Monday 10 August 2015

Warmth in Winter: Food

Of course during Winter time it's hard to keep spirits high and something I've always found to be good, of course is food. Glorious food. You can keep it all for yourself, or share it with others.

 I like to make enough to share, and then I'm often saddened to see it's just the two of us here for dinner! Ooops! Haha.

After our slow cooker up and died - and was subsequently replaced here, and I had been using it for cooking dinner more. During winter it is nice to come home to a warm meal.
It also makes it easier to face the cold weather and to come home from university for the day knowing that there's warm food (and a warm apartment) waiting for me.

This is my Food board on Pinterest, through Pinterest I found these* easy freezer meals to make and they're perfect to pop into the slow cooker. I changed up some of the recipes slightly - like chicken was cheaper so we had bought it in bulk and I used that in place of some of the beef and lamb things.

In my Pinterest haze I also found Crock pot Roasted Chicken - not in an oven, in the slow cooker:
Slow cooker chicken 1.
Slow cooker chicken 2.

Last night I did a mixture of the recipes and went with my own version, I balled up tinfoil in the bottom of the slow cooker, dried the chicken off, then covered it in cooking oil, herbs and spices and seasoned it well, the let it cook in the slow cooker for about 4 hours on high. While it was going I peeled and washed (a lot) of vegetables: kumara (sweet potatoes), potatoes, carrots, onion (made into a bloom- although I don't use the seasoning in that recipe...), and then when everything was done pour gravy over the whole lot. (Last night gravy turned into cheese sauce, haha. It turns out that I didn't plan the groceries well this month!)
At the end of cooking the chicken - stabbing it has clear juices and not blood, you can crisp up the skin by putting it in the oven under the grill for about ten minutes. While this was going on (with Dan keeping an eye on it, oil tends to alight if not careful), I made up the cheese sauce - no recipe for that, it's a packet one (I'm lazy).

Night two (if there's leftovers) it becomes a stir fry fry up with vegetables, chicken etcetera all in one frying pan. Yum!

Night three (Is that even possible to have three days worth? - It is when there's only two of you.) it becomes another stir fry like the night before, or you add rice and make it a rice risotto?

Photo below: wasn't dinner exactly, but a previous one. 
(Same thing, really, isn't it?)




*Lots of other recipes in there too, 7 more in an hour, and 30 more etc. The links are at the bottom of the blog post in that link.


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