The time has come to admit that the Virus is going to be about for quite a few weeks, if not months and it needs ALL of us to think of ourselves and others to protect the most vulnerable.

If coronavirus forces you to self-isolate, you’ll need to make the most of what you already have in your kitchen – and whilst I am not advocating stockpiling IN ANY WAY – the following is a checklist that, if you have in your cupboards, we can definitely use to cook with if you are stuck at home.

Whole plum tomatoes

• Essential for sauces, soups, stews, casseroles – a true all-rounder!

Pulses and beans (chickpeas, cannellini, kidney, and lentils)

• Great fillers and bulkers, full of protein and fibre.

Light coconut milk

• Add to soups and curries for a mellow, creamy flavour.

Good-quality tinned tuna, salmon, or sardines

• Great for simple pasta dishes and fishcakes.

Good-quality anchovies

• The perfect salty seasoning for sauces and stews.

RICE

DRIED PASTA

• Perfect for pasta bakes or straight-up stovetop wonders – make sure you hang on to any leftover bits to stir into soups and stews.

DRIED NOODLES

• Great for stir-fries, soups and curries.

COUSCOUS

• Full of protein and made from semolina, couscous is a beautiful accompaniment to a tagine or stew, and makes the perfect base for a salad. Add chopped dried cranberries or apricots to really jazz it up.

GRAINS (bulgur, pearl barley, farro)

• Also great and relatively cheap bulkers for stews and soups. Cook a larger batch than you need and turn into delicious salads, warm or cooled.

HONEY 

• Add a touch of sweetness to sauces and marinades. At breakfast and in baking, you only need a little drizzle!

MUSTARDS

• • Add a bit of a kick to stews, sauces and marinades, or use as a condiment.
  • Tip: a tablespoon of grainy mustard and a tablespoon of honey make a great coating when roasting sausages.

OLIVE OIL

Groundnut or vegetable oil

• Good flavourless oil for everyday cooking.

SOY SAUCE

• Seasoning for Asian dishes, marinades and sauces.

CHILLI SAUCES 

VINEGARS (red wine, cider, balsamic)  

• Lots of dishes benefit from a little vinegar – think dressings, marinades, sauces and stews.

Herbs & spices

Oregano

• Mediterranean vibes. Also an essential flavour in Italian-American cuisine.

Smoked paprika

• Punchy, smoky goodness, from Spain to the American Deep South.

Chilli

• Flakes, powder, mild or  hot…we all need a bit of spice!

Cinnamon

• A warming and comforting flavour. Bakes and sauces – both sweet and savoury – love a little sprinkling.

Cumin

• Robust and earthy, and integral to Indian and Mexican cooking. Buy the seeds and toast in a dry pan to release another level of flavour.

Coriander

• Lemony and fragrant.

Curry powder

• A classic blend for basic sauces and curries

Five-spice

• A fabulous blend for marinades, rubs, and noodles

Sea salt

• Sea salt flakes will last you longer than table salt, and encourage you to use less salt in your cooking.

Black peppercorns

• Buy whole peppercorns and grind them when you need them in a pepper mill or pestle and mortar. It tastes a hundred times better than stale, pre-ground pepper.

Miscellaneous

STOCK CUBES

• An excellent way to add flavour and seasoning to loads of different dishes. Try the low-salt versions – they’re often just as good.

PORRIDGE OATS

• perfect for a filling breakfast, even in warmer months. For a change from porridge, try making muesli – it’ll keep in the fridge for a few days. Oats are also super useful in baking, from biscuits to crumble toppings

Plain flour, self-raising flour (wholemeal or white)

• For thickening sauces, coating meat, fish and veggies for frying, and baking.

Nuts and seeds

• Have a couple of packets of your favourites for toasting and sprinkling over salads, soups and stews, or onto yoghurt.

