Homemade Fishfingers for Fresh Week

Reader, I have a Fresh Week confession.

So far, Fresh Week has been pretty easy for me because the meals - our main meals, at least, have come from the freezer. My own 'ready meals' if you will. 'Fresh' because I made them from scratch, but not perhaps within the spirit of Fresh Week because the effort was all last week - or even last month. On the other hand, if you are a busy working parent, I firmly believe that the freezer is your friend if you want to cook more from scratch, so perhaps it is within the spirit of the challenge after all - I leave it to you to decide and leave you with the thought that this, if anything, would be my top tip of the week: cook in bulk and freeze.

Last week, I made a vat of aubergine & red pepper pasta sauce and froze it in portions. Easy then, yesterday, to cook up some pasta, stir the defrosted sauce through, grate some cheese on top and whack it under the grill. Home cooked food. No stress. 

This evening, then, more of a challenge. Fish fingers. made from scratch. And chips.  And a play date to cater for.

Now I appreciate that I work from home which makes it slightly easier for me to get ahead, but even so, this is so easy that provided you have all the ingredients in, you can get the meal on the table in an hour. I managed it this evening including skinning the fish.

Homemade Fishfingers & Chips

(served 1 adult and 3 kids)

3 large (baking sized) potatoes

2 large fillets of firm white fish, skinned
plain flour
1 large egg
oatmeal & polenta

First, put the oven on to heat as high as it will go. Put a pan of water on to boil.

Peel the potatoes and slice into chip sizes. When the water is boiling, tip in the chips and cook for 5 minutes, then drain and leave to steam for a few minutes. Put a baking sheet with a tablespoon or two of rapeseed or olive oil on it into the oven to heat up. After about 5 minutes, when the oven is at temperature, carefully remove the baking sheet and tip the chips on to it, shaking them round so they are covered in the hot oil. Put the chips in the oven.


Get your fish ready. You need 3 side plates set up, one with plain flour on it, the next with the egg beaten on it and finally the polenta & oatmeal mixed together. 

I apologise now for the measurement fail, but I just do this by eye. And it doesn't have to be polenta & oatmeal. it can be breadcrumbs, semolina works, or even crushed cornflakes (but not for Fresh Week).

Cut your fish into appropriate pieces, then dip in the flour first, then the egg and finally cover with the crumbs, and place on another greaseproof paper covered baking sheet. Repeat with all the fish.

Now, you need to judge this a bit carefully, but the fish takes about 15 minutes (turned half way through) and the chips take about 35-40 minutes, so check the chips every so often, give them a shake and a turn over with a spatula, and when they are starting to look reasonably cooked, as if they don't need a huge amount more time, drizzle a little oil over the fish and put the fingers in to cook, turning after 6-7 minutes.

When the fish is cooked and golden, the chips should also be cooked. 

Serve with whatever you like. We had carrot sticks, roasted beetroot and salad. You can also include ketchup. I leave it up to you whether you make your own or not...

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A Fish Pie so yummy, Pink would eat it again - and low fat too...

So you might be forgiven for thinking that the whole diet thing has gone out of the window with all the cake that's been on here recently, but no, I have been doing my 'fast' days and I'm planning to write some more about that later on this week. I've also been trying to cut down the fat and stuff in some of our other meals.

Good Friday was a classic example. Something in my psyche says that  we should eat fish on a Friday. I'm not quite sure where this comes from as I was brought up C of E and the whole fish on Friday thing seems to be a more RC tradition, but whatever, fish on a Friday is always there in the back of my mind. Not that it happens much - I'm not a confident fish cook and it always tends to be the same 2 or 3 things that I cook. But if there was any day when I would cook fish, it would be Good Friday.

Fish pie is one of those 2 or 3 fish things that I cook. It's something I can't really remember learning how to make, although I have a vague recollection of a couple of phone calls to mum wondering about how much fish to buy. I always use the same method too - poaching haddock, undyed smoked haddock and salmon in some milk with bay leaves, peppercorns and a couple of cloves; making a white sauce using the infused milk, combining the two, and finally topping with mash. It's one of those things that I've never actually used a recipe for, and often end up making too much fish mixture, or not enough mash.

