Mushroom and Bacon Frittata

I started off making frittatas just for me and my son but it's a sign of a recipe which is a pretty good one when I start making it for myself when he's already in bed!

Another frittata recipe.  Yes, I know, but they are good value, delicious, great warm or cold and a fantastic way to include both eggs and vegetables in your diet.  For some reason my body was craving eggs and mushrooms today and I went with it.  I didn't twig until I'd finished my meal how I'd chosen two foods high in dietary vitamin D.  What could I be craving?  Sunshine of course.  Now the nights are drawing in, our bodies aren't seeing the light so much so what could be better?

Mushroom and Bacon Frittata - Serves 2 adults easily

Ingredients

80g, 3oz Smoked bacon
100g, 3.5oz Mushrooms
100g, 3.5oz Red onion, finely diced
1 tsp Olive oil
4 Eggs
3 tbsp Milk
1 and a half tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
60g, 2oz Extra Mature (Extra Sharp) Cheddar
A few sprigs of fresh thyme

Method

Preheat an oven to 180oC, 350F, Gas Mark 4.

Chop up the bacon and fry in a non stick frying pan until cooked, remove to a bowl to cool.  Put the onions and oil into the frying pan and cook until softening and then add in the mushrooms and cook until browned.  Add into the bowl to cool.

In a jug, mix the eggs, milk, cornflour and grated cheddar.

Mix the egg mix with the vegetables and bacon.  Add in a little thyme and pour into a greased, lined baking dish.  Mine is 15-17cm, 6-6.5inch round baking dish but flares out a bit from the base from this diameter.

Bake for 18-22 minutes or until cooked and firm.

Allow to cool a little and cut into wedges to serve or allow to cool completely.

Make it Thrifty:

Look out for bacon offcut packs as these are often a much more cost effective way of buying bacon to cook with.

Baked Cherry Custard

This isn't a sugar free recipe but at only 2 tsp added sugar per portion and a step towards your five a day, it's not terrible!

I started trying to think of a custard recipe, then thought "what fruit could I include" and before I knew it, it was almost a clafoutis except a gluten free one.  Best served warm or cold not hot.

Baked Cherry Custard - Makes 3 puddings

Ingredients

150g, 5.5oz Frozen pitted cherries
2 tbsp Sugar
2 Egg yolks
150ml, 5.5 fl oz Semi skimmed (2%) milk
1/4 tsp Almond extract (or vanilla if you prefer)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180oC, 350F, Gas Mark 4.

Heat the cherries with 1 tbsp sugar until releasing the juice and starting to reduce.  Use a slotted spoon to transfer to three small ramekins.  Save the juice if liked for cheffy drizzles later!

Mix the remaining sugar, eggs, milk and extract and whisk together.  Pour carefully on top of the cherries and bake in a bain marie (deep baking dish with hot water poured up the sides of the dishes) for 15-20 minutes or until cooked with a slight wobble.

Make it Thrifty:

To make this recipe more economical to cook; put in the oven at the same time as something else so you're not wasting the heat.  Why not pop in while my chicken tray bake is cooking?

Chicken Tray Bake, a thrifty meal for the family

A whole chicken is a great thing.  It can provide multiple meals like chicken pasta bake, orzotto, soup, pie, even more pie etc, etc.

But that said, not everyone wants or needs a whole chicken.  Sometimes it's a bit daunting as well for some people to get to grips with a roast (even if it's one of the easiest things to cook in my opinion).  So this is a roast for extreme novices and also handy for people on limited budgets.

Any vegetables which roast well would work here.  Just make sure you cut them to a suitable size so they cook in the time.  The longer a vegetable takes to cook, the smaller you cut it.  If you cut it too small, it might collapse a bit (like my butternut squash did here) but it's still tasty.

Don't add any oil to the vegetables, there is some fat which cooks out of the chicken which makes them taste yummy.

Chicken Tray Bake - serves 2 adults or 1 adult and 2 young children

Ingredients

4 Decent size chicken thighs (skin and bone in)
120g, 4.5oz Butternut squash
1/4 Red onion, sliced into strips
1/2 Courgette (zucchini) cut into thick sticks
A few sprigs of thyme
Freshly ground pepper

Method

Peel and slice the butternut squash, cut up the other vegetables and mix with the thyme.  Put the chicken thighs on top and season with pepper (add salt if cooking for adults as it will make the skin go crispier.)