Good-to-haves (extras but not essentials)

• Olives
• Capers
• Tomato purée (add a flavour punch to lots of different dishes)
• Bread flour
• Dried yeast
• Dried fruit
• Cocoa powder
• Sugar (white and brown)
• Toasted sesame oil (a flavoursome oil used often in South-east Asian cuisine)
• Baking powder
• Turmeric (beautifully yellow, and a secret weapon in lots of Indian recipes)
• Garam masala
• Ground ginger
• Fennel seeds
• Your favourite condiments (ketchup, brown sauce, mayonnaise, Tabasco – you never know when you’ll need ‘em)

FREEZER –

vegetables, meat and fish.  Butter and milk will both freeze happily. Bread. You can either buy frozen herbs or freeze your own. 

FRIDGE – garlic (lots of!) and fresh chillies / fresh veg / bacon / pickles / butter /milk/yogurt

Now is the time to put your cooking skills to good use.  When I started this blog Cooking for One it was to encourage those on their own to get back into the enjoyment of shopping, preparing, cooking good food – and I did not want to encourage you to batch cook.  Times have now changed and if you can help someone in any way by offering a meal to those in self isolation, particularly older people or on their own, now is the time to do it.

As I am myself trying to stay at home, I shall post recipes more often particularly using the above ingredients, and also telling you how you can cook the same dish for more.  In the meantime, be kind to yourself and others, stay safe and, please DON’T BULKBUY OR STOCKPILE so we can all have what we need.

Love from Pookie

ps If anyone wants to email me listing what they have in their cupboards, I may be able to whip up a recipe just for you! xx

After Brexit, flooding and now Coronavirus, the weather was suddenly kind to us this week and the sun shone, buds burst out, primroses and crocuses bloomed – and even the hens took to sunbathing! Hope restored, and looking forward to Spring, I visited the local garden centre and bought new plants and seeds to start off in my potting shed. (With the help of the hens), I planted about 150 snowdrops and crocus, cleared some new areas, moved some old plants about and started planning this year’s crops.  The last thing I was thinking of was some complicated cooking to take up my time from outside so looking at ease, quickness and time, this week we are cooking en papillote (using baking parchment, found with the foil and greaseproof paper section of wherever you shop) – all the ingredients thrown into little parcels and popped in the oven – you can even save time on washing up if you eat straight from the packet! 3 versions – fish, chicken and a vegetarian one – should cover all bases – and, if gardening is not your thing, just pour yourself a glass of something nice and sit in the sunshine with a good book, knowing you are not going to be pulled away from its pages any time soon.

• 1 boneless salmon fillet
• 1 clove garlic (minced)
• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 dessertspoon dill (roughly chopped)
• 6 – 8 cherry tomatoes (halved)
• 6 medium white button mushrooms (thinly sliced)
• 4 – 6 thick asparagus spears (if in season – otherwise use tenderstem broccoli)
• 1/2 lemon
• 1 teaspoon capers (optional

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Season salmon fillet with salt and pepper and set aside. Use two pieces of parchment paper big enough to fold in half once all the ingredients have been added. Evenly distribute minced garlic and asparagus in the centre of each of the pieces of paper and top with salmon fillet. Add cherry tomatoes and mushrooms around the salmon and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle dill and capers on top of fish and vegetables and drizzle extra virgin oil. Squeeze a little lemon juice and close the paper by folding the edges over several times, until it is completely sealed. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes, until salmon is almost fully cooked and flaky. Serve with rice, new potatoes or noodles – or just some crusty bread.