A few years ago, Good Food ran a series where they did 'ultimate makeovers' of classic recipes, with the aim of reducing the fat content and generally making the dishes healthier without compromising on taste, and in April 2010, fish pie got the treatment. Actually, I think they are still doing it, but it's called 'Make it Healthier' now. I think I prefer 'The Ultimate Makeover' as a concept, but who am I? Anyway, I digress. In my new low fat mindset, I decided to give it a go. A new recipe also meant I could truthfully tell Pink that it was a new way of cooking it and it would taste different, which means she has to try it and it would hopefully defer the wailing and the grimaces that currently accompanies most fish that's put in front of her.

The big differences to my usual method, as far as I could tell, were using cornflour to thicken the sauce rather than making a roux, using shell on cooked prawns to flavour the milk that you poach the fish in (and then make the sauce from), and most controversially as far as I was concerned using 125g of low fat soft cheese with garlic and herbs for extra flavour and creaminess. A final difference was using whole (skin on) new potatoes, boiled, then roughly crushed with a bit of rapeseed oil rather than mashed.

Well, my butcher (who I order fish through) could only get me a massive kilo bag of prawns, so I decided to leave them out, but otherwise, I pretty much followed the recipe and it was a revelation. I said the cream cheese was controversial, and I was worried that it would make it all a bit over poweringly garlicky, and claggy, but as promised, it was a lovely creamy sauce. The potato topping was particularly good too - I may well adopt this approach for other potato topped pies in future. In terms of calorie counting etc, a portion of this baby is supposedly 416 calories as opposed to a more traditionally made fish pie which would rock in at 676 calories, with only 15g of fat (4g saturated) as opposed to a whopping 38g of fat (19g saturated). And if you need any more convincing, I leave you with the words of my (allegedly) fish-loathing Pink, who had sulked round the house all afternoon once she knew it was on the cards for the evening meal:

"Mummy, that was really yummy. I will eat fish pie again if you make it that way".

I rest my case.

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Last night, Good Food saved my life...

A bumper issue - you'll see why!

Well, actually, most nights for the last couple of weeks, Good Food has been my saviour. That and jacket potatoes. I have been busy, busy, busy doing lots of things. The day job, the children (book day costumes, times tables etc), and also, quite exciting, some other bits and pieces . It's all been a bit of a roller coaster and I'm loving it, but it's meant that I haven't spent as much time and effort on what we're going to eat.





You see, one of the things that motivates me to cook different things is the boredom that crashes around me when I make the same things week in and week out. Meal planning helps me with this, but recently, when I've been tired and thinking about other things then tried to work out what we're going to eat I have found my mind is a blank, apart from a little voice screaming "No! Not Cottage pie AGAIN!".  

I have a large, and ever expanding collection of recipe books, and with more time on my hands, I'd happily spend hours flicking through, deciding what we're going to eat, but this hasn't been an option recently. That's where Good Food has come into it's own. I blow hot and cold about any magazine. I find that if you get more than a few issues, you start noticing things coming back round again. I've had a subscription to Good Food on and off for the last 10 years at least, but I'll have it and then leave it for a year or so. Some months are good, some are not so good. Every couple of years, I have a clear out an only keep those issues with recipes that I know I've cooked and will cook again. I'm pleased to say that I'm in a subscription year (a Christmas present) because the March issue has really saved me - it's certainly on that'll survive the next cull.

The first article that caught my eye was dedicated to 5 meals for under £25 - a working week's worth of main meals with no thought (and very little effort) required. What I really liked was that the meals involved cooking from scratch, but were quick and easy. This was going to be a post about cooking those meals specifically and whether or not it did cost me less than £25. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that.  I didn't cook them in the order they specified. I made my own garlic bread, too (rather than using a dough mix), for the tomato soup with tear & share cheesy bread, and I didn't keep track of the cost. And anyway, my reliance the March Good Food mag has gone way beyond that one article and so this blog post has become my way of passing on all these brilliant meals to you. 

And don't worry that it's too late and the April edition is on the shelves already. (I know - it's ridiculous, isn't it, that we're less than 2 weeks into March, but I've had my gripe about that before, so I won't repeat that here) All these recipes are online so I've added in the links. Don't say I never do anything for you.

We loved Pasta with ham and Minty Pea Pesto - a kind of jazzed up macaroni peas.

very green - and very delicious

Piri Piri chicken with spicy rice (well, it turned into Reggae Reggae chicken because I had a half used bottle of Reggae reggae sauce in the fridge) was very popular, 

Loads of veg in that rice

and the Creamy Fish Curry was the perfect thing to finish up some disappointing white fish fillets lurking in the freezer. 

