LFC - Lesley Fried (baked!) Chicken.... Finally beat the fast food chain 😜

I did it!!!

After stating awhile ago I would start making my own nuggets so we don't even need to use frozen I finally did it 😁😁!

I found the recipe using my 'All recipes UK' app on my phone. It looked simple. Chicken breast, breadcrumbs, a little salt and pepper, Parmesan, and mixed Italian herbs. Literally coat chicken in the breadcrumbs and bake in the oven. It took 5 minutes to prep and about 25 minutes in the oven. One thing that did surprise me is normally with this sort of thing you dip in beaten egg before putting in the breadcrumbs, but with this recipe it calls for melted butter. 

So to make this abit more authentic I chopped up a corn on the cob and boiled them until cooked, then peeled potatoes and made some chips in my actifryer (air fryer). 

So all in all no deep frying involved yet we had chicken nuggets and chips!

Verdict - half hour to make, children love it as fun activity making the nuggets, and completely clean plates. They think they have had a naughty meal when in fact all perfectly healthy. Great meal and will become a regular in the Aspinall house.

Wonton soup surprise!!!

Last week I made the decision to make wonton soup from my Thailand cook book. The thought process behind it;

1) fun to make wontons with kids

2) family loves prawns

3) healthy

4) I have rice paper wrappers in the freezer.

5) looks easy!

Ok mistake number 1.... It's not easy! Oh actually it would be easy if I had not made mistake number 2... Using thin rice paper wrappers normally used for dimsum rather than pastry wonton wrappers.... Doh!

Now if I were making the wontons alone it would be so fast, but I had 2 helpers who loved making the little parcels, and as well as testing my patience it took twice as long as it should.

Now I have learnt the hard way that if you place wontons made with rice paper into boiling water to cook they explode. Sigh. So out of my lovely plate full only 4 managed to remain in tact, 1 each, lucky hey!

The soup itself is made using very simple ingredients, Chinese cabbage, beansprouts, soy sauce and stock. You then cook king prawns at last minute and add the wontons.

Now why is this post called wonton soup surprise I hear you ask? Well surprise number 1 was exploding wontons and surprise number 2 is when I tasted the soup I thought "oh dear.... It's just cabbage water", and I was prepared for the kids to spit it back at me, baked beans were on stand by. Imagine my surprise when they ate every drop, and the old man had seconds! You see each component on its own was nothing great, pretty tasteless. But together, it was so moorish.

So yes, this is another one I will make again, but next time I'll buy the correct wrappers.

Taking those next steps towards smugness!

 As you're all aware I already try my best to ensure that all our meals are home cooked, only resorting to takeaway, ready meals or jarred sauces as a last resort. Well I decided that in an effort to ensure we are only eating the freshest produce, supporting local business and also in an attempt to save some money, that instead of doing all my shopping at the supermarket I will now use the farm shop and local butchers buying only what's remaining at the supermarket. But I wanted to do this without effecting my daily routine too much, basically I only wanted to do this is if it was easy... See at least I'm honest! 

So I changed my routine, instead of planning on a Saturday and doing all on line I now plan on a Thursday. The reason for this is that looking at my whole week I had 30 minutes on a Friday between picking Morgan up from school and her swimming lesson, and I worked out that gave me enough time to stop in the high street and go to green grocers and butchers. So now me and Morgan go walking down high street with my little old lady bag on wheels and get our shopping before her lesson, and she finds it fun as she helps me choose and after 3 weeks of doing this I am finding the produce so much better, quality and taste, and also I'm saving between £10 - £20 per week! Oh and I feel rather funky with the bag... Ha!

I then on Friday after dinner order all the remaining on line (that way if I can't find everything in town I can add it to the supermarket list)

My next step towards smugness is trying to make my daughters packed lunches less processed! She always has the following;

*sandwich

*piece of fruit

*yoghurt

*meat snack (eg mini pepperami)

*cheese snack (eg cheese string)

*biscuit or chocolate 

So the last 2 weeks on a Sunday me and the girls have baked cake, this is then cut up and substitutes the biscuit or chocolate in the lunch. This is lovely, because it's still a sweet treat but all homemade so I know what's in it and the best part is the girls do it with me, so it's a fun relaxing job.

Last week we made lemon drizzle cake, which was gorgeous even if I do say so myself;

Today we made a chocolate tray bake, not as good as the lemon cake if you ask me but the girls love it.

So there you go.... I'm slowly getting there.

Salmon parcels, not everything low-fat is tasteless

Friday night was salmon parcel night, now this is a tale of positives and negatives.... Easy to make, did not take too much time, and myself and my old man liked it.... However the children ermmmm let's just say not to their taste. Now they both like salmon so that is not the problem, but I will explain more later.

The recipe is out of my 1000 low fat recipes book, it's an old book and you can buy it on amazon etc, I've had it so long I can't remember when and where I got it. It's a simple idea, salmon fillets wrapped in filo pastry with mushrooms, tomatoes and basil. Served with a tomato sauce and I added new potatoes and green beans. Fun to make as kids can help make the little parcels and a simple fresh meal. I brought ready made filo sheets as it's so much easier! Then just pop in oven.

Now the kids were excited as they like salmon and pastry however the disappointment on their faces when they saw the mushrooms was a sign of what would happen. Following points of critism from my children;

1) why would you spoil it by putting mushrooms in there?

2) OMG there's tomatoes in there too...why?

Finally... (3) mummy why put it on top of the tomato sauce because you've made the pastry soggy! (Ok I was trying to make the presentation better)

I didn't have to cook anything else as they ate the potato and veg, picked off and ate the pastry, and scrapped all veg off the salmon and ate bits of the salmon.

It took about 45 minutes in total however that included messing around with kids whilst doing it. But probably will not be able to make again as not a popular one, unless I just wrap the salmon with no veg inside but that would be boring!

Wow.... Pan Haggerty mmmmmm

Thursday night and the plan was to cook pan haggerty from the hairy bikers "mums know best" book, and yes people I stuck to the plan 😊

I chose this recipe as it was a one pot dish, looked simple to make contained all ingredients my children love, and it was certainly a good choice.

It didn't say timings on the recipe but looking through I thought well this should take half hour.... Big mistake! It took an hour so instead of sitting down at 6:30pm we were eating our dinner at 7pm. The main reason for this is the preparation, lots and lots of sliced potato carrot and onion! I am no professional chef and this took ages.

But you can get kids involved, Florence loved helping me layer the food in the pan.

Turned into a craft project rather than dinner haha! Oh and I did cheat and buy ready grated cheese, it just saves so much time!

Once all cooking everything done in 25 minutes, so I will do this again but next time I'm going to prepare everything in the morning or night before. Save a lot of time on the evening.

So verdict, timing can be improved on, ingredients... Simple and cheap! Taste... Wow! This is now one of our favourites. Kids literally licked the bowl clean, Morgan stated it was just yummy! So yes we will definately be having this again, big success!

Oh and I worked out for the one I made 520 calories for 1/4 of pan.... Brilliant! It's decievingly healthy!

For the recipe please visit hairy bikers web page, buy book or follow link below;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/panhaggerty_93163

Enjoy!

#hairybikers

#panhaggerty

#bacon