Mediterranean Chicken

• 1 boneless, skinless chicken breast  
• 1 grated garlic clove
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1/2 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes, drained
• 2 artichoke hearts (from a 14-ounce can), quartered
• 6 Kalamata olives, halved and pitted
• 2 teaspoons capers
• crumbled feta  
• 1/4 teaspoon oregano (optional)
• 1/2tablespoon olive oil

• 1/2 cup cooked brown rice
• 1 cup thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• Coarse salt and pepper
•  olive oil to drizzle
• fresh greens
•  Lemon wedges

Yesterday was the 29th February – an extra day to the year when I hope you did something special. A whole 24 hours that you didn’t have last year and won’t the next. And to celebrate ours – the SUN shone and I (with the help of the hens) planted over 100 snowdrops in the garden.  My mum gave birth to me in a nursing home rather than a hospital, in a ground floor birthing room and she said that once I was with her, she looked out of the window to the garden, the lawn of which was covered in snowdrops.  Thus she always thought of me when she saw them – and I always think of her. I am hoping for a carpet of them next year – if they are not washed away in the floods!

Looking back over the recipes you and I have done together over the many weeks, it occurred to me that there are probably little jars/packets/leftover veg and fruit lurking about in the back of a cupboard and fridge, so today I’m going to give you some little ideas about what to do with them in this age of cutting down waste.

In no particular order (other than popping into my mind!) . . . .

Salad onions: Blanch whole for 2 minutes and drain. Heat a griddle pan and chargrill for a few minutes each side and serve with a honey and lemon dressing as a side dish

Kale: Make Kale crisps by preheating the oven to 150oC, Toss Torn Kale with a little oil and season and roast in a single layer for about 20 minutes until crisp

Most vegetables can be roasted so just toss any sad looking potatoes/parsnips/carrots/sprouts/whatever in a little olive oil and put in the oven at 180oC till crisp

Herbs: (of course, you can also freeze herbs but they want to be at their best for this and here we are using up the little bits found at the back of the fridge!)

• Shallow fry whole sage leaves for 2 – 3 minutes till crisp.  Drain on kitchen paper, toss with sea salt and pepper and scatter over soups and pasta dishes.
• Fry as above, cool, finely chop and beat into softened butter with a little sea salt. Wrap in cling film and chill and use slices to stuff fish, top chicken or melt over filled pasta
• Roughly chop sage, mix with breadcrumbs then fry in butter until golden. Season and scatter over cauliflower cheese or steamed green veg,
• Finely chop some capers and mix with chopped coriander, parsley and mint (there are always some of these hiding in my fridge drawer),olive oil, lemon zest and chilli flakes. Serve with grilled meat and fish or roast vegetables.
• Crush cooked peas with a little butter, lemon juice and chopped mint.  Season and spoon over toast and top with crumbled feta

Cheese: (again, big lumps can be grated and frozen)

• Finely grate and add to shortcrust pastry with a pinch of smoked paprika and use to make a tart case for a savoury quiche
• stir fry left over brussels sprouts with pancetta or chopped bacon and scatter with grated cheese to serve
• Finely slice and toss into a leafy salad with slices of crisp green apple and add a mustardy vinaigrette

Coconut milk:

• Blend a 1/4 can with half a banana, a dollop of yogurt and some berries for a quick smoothie
• Try a new gravy: stir a few spoonfuls into roast chicken cooking juices along with a chopped chilli, a squeeze of lime juice and some coriander
• Use instead of an oil in a marinade

Black Pudding (yes, Alice, some people do like it!)

• Add va va voom to eggs on toast by sprinkling over fried and crumbled black pudding
• Toss slices through cubed roast potatoes for the final 5 minute cooking time. Serve with white fish, wilted spinach and aioli
• Mix with caramelised onions and sage to stuff chicken or serve with firm fish such as monkfish

Any fruits can be poached and whizzed up with leftover yogurt/cream/custard (is there ever such a thing as leftover custard!?) to make fool – and to give a nice contrasting crisp topping crush the broken bits of biscuits at the bottom of the box.

Oranges, limes and lemons can be zested (and frozen) and either sliced and frozen for drink additions or squeezed and the juice saved in ice cube trays.

THINK SPRING!

ps if any of you have any left over tips you want to pass on, leave a comment on the website and I’ll pass them on to everyone else.  Equally, if you want to know what to do with something you have, leave me a note and I’ll send some suggestions.