If wanted you could cover and put in the fridge until ready to cook.  When ready, roast at 180oC, 350F, gas mark 4 for 45 mins.

Cut the chicken off the bone for younger kids and serve alongside some green vegetables if liked.  Add a small pinch of salt if liked for adult portions if cooking for the whole family.

This would be a cracking recipe for baby led weaners, imagine giving soft roasted vegetable sticks and strips of the roasted chicken?  It would work a treat!

Make it Thrifty:

Chicken thighs are pretty thrifty as it is but save money further by using the oven heat to cook something else at the same time.  Also if you're a fan of nibbling on drumsticks, they are often cheaper still and would work here.

Child friendly Prawn Laksa

Laksa isn't an obvious choice for a preschooler but why not?  Most kids I know are fans of prawns and noodles.

I've toned this all down a bit to make it friendly for kids who aren't big fans of spice.  Although my son does have more spice in his food than he sometimes realises, last time his Dad cooked him a curry, he was less then keen and apparently ended up eating fish fingers so I went gentle (but noticeable) on the spicing here.

He looked at it.  Said "I don't think I like that"
I said "Have you tried a prawn?"
He said "Ooh, no"
Has a couple of bites, then starts eating the mushrooms and noodles.  I'm trying to photograph my portion while my stomach is rumbling because it smells pretty good (I'm not one of those food bloggers who cooks to photograph, I cook to eat.)
"Mummy this is yummy"
And indeed it was :-)
A touch too mild for me but there was spice there and a real depth of flavour.  You can do as I did and slice up a little raw red chilli to put on top for a bit of zing.  It's great to be able to make a dish that you can adapt for everyone in the family without feeling you're having a huge turkey twizzler compromise or reaching for the pack of emergency fish fingers...

Don't be scared by the long list of ingredients, this is a piece of cake.

Laksa - Serves 1 adult and 1 child

Ingredients
Paste
50g, scant 2oz Onion, chopped (half an onion)
2 Garlic cloves, chopped
1 heaped tsp smooth peanut butter
2 slices of green chilli, seeds removed (approx 1/4 of a chilli, use more if liked)
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp chopped ginger (see 'make it thrifty' below)
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp water

For the Laksa
1 tsp vegetable oil
150g, 5oz raw prawns (see 'make it thrifty' below)
100g, 3.5oz mushrooms
Half of a tin, approx 200ml, 7 fl oz canned coconut milk
1/2 tsp cornflour (cornstarch)
1 tbsp fish sauce
Juice of half a lime
1 tbsp fresh coriander (cilantro) plus more to serve
150g, 5oz straight to wok rice noodles (see 'make it thrifty' below)
Additional lime and chilli to serve if liked.

Method

Chop the onion and garlic and put into a jug or small blender with the remaining paste ingredients.  Blend until smooth (I use a stick blender and a jug which I find which is the best way to make a spice paste as in a large blender, you often find bits get stuck).  You can make this earlier in the day and leave it covered in the fridge if you like.

When ready to cook, devein the prawns if liked (I prefer to if I have time) and quarter the mushrooms (or halve if small).

Heat a tsp of oil in a wok, add the paste and heat through.  Add the coconut milk (make sure if you're using half a can you use half of the thick stuff and half of the thin) and another tbsp fish sauce and bring to the boil.  Add the mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the prawns, after a minute add the cornflour (cornstarch) mixed with a little water before adding.  Bring to a bubble and put in the noodles.

Heat through then add the lime juice and chopped coriander (cilantro) then serve sprinkling with extra coriander (cilantro) leaf, lime and sliced red chilli if liked.

Make it Thrifty:

I buy frozen ginger as it means it doesn't go off.  It's not that different in price to fresh ginger and it's frozen in portions of about a tbsp.  For this, just allow it to defrost before making the paste.  I also buy raw prawns frozen.  The great thing about buying them frozen is you can be sure of the freshness and again you're not going to have the waste.  Or you could make it with vegetables instead.

In general I'm not a fan of the straight to wok noodles (sorry manufacturers), I find them too soft.  The only reason I used them here was because I couldn't get any dried rice noodles but you can make it far cheaper by using dried noodles and cooking as per pack instructions.