook long grain rice with chicken stock cube. 5 mins before end of cooking time add bits of chicken, frozen peas and frozen sweetcorn. stir in and bring back to boil

1 min before end of cooking time stir in couple of teaspoons chicken bisto rich gravy granules

Kids love it. I used to chop onion, fry garlic etc. Don't bother any more

Takes no longer than cooking the rice, so around 12 mins

Marking my place to add my dish later on...

chorizo spaghetti

Open packet of supernoodles.....

Cook Tagliatelle.
Throw some frozen peas in with the pasta 5 minitues before the end.

Drain and add low fat creme fraiche, smoked salmon trimmings and black pepper to taste.

I'm going to print this thread later and stick it on the fridge. Loads of brill ideas

Put cod, olives, tomatoes, sliced onion in dish pour over white wine, bake for 20 mins.

Standby chicken 1 (a bit of notice)
Fry onion and garlic
mix mascarpone, passata, oregano and seasoning (I like sliced black olives)

Brown chicken pieces and mix all together in an oven proof dish
I serve with green salad and pasta or french fries

Standby 2 (in a hurry)
Pasta, broccoli (or cabbage, green bean) pesto, pine nuts, chicken.
I serve with ready to bake ciabatta and salad

For lunch
Soup, soup and more soup

veg festering at bottom of fridge, chop small, fry with bacon.
Whack in 4 dairylea triangles/ blob of philladelphia and serve over pasta.

Fennel and Chorizo Spagetti.

Chop and then fry ring of chorizo in a spash of olive oil. Add a tsp of crushed fennel seeds.
Add a chopped bulb of fennel and stir fry for a couple of minutes.
Chuck in two tins of chopped toms, season, and served with cooked pasta.

Optional ingredients - other random veg / chilli flakes if you like it spicy / cheese on top / salad to go with.

Salmon Noodle thing!

Boil water for noodles and drown them

Shake soy sauce over salmon and sear over a very high heat till just cooked and no more, I like the lidl ones from the frozen section, or tesco have a big whole side of salmon (1kg) for a tenner which you can portion out

By this time the noodles will be done

Chop up some shallots or spring onions very finely and grate garlic and ginger root and then I cook this in the wok with a teeny bit of oil then drain and add in the noodles and flake the salmon over.

We like lots of soy so i sometimes shake a little more over the top with a little fish sauce, and half a glass of white wine, the wok should be super hot and as you add the liquid clamp a big lid on and then let it sit for 3-4 minutes and the steam and residual heat will finish the salmon. Chop in some coriander/flat leaf parsley as you please.

I am sure this would work with lemon/lime instead of (or as well as) ginger. And I keep meaning to swap the salmon for chicken, but you'd need to cook that through in the first place.

Boil some pasta and half way through, add some tender stem broccoli to the pan
Fry 2 cloves of chopped garlic in some oil and add some chilli powder. When the garlic is golden add 150ml of veg stock and simmer until most of the liquid is evaporated. Then add a couple of good dollops of creme Fraiche and a couple of spoons of pasta water and stir. You should have a nice fairly loose sauce.
Drain pasta and broccoli and pour over the sauce and stir well. Gorgeous and takes 10 mins max

Sticky chicken!

Boil rice (or cheat and use microwave rice like I do!)
Chop up chicken breast (I use two for dh, me and toddler ds)
Fry chicken in a wok, add a cup full (this changes depending on how much chicken you have, you basically want it swimming in) of Worcester sauce and some black pepper.
Let this simmer away til all the sauce has been absorbed.
Serve with the rice and peas, this is one of our fav meals.

Garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, spring onion, frozen spinach, cook 'til done while boiling pasta. Mix some feta cheese into veg just as pasta is done cooking. Drain pasta, mix with veg, eat.