This was the week after 2 weekends of storms and MANY days of rain, parts of the garden were submerged (we went for a row around the flood waters!) but finished up in

Aberystwyth, with friends, watching countless murmurations of starlings fly under the pier in winds we could hardly stand up!

Hopefully, we can now look forward to some better weather and beginning to think of what vegetables to plant this year and some new bushes/flowers to put in.  The wind took away one of my favourite trees – but has opened up a whole new area – out of every cloud, a silver lining!

Also, coming up this week is Shrove Tuesday, pancake day – perfect vehicles for Cooking for one as you can make a batch, divide individually with greaseproof paper and freeze. There are many varieties of pancakes and each part of the world has its own variety from French Crepes to Russian blinis to Jewish latke to American buttermilk – and all can be sweet or savoury.  I (of course!) make Scotch pancakes (drop scones for the Sassenachs of you) – and I love the thought that my mum made them for me ; I made them for my children and my son, Jamie, makes them for his children. (If you can be bothered to scroll through 105 posts, my third ever post of 2 years ago gives you the recipe). Today, though, I am going to give you a new one – Dutch Baby Pancakes.This large, lovely pancake I think of as a cross between a crepe and a Yorkshire pudding. An unleavened, thin batter is poured into a piping hot, generously oiled pan and then placed into the oven instead of being cooked on the stove. The edges of the batter puff up, becoming crispy and golden while the middle remains paler and slightly chewy.

• 3 eggs
• 220ml milk
• 2 tbsp of sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (if making sweet)
• 90g of plain flour
• 2 tbsp of vegetable oil

You may remember, a few weeks ago, I gave you a recipe from The Son-in-law, Ben, as a guest contributor.  Well, not to be outdone, his wife, my youngest daughter, Alice, has asked to do one (or two) now. She’s decided to give you a little Valentine Special – and a day ahead so you can get ready to spoil yourself!

Over to you, Alice:

Comfort food when you need it most.

This is a Valentine’s Day recipe with a difference. It’s comfort food for one, because not everyone’s Valentine’s Day will be filled with chocolates and roses. It can be a hard day for many people and when you’re feeling low, it’s tough to motivate yourself but it’s important that you do! Do something nice for yourself today. Light a candle (the one you bought but have been saving for a ‘special occasion’) read your book (give yourself time to read that extra chapter) or take yourself off on a stroll (walking that route you never take because although it’s beautiful, it always takes a little bit too long) And most importantly, cook something unctuous and delicious (a recipe that requires a bit of time and patience).

Mushroom risotto

• 1 handful of chestnut mushrooms
• OPTIONAL dried porcini mushrooms
• 2 sticks celery – finely diced – and keep the leaves for garnish
• 1 white onion, finely diced
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 200g risotto rice
• Splash of white wine (save a glass for yourself)
• 1 pint stock (chicken/vegetable, whatever takes your fancy)
• Parmesan cheese
• Knob of butter (cold, to be stirred in right at the end)
• OPTIONAL glug of Worcestershire sauce or mushroom ketchup

Make your stock and pop the porcini mushrooms in, if you have them, and keep it warm. Fry the onion, garlic and celery in a large saucepan with a little bit of butter and olive oil until soft (ideally ten minutes, very low heat). Pour the risotto rice in and, stirring often, let the rice soak up some of the oil and butter. Once the rice starts to stick a bit, pour in the white wine, let that bubble away as the rice soaks it up before slowly adding a ladle-full of stock in. Continue this way, allowing the rice to soak up the liquid, between each ladle full, until the rice is soft but still a little bit chewy and moist. You’re almost teasingly feeding it liquid ladle-full by ladle-full – just as it has drunk up one, the next goes in.Take it off the heat once all the stock has been used, and grate in the parmesan, stirring it round so it melts into the risotto. Finally, add some seasoning and a lump of cold butter and let it ooze in and cover the pan for a few impatient minutes. It should still just be moist – my Husband (who Mum would call The Son-in-Law) tells me the Italians spoon it onto a plate and jiggle the plate around in circular motions to allow the risotto to rest in an even flat disc, so it must still retain some moisture and ooziness to do this. Scatter the celery leaves on top as a garnish – it’s tasty, nutritious and shouldn’t be wasted!

