Cooking on the cheep

I LOVE Christmas shopping! It's the one time of the year I find everything I've been looking for - for me. That pair of boots in the pre-Christmas sale, the perfect necklace for wearing with your best party dress, the exact shade of nail varnish you've been looking for for about 2 years... and don't even get me started on the festive cake cases. My advice: Economise on the catering with immediate effect and treat yourself. Here is a recipe for Chinese chicken from a recent article by Prue Leith on how to feed your family (of four) for £50 per week.

Chinese chicken and fried rice

Chinese chicken

Heat oven to 190/gas 5. Tip a 1kg pack of drumsticks and legs into a roasting dish, mix together 1 tablespoon honey and 3 of soy sauce, pour it over the chicken and roast for about 45 minutes.

(Egg) fried rice 

This was enough for 1 adult and 1 child, plus seconds for both - scale it up as required

3oz basmati rice
2 small carrots
2 small handfuls frozen peas
1/4 leek
light soy sauce
sesame oil
(1 egg, lightly beaten)

Cook rice, adding carrots halfway through cooking time and peas almost at the end. Meanwhile, heat a little oil in a frying pan, tip in the egg and let it cook through like an omelette. Slide it out onto a plate, cut into strips and keep warm. Gently fry leek for a few minutes, then tip in the cooked rice, veg and egg. Splosh in some light soy sauce to taste and a drizzle of sesame oil; mix well.

Prawn and pea risotto

I heart prawns

A warming one-dish family favourite. Make it with:

1.5 litres liquid
(I used a veg stock cube and a carton of fish stock mixed with water, but any fish/chicken/veg stock would be ok)
half a red chilli, finely sliced
1 onion, chopped
300g risotto rice
1 glass white wine
200g frozen peas
zest of 1 lemon, grated
juice of half a lemon
400g uncooked prawns (better for flavour, but cooked prawns are fine)

Put the stock in a pan with the chilli and bring it slowly to the boil, then turn the heat right down and let it simmer. Meanwhile, fry the onion in a generous splash of olive oil and a bit of butter until it's soft.  Stir in the rice and mix thoroughly. Pour in the wine and stir well. When it has evaporated add the stock, a ladle-full at a time, stirring well in between. Near the end, add the peas, lemon zest, juice and the prawns and cook until they are pink.

If you want, stir through some parmesan/chopped parsley or coriander/a knob of butter, and garnish with strips of lemon zest.

Making dinner from dust

The mother's after-school prayer: "Oh God what am I going to cook?"

OK, so it's not exactly Old Mother Hubbard, but what am I going to cook for dinner?  It has to appeal to children of 12 and 8 (one gastronomically extrovert, the other who prefers junk), to be nutritionally sound and on the table in less than 30 minutes.

Fortunately, I have a fridge as well.  And in it lurks a packet of chicken breasts and a few vegetables on the brink of decay.  Tonight we will be having glazed chicken and fried rice, with strawberry fro-yo for pudding if I can chip it out from the permafrost in the freezer.

The cupboard wasn't bare but it wasn't very inspiring

Glazed chicken:

Mix together 4tbsp balsamic vinegar, 2½ tbsp brown sugar and 1 tbsp tomato puree.  Brown chicken in pan and remove from heat.  Pour in balsamic vinegar mixture, bring it to a simmer and stir until the sugar has dissolved.  Put the chicken back in the pan and cook, turning occasionally.

Fried rice

Dice a couple of carrots and cook them with the rice.  Add a few frozen peas/sweetcorn a couple of minutes before draining the rice.  Drain the whole lot.  Gently fry a well-chopped onion until transparent and sweet (or fry a few spring onions for a couple of minutes instead), add the rice and veg and a few sploshes of soy sauce.

Score extra nanny-state-5-a-day points if you have another vegetable to serve with this.

Serve it up and wait for the whoops of appreciation...