Spaghetti mozzarella bake
Cook spaghetti,and in another pan fry chopped onion and chuck in jar of pasta sauce/passata plus seasoning. tear up two mozzarella balls.
Drain spag and tip into sauce mix and stir. Put half saucy spag into ovenproof dish, layer with chunks of mozzarella, repeat. Bake in oven until mozzarella bubbles - about 10 mins. Serves loads.

Even better if you have fresh basil to chuck in - sometimes I add lardons, bits of chorizo, sweetcorn...whatever comes to hand really

Simon Hopkinson's gravadlax. Dead simple and never fails. You just need to plan it three days in advance. It's on the BBC Food website.

Mango, coriander, basil and bean sprouts salad. Add grated ginger, cashews, salad onions. Top with vinaigrette of fish sauce, sweet chilli sauce and brown sugar. (better if made with unripe mangoes)

Duck salad. 1 bag of mixed baby leaves, 1 tin of gesiers confits, eg Reflets de France. Don't focus on what a gesier is, it tastes fabulous and even my 3 and 1 yr olds love them. Melt the fat in a saucepan and pour it away. Slice gesiers. Toss on salad. Add some smoked duck if you remembered to buy it. Top with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and maple syrup vinaigrette.

Canadian cottage pie (aka 'pâté chinois", tho there is nothing remotely chinese about it). Fry onions and garlic in a large pan, then add mince beef. Season generously with paprika, a bit of ground chilli, salt and pepper. When it's done, transfer to oven-proof dish (eg lasagna dish). Top with a couple of tins of corn nibblets, straight from the tin, minus the tin water of course. Top with mashed potatoes - I use fresh supermarket mash (lazy) which I put in microwave for half the cooking time before spreading on the pie itself (in a hurry). Add a huge amount of paprika to give the mash a nice golden crust and bung in oven until hot (45 minutes.). Serve with lashings of Heinz ketchup.

I also have an amuse-bouche section if you're interested :o

Kleftiko

As many lamb shanks as needed. Squeeze juice of a lemon over them, rub in some dill/add sprigs of rosemary, drizzle a small amount of olive oil over them. Wrap in foil. Half fill a roasting tin with water. Cook in the oven for as long and as slowly as possible. Serve with (preferably)roasted meditteranean veg.

delicious and so easy

My quickest tea is tweaked from Nigella.

1 x tin chickpeas
Half a chorizo
Bag of baby spinach
Cumin

Cook the chorizo till some oil comes out, add the chickpeas, warm through, wilt the spinach in the same pan. Can deglaze pan with Sherry if you're not feeding kids. Can add onion, olives or feta if you've any in and you're feeling fancy.
Takes 10 mins max

Chopped onion, seasoned to taste, in passata, in the slow cooker, with meatballs in it, served with spaghetti. Takes about 4 hours on high or 6 on low but you can leave it as long as you need to without anything disastrous happening. I hate it but the children love it.

2 teaspoons of oil in the slow cooker, with some cloves of garlic if you like it. Cook sliced potatoes on high until they're soft, then pour half milk, half cream over the top and lots of grated cheese. Cook another hour or so. (Or just tip a couple of those jars of cheesy pasta bake sauce over them, just as good)
Add chopped bacon or ham if you want. You can do this one in the oven too, just add the goop to the raw taties and cook the whole thing for about 90 mins to 2 hours in a casserole with a lid or foil on top, and take the lid off for the last 15 mins to "crusty" the cheese on top.

Sticky chicken - mix massive glug of soy sauce with smaller glug of sherry and spoonful or two of brown sugar, add chicken thighs and bung in oven. Serve with rice

Sausage casserole (?sp)

1 packet f sausages - nice ones
100 g of chorizo
1 onion
1 packet of passata
boiling water
salt and pepper

Chop the onion and chorizo, put everything except the boiling water in a slow cooker (or an oven proof dish with a lid if cooking in the oven - and you neet to fry the onion a bit first)

top the cooker / dish with boiling water and cook in the oven for 2 hours

in the clow cooker for all day

You need the chorizo - it's not the same without - eat with crusty bread to dip in the sauce.