Now, I know what you’re thinking. That’s a lot of risotto, and Ailsa normally does smaller portions. Well, it’s deliberate – we’re going to be creative with half of it tomorrow! So eat half, then leave the rest to cool on the side. Once it’s cooled, put it in the fridge (important – don’t rush the cooling process, this is where rice can form spores and become a bit troublesome when re-heating). Then the next day, this makes for a rather indulgent but delicious lunch – not to mention fun to make!

Alice’s Leftover Risotto Arancini

 Beautiful, crispy, oozy, cheese-stuffed rugby-ball shaped snacks, with a blue cheese dipping sauce that takes seconds to make.

• 100g of the above risotto, fridge cold
• Vegetable oil – enough to get an inch up your saucepan
• Mozzarella cheese – you can get individual bags of this in most supermarkets – cut into 1cm cubes.
• Panko breadcrumbs – big supermarkets do them, look in the Japanese / Asian section – they are lighter and larger flakes than usual breadcrumbs.
• 2 eggs
• Blue cheese for the dipping sauce
• Crème fraiche for the dipping sauce

Start by heating the oil in a good pan. It won’t look like enough to totally deep fry the arancini balls, but that’s to save oil – you fry them one way, then turn them over half way through. Shape the rice into small balls using your hands (it can help to wet them with water first) – they should be around the size of a large egg. Poke a single cube of mozzarella into the middle, and re-form the rice-ball around it, so that the mozzarella is snug inside. Repeat until you’ve used all the rice. Beat the two eggs in a bowl, and pour out a large handful of panko breadcrumbs into a wide shallow dish, adding a generous sprinkling of good salt. Once the oil is hot enough to satisfyingly hiss as it turns a breadcrumb light brown (rather than scorching it, or not reacting at all), we can get to work. Take each rice-ball, and roll it in the beaten egg first, then into the panko breadcrumbs to coat evenly. Once they are all coated in crumbs, use a slotted metal spoon to lower each one into the waiting oil, turning the heat up or down depending on how vociferously they hiss and sizzle on entry. Watch them carefully (it’s hard not to) – after around a minute, gently turn the first one a little to check the colour underneath. If it’s a beautiful golden tan brown, they’re ready to turn. Ideally turn them in order they went into the oil, but nobody’s judging. Once they are evenly brown throughout – sometimes it helps to carefully splash the oil over them as they cook, like chefs do with foaming butter on steaks in a pan – remove them with the slotted spoon, nestling them on some kitchen paper towel to let some of the oil drain away. As they sit there getting comfortable, crumble some blue cheese into a few spoonfuls of crème fraiche and put it in a little bowl suitable for dipping. It can help to microwave the cheese for 30 seconds so it mixes easier with the crème fraiche but it’s not essential. When ready to eat, squeeze a little lemon over the arancini – place them on a bed of dressed rocket if you have the energy – then reward yourself for being so resourceful with leftovers by dipping one of the hot golden rice-balls in the blue cheese dip. Notice that the mozzarella has gone molten in the middle, the rice is soft and warm, and the outer crust is crisp and salty.

Don’t do anything else for the rest of the day.

Love from Alice xx

As I write this, Storm Ciara is hitting Britain with high winds and lashing rain and the last few sunny days are forgotten as we batten down the hatches again!  Pookie is sat by the fire, the hens are snug in their coop and The Husband disappeared into his warm office, only to reappear for coffee and sustenance as its obviously too wild to go fishing! So it’s back to comfort food – but still want healthy. And what could be better than carrots – the unappreciated gold amongst vegetables?  Too often presented as a side dish of extraordinary dullness, they can be pepped up with herbs, lemon juice and butter – or made into any of the below recipes. (We are very lucky living in a productive rural area but even our farmers have battled with the winter rains – so much so that our immediate one has given up trying to get his tractor into one carrot field and abandoned it to we yokels to pick as we need!)

