Portuguese inspired chicken tray bake!

I cannot resist a bargain, and walking through the market yesterday they had whole crates of peppers and tomatoes that were so cheap they were practically giving them away! I couldn't just leave them there for such a good price so I loaded up my buggy with bags of delicious produce and now I need to find lots of ways to use them up (and my freezer is already so full I can barely shut the door!).
Tonight's chicken tray bake was inspired by food I ate in Portugal last year and my need to use up some peppers! I used orange and yellow peppers as that's what I had the most of but red peppers would be equally delicious in this recipe.
It's a really simple one that's perfect for a weeknight as you can just throw everything in, set the timer and get on with something else (in my case it was bathing little man and getting him in bed!) knowing a delicious dinner awaits.
So here are the oh so simple instructions....

Chop peppers of your preference into chunky strips and place in the bottom of the tray or dish you are using (about 1 pepper per person is the right portion size), next peel and chop sweet potatoes into coins and add to the tray. Again, 1 per person should be enough depending on the size of your spuds. You will need about half a chorizo sausage for 2
People, chop this and add to the tray. Place chicken thighs on top of your veg and drizzle with a little olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and some oregano. Put it straight in the oven for an hour and do your thing- if I wasn't pregnant I would definitely be pouring a nice glass of red to go with this. Give it a shake half way through cooking and devour! :)

Sweet potato chorizo hash

This is yum in a bowl and takes minutes to prepare! I really don't know why we don't have it more often! Peel and chop 2 cups of sweet potato (this is about 3 good sized whole potatoes) and par boil them to soften. Meanwhile dice 1 smallish red onion, 1 glove of garlic and about half a medium chorizo sausage (1 cup diced) and 3 medium sized tomatoes.
Add the chorizo to a hot pan and heat until the oil comes out. Remove chorizo from the pan and out aside, using the oil to gently fry your onion and garlic. Add a pinch of cumin (and optional chilli flakes or some extra paprika to your taste) and add the sweet potato stirring until browned and softened. Add the tomatoes and 3 good handfuls of kale. Re add the chorizo and stir well until tomatoes are cooked and the kale is wilted.
Spoon in to bowls and eat as it is or topped with cheese.
I made double of this and put some in the freezer for when baby 2.0 makes an appearance so I'll let you know how well this one freezes!

Roast dinner pasties

These yummy pasties were made with the leftovers from our Sunday roast. 

First make your pastry. The usual rule is half fat to flour when making shortcrust. For these 4 large pasties I used 4oz butter (cold) and 8oz plain flour. Rub with fingertips to make bread crumbs, add a splash of cold water and combine to make a dough. Wrap your dough in cling film and pop in the fridge while you make the filling. 

For the filling simply get the leftovers from your roast(meat, potatoes, any veg and gravy). Pop everything except the potatoes in a food processor and combine. Dice the leftover potatoes and add to the mix. (Make a little extra gravy up if it looks too dry, I had to mix a quick half a jug up from granules to add to mine). Remove your dough from the and roll out on a floured surface. Cut out circle shapes, the larger the circle the larger your pasties will be. I used a soup bowl to cut around to make my circles big and neat. Spoon filling into the centre of each circle and fold over. Pinch together to make crimped edges and brush with egg or milk to help them brown. Pop in the oven at 200 degrees for 20mins and you're done! 

These freeze really well too. 

Rocky road is awesome

I mentioned in my previous post that Joseph and I had made rocky road fridge cake. Well it tasted just so good that we've eaten it all already and we are going to have to make some more. So here's how we did it:

Large handful of mixed nuts

Large handful of raisins/sultanas/dried fruit of your choice

3 rich tea or digestive biscuits 

Small handful marshmallows

Put all of the above ingredients in a food processor, meanwhile melt 2 bars of dark chocolate (the really cheap supermarket brand stuff is fine!) in a glass bowl over a pan of water (or in the microwave!) with a knob of butter. When the chocolate and butter are melted stir in the dry ingredients and mix well. Pour into a greased tin lined with baking paper and put in the fridge for several hours until set. Remove from the tin, chop into slices and devour greedily! 

One roast, lots of meals!

Saturday I felt awful so spent much of the day lying on the sofa feeling sorry for myself. As such no cooking happened! I decided to make up for that yesterday with a mammoth cooking session to prepare me for the week. I thought it best to make the most of having a little bit of energy so that if this week I don't feel like cooking, I know that we will be well fed anyway. After an indulgent breakfast of bacon and eggs (it's the weekend, why not!) I got started on the lunch time roast, peeling and chopping twice as much veg and potatoes as I needed and put a whole chicken in to roast.
I then chopped some sweet red peppers and put them in the bottom of the oven to roast away too. I had loads of broccoli and so used the trimmings (stalks and all) with a slightly sorry looking leftover courgette I found in the fridge to whip up some homemade pesto in the blender whilst steaming some green beans to go in a salad with the spare potatoes and the roasted peppers . I also got out some stock and threw some veg in to make a soup.
After our roast was eaten I stripped and portioned out the rest of the chicken and any veg/spuds that didn't get eaten and set them aside to make a pie and a curry with (I'll add some tinned peaches and chickpeas with some curry powder to make tonight's dinner, and I whipped up a quick sauce and some pastry for my pie). The very last bits of leftovers have all gone in the food processor to make pasties which I will freeze for packed lunches.
So out of the ingredients I bought for my roast and some things I found lurking in the fridge I managed to get:

A roast for 3 with leftovers for the little one for later
A soup for our lunches today
Curry for tonight
Pasties for later in the week
A pie for Tuesday night
Potato salad for Wednesday lunch
Pesto to have with pasta one night this week

Not a bad haul.

I then grabbed bubs for a 'toddler baking' session and we whipped up some rocky road for dessert. Successful day in the kitchen! :)