Fish pie & stuffing/ Mexican beans / Sweet potato cake

On Thursday made fish pie.
Used 2 bags of frozen fish from Sainsburys, one cheapie cheap bag of white fish and a small pack of wild salmon to add some colour and omega 3.
Poached the fish in milk.  Used milk to make a white sauce.  Fried some onion and celery and then made the roux around this.  Also sprinkled some cheese on top of fish and on mashed potato topping.  Served the finished pie with sweetcorn and some really good onion, leek and chive stuffing from sainsburys (Taste the Difference).  This was a combination which worked really well and added a real 'big meal' factor to the fish pie which with teenagers sometimes to be forgotten 1/2 an hour after they've eaten it.

Yesterday, Saturday, cooked some really beautiful black Mexican beans I got in a fancy jar for £2 from TKMax. I soaked them overnight, boiled for 10mins then simmered for 40.  Tasted them to see how they were getting on and found them so good I ate loads of them there and then.  Later finished off: frying onion garlic and a finely chopped red pepper, adding a tin of tomatoes and the beans with a little of the black cooking water. ( I had translated the Italian cooking instructions on google and it said 'add the beans just short of their water').  Seasoning, I added salt and honey (just a couple of teaspoons).

I thought they were very good and served them with boiled millet (complementary protein set).

Sunday, Caribbean Rum and Raisin cake made with sweet potato.  This was a really exciting looking recipe I came across the other day when sorting out some other papers.  You boil and mash the potato before mixing it in the cake with eggs, flour, spices, vegetable oil (I used Rice Bran Oil).  There is also orange rind and juice, rum soaked raisins and coconut.  The icing was also made with orange, rum and coconut.  I think this is going to be a useful cake but for me may be spoiled by the coconut.  I like coconut but I think it is an ingredient which tends to dominate others it is with.

Weather this weekend is much milder than of late which is a relief.  Jon and I went to the cinema last night to see the Tourist with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp.  We had a delicious meal at Bella Italia and when we came out it was nice not to be hit by a wall of cold.  Jon repaired a broken headlamp on the car yesterday.

Chicken risotto and some other stuff.

Left over roast chicken + stock from the bones.
Fry an onion, add risotto rice. Fry for 1 min.  Add some frozen mixed veg- stir. Add hot stock- stir.
Bring to boil, put in oven for 45 mins.  Add left over chopped chicken.
Easy, cheap, healthy and a great way to keep out the winter cold.

Today is bitter.  All the snow is gone now except for little lumps here and there, but the wind is really arctic.
At work we had a meeting today about the Pathology review for the South East region. They want to turn us into one big 'hub' lab with 4 small ones- going to be 45% redundancies.

Spicy Georgia Peach Chicken

I got this idea from a website called 'Hidden Valley'.

I have adapted it. It really is delicious- unless you don't like chicken, peaches or can't stand meat and fruit mixed together (you don't know what you're missing) you just can't go wrong with this.
Serve with rice and green salad or some nice fresh green beans.


Boneless chicken breast (enough for 4)
1 onion
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup of some sort of spicy 'ranch' style dressing (i have been using (with great success) Morrisons sweet piri piri dressing)
2 tablespoons dijon mustard ( i have been using grainy mustard (as above))
1 can (15-ounce) sliced peaches, drained and cut into chunks.

Season chicken with salt and pepper.
Heat olive oil in a large frying pan, add chicken and cook for 5-7 mins each side or until golden and juices run clear.

Remove the chicken to a plate.

Add butter to the pan and finely diced onion- cook for 5-10 mins until soft and browing.
On a lower heat, add the brown sugar, stirring until smooth and dissolved.
Stir in both the dressing and the mustard, stirring until bubbly.
Add a tiny amount of water if the volume seems too small to coat the chicken and peaches.
Return the chicken to the pan, add the peaches and cook until heated through.

This recipe really is a winner- loads and loads of flavour and the sweetness makes it very satisfying- you don't need a pudding afterwards.
We had it yesterday with potato and swede which was not really an ideal combination but was what we had in the cupboard and I still got clean plates.