No, the Husband and I aren’t sitting by sea, in hot sunshine, nibbling on tapas and sipping wine, thinking “Shall I have a swim before a snooze – or after?” We wish!  We are, however, thinking of it and when to go and how to get there whilst we look out of the windows at another wet, drizzly day (dreich, as is said in Scotland).  This got me thinking of glorious summer food, salad and tapas, all the lovely nibbly bits you can be served with in any of the Mediterranean countries. And this led me to thinking that, sometimes, when you are on your own, cooking a big meal for one is just a complete faff, if you are not in the mood – and tapas could be the answer! Make a couple of the recipes below, add some olives, some parma ham and salami, a glass of wine and pull up a chair (back to the window so you can’t see out!) and imagine the sea lapping, sand in your toes, soft guitar serenading . . .  you’re there, aren’t you?

First make some Labna – put a piece of muslin (or thin old teatowel) over a bowl and secure with an elastic band. Add 2 cups of greek yogurt and leave to drip through overnight.  You will be left with half the quantity and a little ball of white yogurt cheese.  You can mould it into little balls and leave them to dry out for 48 hours in the fridge then serve with a drizzle olive oil combined with some harissa (buy it in a jar found with the spices in the supermarket). Or you can make it into some interesting dips to serve with pitta bread, toast fingers or tortilla chips:

a) beat with crushed garlic (to taste), some finely chopped mint and a drizzle of olive oil  b) beat with crushed garlic, 1/2 teaspoon harissa and finely chopped coriander and serve in a bowl with salt and pepper and a drizzle of honey   c) beat with crushed garlic, 1 teaspoon lemon juice, salt and pepper. Fold in finely chopped dried apricots and sprinkle with ground pistachios to serve

Grissini (thin breadsticks) wrapped in smoked salmon  – mix 50g cream cheese with chopped dill and lemon zest and season. Spread some of the mixture onto 3/4 of the length of each stick and wrap thin strips of smoked salmon

Garlic prawns. Preheat oven to 250oC. Combine 40g melted butter and 3 fl oz olive oil and put into an ovenproof pot.  Add 2 cloves crushed garlic. Put in the oven for 10mins until mixture is bubbling.  Add (however many you can eat!) raw prawns and another garlic clove and return to the oven till cooked.  Serve with crusty bread to soak up the juices!

On a personal note, The Husband and I would like to tell you of another celebration this weekend.  Our very special friends, Ralph (Brom) and his wife Pat are celebrating their ruby wedding anniversary, 26th January.  Forty years ago today it was neither haggis nor noodles on their mind but wedding cake and champagne and we would like to wish them all the best (and their amazing family) and much love for the next 40 years (by which time the Brompton family will probably have taken over the whole of Loughborough)!

This weekend – yesterday 25th January – saw two anniversaries, both of which are celebrated world wide. Burns Night with bagpipes, haggis and neeps and Chinese New Year with dragons, dim sum and fireworks. Apparently, this year is the Year of the Rat – and Robbie Burns has been described as an original love rat, having a very spicy love life! Thus, this week’s recipes are incorporating Scotland, China and spice – it’s up to you whether you want to keep them as partners or split them up and put haggis with the dessert and pineapple fritters with the salmon.  Such is the variety of life.

