Minimal effort mid-week dinners
Substack #11
Following on from last week’s newsletter, I do realise an afternoon at home cooking isn't everyone’s idea of a perfect day. So if cooking is more stress than stress reliever for you, I am here to help. Let me do the hard work, just follow the recipes and enjoy.
The inspiration for this weeks’ recipes came from a desire to give my hands a much needed rest. I have super sensitive hands because of my eczema. They got worse from spending time in the cold when I was in the Army and also from wetting and drying them constantly when working in the kitchen at Cafe Pimpin. Water, soap and washing liquid are a guaranteed flare-up for me and for some reason these last weeks they have been particularly bad. I’ve tried to be as efficient as possible in my cooking, using up the least pots and pans possible and saving my hands.
So when you’re looking for a stress-free dinner that won’t leave you with lots of washing up, a traybake or a one pot wonder is the easy answer. The options are unlimited - these are just two I did this week. This is as simple as it gets guys!
Thai Seafood Rice
Makes: adult servings
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
1 x cup basmati rice or brown rice
400 ml coconut milk
3x kaffir lime leaves (can be left in freezer)
1 cup water
2 tbsp Thai red curry paste
1 tbsp fish sauce
250 gr fillets white fish
Handful prawns
200g tenderstem broccoli
Spring onions
coriander, leaves picked
2 limes cut into wedges, to serve
INSTRUCTIONS
Tip the rice into a deep pan, add the coconut milk, the curry paste and fish sauce and stir in the rice. Place the kaffir lime leaves on top.
Cook for 7 mins with the lid on, stirring to make sure the rice doesn't stick. Add a cup of boiling water if required.
Place the tenderstem broccoli on top of the coconut rice mixture.
A few minutes later, nestle the fish into the rice, and season. Cook for another 5-7 mins until the veg is cooked through and the fish is flaking apart.
Serve in bowls, topped with coriander leaves and spring onions, with lime wedges on the side.
I added a little of yoghurt for Woody to take a bit of the heat off. He didn’t seem to mind it.
The next one is inspired from a New York Times recipe, although I couldn’t help myself but add my touch to it, it’s better that way!
Cauliflower and chicken traybake
Makes: 4 adult servings
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Ingredients
4 chicken thighs skin on
1 whole cauliflower (feels like a lot but it shrinks) + leaves
2 onions
4 clove of garlic
2 lemons
Paprika
Zataar (or equal parts ground coriander, cumin, thyme + sesame seeds)
Olive oil
Yoghurt
Mint
INSTRUCTIONS
Heat oven 195c on fan heat.
In a bowl, add 10 tbsp olive oil, salt, pepper and zaatar. Chop up the cauliflower in florets (not too small) and add to the bowl. Make sure it is all coated in the olive oil mixture and put in the tray.
In the same bowl, add the chicken, add olive oil and zaatar if required. You want to make sure the chicken is shining with olive oil and spice mixture. Put in the tray with the cauliflower skin side up.
Cut the onions in 8th and put in the tray.
Cut the lemons in half, put them in the tray flat side up.
Put the tray in the oven for 45 mins, until chicken is cooked through. Don’t worry about the cauliflower getting a little charred, it tastes delicious like that. Ideally you will have beautiful gold juices all around the tray.
At the 30 mins mark, add the cauliflower leaves, make sure they are covered in olive oil.
In the meantime, chop up some mint and mix it with 10 tbsp of yoghurt.
When its ready, spoon some yoghurt on your plate, and place the chicken, cauliflower mixture on top. Make sure to spoon some of those beautiful juices over it all.
To make it into a more consistent meal, cook some couscous separately and serve it on the plate.
I had the leftovers in a sandwich the next day, I enjoyed it more than the meal itself. So why not make it into a fantastic sandwich filler? Use a wrap, pita, baguette, whatever you have, some yoghurt and tahini, the heated up chicken and cauliflower mixture, lots of herbs (mint/ spring onions), capers, a big gherkin would be a great addition and some chilli flakes. Just thinking about it makes me hungry.
Hope these two recipes come in handy at some point soon, when you feel uninspired and don’t want to get your hands dirty.
Enjoy x