The only recipe that didn't work so well as far as I'm concerned was the Black bean beef meatballs with stir fried noodles 

but then I hadn't clocked that the recipe only required 300g mince, and I kind of fiddled around and added in too many breadcrumbs so the end result was all a little dry.

Tomato & harissa stew with cheddar dumplings   

was also a great success - particularly the dumplings, which were pleasingly cheesy but not at all heavy and appeased the courgette haters amongst us... 

Yes, yes, spot the out of season courgette. So shoot me

The Beef & Bacon meatloaf - sneaky secret ingredient half a box of stuffing mix - was a huge hit too, destined to be a regular 'quick fix' on our menu, I think (in so far as anything turns up regularly)

Meatloaf worthy of a packed lunch

Blue forewent roast for school dinner the next day JUST so he could have meatloaf sandwiches with the left overs - praise indeed. The sausage & fennel meatballs with lentils made a delicious Saturday supper, and sausage & stuffing toad in the hole with onion gravy, using up the other half of the pack of stuffing from the meatloaf, was just the ticket on a wet and rainy Friday night.

So there you have it - these were all pretty quick to knock up and very easy. Apart from the Chinese meatballs, I would make everything again. I commend each and every one of these recipes to you, and say thank you, Good Food!

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Creamy, Sweet Chilli Salmon Pasta

What! Another guest post - I hear you cry? Well, frankly yes. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share this quick easy comfort food type of meal. Elle at Nutritionist Resource approached me and asked if I'd be interested in sharing the recipe on my blog, and so here it is. Quick, easy, comforting and yet low on calories. 


Creamy, Sweet Chilli Salmon Pasta
When you've had a busy day and you're overtired, overworked and underfed, you need some comfort food. Now, I am not talking about fatty pies in buttery pastry or your usual from the local Indian takeaway. I am talking about a meal that is so quick, easy and comforting that you will have made it, eaten it and washed up in the same time it would take you to wait for the takeaway delivery. Plus, it is a fraction of the calories and price – win win! To make one meal, you will need:

• 1 salmon fillet
  
• Around a tablespoon of Light Philadelphia
  
• A glug of sweet chilli sauce (no time for measurements when you're this hungry!)
  
• A portion of pasta
  
• A large handful of mangetout
  
  
  
  
  
  1. Preheat your oven to meet the needs of your salmon. (For the purposes of this recipe, mine was at 180°C) and bring a large pan of water to the boil.
     
  
  
  2. Drizzle some sweet chilli sauce over the top of your salmon, pop it into the centre of the oven and set your timer (15 minutes for mine). Add your pasta to the boiling water and cook according to packet instructions. When it is about three minutes from being cooked, add your mangetout to the pasta. You want these to still have a little bit of bite to them so be careful not too overcook.
     
  
  
  3. Drain your pasta and mangetout and toss in boiling water to get rid of any starch. Add your Philly to the pan with a glug of sweet chilli sauce and start simmering on a low heat. Just before your salmon is ready, chuck the pasta and mangetout into the warm Philly mixture and whack up the heat.
     
     
  4. Take your salmon out of the oven and keep going back to the pasta to give it a good stir. Use a fish slice to remove the skin from the salmon in the baking tray, check your pasta and sauce is hot enough and pile it all on to your plate. 
     
     
  5. Ta- daa! All done! This recipe took me twenty minutes to make including the time it took to preheat the oven. 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     Creamy, tasty comfort food at just a snip of the calories!
     
  
   Tips and Variations
  
  • You could try other tasty seafood such as trout or prawns or even go for chicken pieces.
    
  • I used fresh rigatoni in this recipe as it's so quick to cook but feel free to use your own personal preference. If you want to be really healthy and smug, use wholemeal pasta.
    
  • I really like mangetout but brocolli, sugar snap peas, frozen peas, green beans, sweetcorn, pretty much anything works with this. Just use whatever you have in the fridge/ cupboards.
    
  • The ratio of philly to pasta may look a bit mean in the pan but please trust me, you really don't need a lot. I thought I'd try and be really greedy once and just add loads in but it was far too rich.
    
  • You could try any of the philly flavours or keep the original one and add diced fresh chilli for a real kick.
    Double, triple or quadruple this recipe till your hearts content but please check on the cooking times for your salmon. Different sizes and quantities will mean different time frames.
    