Salmon and Noodles

• 1- 2 Scottish salmon fillets, with skin left on
• 1 heaped tablespoon hoisin sauce (from a jar or bottle)
• 75g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 70g medium egg noodles
• 100g long-stemmed broccoli, trimmed
• freshly ground black pepper
• dark soy sauce  / thinly sliced spring onions, to serve (optional)

Preheat the oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas 7 and line a small, shallow ovenproof dish with kitchen foil. Place the salmon fillets into the dish, skin-side down, and brush generously with the hoisin sauce. Make sure the fillets are placed at least 5cm/2in apart from each other. Scatter the cherry tomatoes around them. Cook for 15 minutes, or until the salmon is cooked through. Meanwhile, prepare the noodles. Half-fill a saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Add the noodles, return to the boil and cook for 1 minute, stirring to separate the strands. Add the broccoli and cook for 3 more minutes, stirring occasionally. Divide the noodles and broccoli between four warmed plates. Top with the salmon fillets and scatter with the cherry tomatoes. Season with pepper and serve sprinkled with a little soy sauce and spring onions, if using.

Now for the dessert : Cranachan – a delicous mix of raspberries, cream, whisky, honey and toasted oats.  What’s not to like?

• 50 grams porridge oats
• small pot of double cream
• 2 – 3 tablespoons honey to taste
• 2 tablespspoons whisky (I personally hate whisky but somehow can take it here!)
• raspberries – fresh or frozen

Heat a heavy based frying pan up and toast the oats until nutty and pale brown (I sometimes add a little demerara sugar so they caramelize but you do have to keep moving them around!). Put to one side to cool. Whip the cream till soft peaks and fold in the honey and whisky. Layer up the cream, rapsberries and oats and put in the fridge till needed. (Keep some of the oats back to scatter on top as you serve so they are still crunchy)

It is now two years since I started writing this blog – and this was the first recipe – http://www.ailsacooks4one.com/2018/01/24/first-recipe/ ! We’ve come a long way since then (although I hope you still make this most favourite breakfast from time to time) – at least 104 recipes as sometimes I posted 2 recipes on the weekly blog.  Haven’t you done well?  So much so that to celebrate your culinary expertise I thought you should ask someone to dinner and give you a recipe for two! It’s not any harder than for one – you can show off your skills – and you can enjoy sharing (even the washing -up!)

EASY CHICKEN PHO

• 1 white onion, halved
• 4cm fresh root ginger, thickly sliced
• 800ml chicken stock (a cube will do)
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
• 4 cloves
• 2 star anise
• half a cinnamon stick
• small bunch of coriander
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 2 teaspoon palm sugar (brown will do)
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce

Heat a dry heavy-based frying pan until very hot.  Char the onion and ginger for 4 minutes each side. Put the stock in a saucepan and add the onion and ginger, spices and coriander stalks (reserving the leaves) and bring to the boil.  Add the thighs and cook for 15 minutes.  Lift the chicken out with a slotted spoon and cut into bite sized slices.  Strain the stock into a bowl, discard the solids and return to the pan.  Add salt to taste, the sugar, fish sauce and chicken pieces.

To serve: 50g cooked rice noodles/2 large handfuls of beansprouts/1 red onion, finely sliced/leftover coriander leaves/basil and mint leaves, finely chopped/1 red chilli, chopped/juice of half a lime.  Put the noodles in bowl and ladle over hot stock and chicken. Sprinkle over the bean sprouts, red onion, herbs, chilli and lime.

And to follow?  A recipe from my son-in-law, Ben.  He’s always wanted to be a guest contributor and I thought this one of his complements the chicken perfectly!

CHEAT’S ICE CREAM (in that you don’t need an ice cream maker!)

• 1 tin coconut milk
• 1 tub mascarpone
• 1 tin condensed milk
• juice of 2 lemons
• Maple syrup
• a pinch of salt

Whisk all of the above together, taste.  If not lemony/sweet enough add more lemon/syrup.  Whisk 2 egg whites separately and fold into the mix.  Freeze.               Quote: “Comes out real smooth, soft and delish”

Of course, the above will serve more than two – but you now have some sitting there in your freezer for “one” times!

PS Let me know if you would like a Ailsacooks4Two as a monthly extra – you really shouldn’t let all your efforts go to waste now!