    You kind find out more about Nutritionist Resource on their website - here

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& some mushy peas with that please

The mushy pea. Or, realistically, mushy peas. Once the mush has happened, it would be hard to find them in the singular.

Like marmite, they divide people.

I will never forget the day my mum took my French exchange and I for a day trip into the Dales. We stopped at a pub for lunch, and my adventurous Gallic chum insisted on having whatever was traditional. We deliberated and explained as best we could. In the end she selected the 'pork pie and peas'. Mum and I exchanged glances. In truth, whatever we might have been expecting, a cold, whole pork pie floating in a sea of mushy peas was not it. Nor was it anything that Sonia could have envisaged - marrowfat peas - green mature peas that have been allowed to dry out naturally in the field - soaked overnight then simmered with salt and pepper to make a thick green 'soup'. After 2 weeks in the south of France a year previously, introduced to the delights of steak fondue, merguez flavours, wonderful cheese, and this is how repay her in terms of English gastronomy? I cringed.

For the record, though, she ate it with gusto (for all its strangeness, it tasted pretty amazing) - it's no wonder the exchange was such a success and we are still in touch.

A few years later, I worked in a tiny rural pub in my own corner of Yorkshire to pay a bit of my way through law school. Fran in the kitchen would eat mushy peas mixed with vinegar and black pepper. Bowlsful. Nothing else (apart from the squirty cream for the desserts which she squirted onto a plate and ate with a spoon. Classy, she was - I squirted it onto my finger).

They seem to be a peculiarly Northern taste.

Sure, they can be purchased at establishments across the country, but they aren't taken seriously.  Recently, with the gastro-pub revolution, mushy peas have become something of a retro curiosity, pimped up by our favourite celebrity chefs: Nigella likes hers made with petits pois and creme fraiche. Hugh's are tarted up with garlic and chives Jamie adds mint. That's all well and good, but I've never found them embraced in the the same way as in a decent Yorkshire chippy.

An almost smoky unctuousness; easy to eat; comforting. You can tell which camp I fall into.

On Thursday, Pink and I indulged ourselves. Haddock & chips. Bread & butter. A pot of tea (with cups & saucers and hot water to top up). And mushy peas. In a separate bowl. A portion each. Sigh.

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You shall have a fishy...Smoked Mackerel Salad with Yoghurt, Horseradish & Dill Dressing

I'm not a great charity shop shopper. I do go in and buy things - I've found our local Hospice shop to be a great source of hardly worn Boden clothes, for one thing, but I'm not one of those passionate thrift shoppers. The Husband loves nothing more than spending hours mooching round second hand shops and antique markets, but it's not my thing. 

However, recently, I have been pleased to discover a few lovely things for the kitchen (or rather, the table) in the same hospice shop I mentioned just before. Don't panic, this is not suddenly going to morph into a blog about 'old tat' shops, but isn't this serving plate lovely?

So far, I've used it for cheese and also for a cake (I mean once the cake was on the plate, you couldn't see the fish), but the other evening, I made a smoked mackerel salad and for once, I felt like not only was the food lovely, but I had absolutely the right thing to serve it on. 

Doesn't happen to me often.

This started off life as a Good Food lunchbox idea but as the Husband mused when he read the recipe after we'd eaten "You changed it?". But of course.

 
Smoked Mackerel Salad with yoghurt, horseradish & dill dressing

8 spears of long 'tender stem' brocoli
200g sugar snap peas (cringe, they had been imported from a long way) 
3/4 bag of watercress, rocket and spinach salad
2 smoked mackerel fillets, skinned

150ml low fat natural yoghurt
2 tsps horseradish sauce
juice of half a lemon
about a tablespoon of finely chopped dill

Quickly steam the brocoli and peas till they are cooked but still have bite. It really won't take long. Run them under the cold tap quickly to refresh.

Spread your salad leaves over a beautiful, thriftily sourced, serving dish (or on individual plates), then artfully arrange the cooked brocoli and peas around ad through the leaves, Flake over the smoked mackerel.

Make up the dressing by mixing together the yoghurt, horseradish and lemon juice, and stir through most of the dill. Drizzle this over your plateful of salad, and scatter the remaining dill over the top. 

   

The dill gave the dressing a lovely flavour so I am also entering this into Karen's lovely Herbs on Saturday challenge, hosted this month on Bangers & Mash

 

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