Easy Chicken, Chorizo and Bean Rice - A Perfect Midweek Meal

This last week I have realised how hard it is to juggle home life and working full time. I have found that when I get home in the evening all I have wanted to do it relax. But when you come home to a family, relaxing is way down on the list. So to make life a little easier I have been looking for ways to make meal time not only stress free but also tasty. I quickly realised that the freezer was going to become my best friend. I do not normally have many frozen foods in but this week they have been life savers. Having pre prepared frozen vegetables, in particular, has saved me no end of time and this recipe shows you how versatile and full of goodness they are.

We all love the chicken and chorizo combination. Chorizo add such a fantastic depth of flavour, you really do not need to worry about extra herbs or spices. When cooking easy midweek meals, the least washing up the better, so I have made this a chore saving one pot meal. Tasty, easy and not a lot of pots, what more could you wish for?

This is what I did...

Leftover Turkey with Pesto Kale and Mango Salsa - Aldi Recipe

As always when January arrives I am craving healthier meals. Don't get me wrong, we had healthy meals over Christmas but our meals were all out of routine and we all enjoyed some treats. As well as craving vegetables we are also feeling the pinch. Like most families we spent a lot both during the run up to Christmas and over the festive holiday so now it is all over we are having to tighten the belt a bit. This includes my shopping budget. I am looking for as many ways as possible to save some extra pennies. I am using our new chest freezer a lot and am freezing food so that it is not wasted but also gives us some more food options. Thankfully one shop that we can all depend on is Aldi!

Before Christmas their super 6 vegetables were down to just 19p each, so I stocked up! I got so many carrots I have even managed to blanch and freeze some. I was excited to see that their Super 6 offer this week included some of my favourite fruit and vegetables. While I was looking through their website before doing my shopping I also discovered a section that I had not seen before, Feed the Family for £5. This immediately caught my attention and needed further investigation! I found 3 different recipes that Aldi have created using the key products in the Super 6 deal over both fruit and vegetables and meats and fish. So I decided to give one of the recipes a go.

I finally decided to try the Roasted Gammon Joint with Kale and Mango Salsa. But as I had got a lot of turkey leftover from Sunday I replaced the gammon steaks with slices of turkey but did make the kale and the mango salsa.

This is what I did...

Love your Turkey Leftovers!

I am sure that many of you have got lots of lovely leftover turkey and trimmings from your Christmas dinner. I love leftovers. The meals always seem to be even more flavoursome and they are simply too good to go to waste. Today I thought that I would share with you my top leftover turkey recipes and ideas.

Here are my favourite 6 leftover turkey recipes and my top tips...

Leftover Christmas Dinner Soup and Lots of Christmas Inspiration!

𝅘𝅥𝅮 It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas 𝅘𝅥𝅮

Yes, December is here and all of our focus is now on Christmas! I am planning meals, we are planning shopping trips and we are all planning our decorations. When it comes to Christmas food I always do a traditional turkey, that is a must. But I also love to plan what we will be having after Christmas day and how I will be using up any leftovers from Christmas dinner.

As much as I love Christmas dinner I always enjoy the leftovers the following day. There are so many ways for you to revamp leftover to create a whole new meal. But one of my favourite leftover meals has to be a good, warming soup. A couple of weeks ago I shared with you a post all about a fantastic five bird roast that is perfect for Christmas dinner. I purposely cooked extra vegetables just for the leftovers!

Leftover Pulled Pork Pasta Bake with Aldi

Two weeks ago I shared my easy Pulled Pork recipe. Today I am going to share with you my delicious leftover pulled pork pasta bake.

Pulled pork is such a great, budget meal. The pork shoulder joint cost just £3.83 for 1.562kg! and provided us with 12 meals!

Today's recipe is made using leftover pulled pork, but if you do not have any leftovers Aldi have got some British Pulled Pork on offer until Wednesday! The beauty of this meal is that you can bulk out your leftovers with delicious vegetables and pasta to create this pasta bake. Aldi's Everyday Essentials pasta is priced at just 29p for 500g, that makes this a super cheap meal! At the moment mushrooms and peppers are in the Super 6 offer, making them only 69p!

This is what I did...

Using Leftover Easter Chocolates

I don't know about your house, but here, each and every year we end up with leftover chocolate from Easter. It is usually down to me to use them in bakes and desserts.

So when Aldi challenged me to come up with a way to use leftover chocolate, I knew it would be fun. Today I will be sharing my ideas for how to use up some chocolate decorating cakes. After reading this you will be looking for leftover chocolate to use!

Vegetable and Bean Stew

At this time of year I love to use more root vegetables in our meals. Root vegetables make the perfect comfort food for this time of year. They are not only full of earthly flavours but are so versatile.

This dish is full of root vegetables and beans. This is a dish that you can prepare and leave in the oven to let the flavours marry together. My recipe is cooked in the oven but it can easily be adapted for cooking in a slow cooker.

This is what I did...

Freekeh Stuffed Peppers - #CookBlogShare Week 4

You may have noticed recently I have been enjoying more and more vegetarian meals and wanted to change one of my favourite dishes into a meat free version.

I love roasted peppers, especially red, yellow and orange ones. Roasting them transforms their flavours and I normally enjoy them stuffed with a minced beef sauce. Making it into a meat free dish was easy. Like with a lot of my other meat free favourites I simply substitute the meat with a grain or lentils. With this recipe I have used the grain, freekeh.

Freekeh is a fairly new grain to me. I have used it in the past a couple of times. Freekeh is a cereal food made from green wheat that is roasted. It is used in a lot of Arabic meals and originates from there. Freekeh contains up to three times more fibre and protein than brown rice and is low in calories! So not only does it have a delicious nutty flavour it is also very good for you! I must admit that I love this grain, it has a lot more flavour that rice and is so easy to add to meals. With this dish, it went perfectly!

This is what I did...

Leftover Turkey Recipes

Now that Christmas is over and we are now looking towards new years eve I thought that I would share with you a few of my favourite leftover turkey recipes instead of a meal plan. You know that I love to meal plan but this week I am stepping back and enjoying some time with my family so we will decide together what we will have.

One thing that I do love about Christmas dinner is the leftover turkey. I always enjoy the challenge of revamping the leftovers into a new, delicious meal.

Here are some of my favourite, past leftover turkey recipes...

A Christmas Curry is a must! We always enjoy a good old leftover curry. The beauty of this dish is that you can add anything that you have got leftover. The more leftovers the better, add meat, add vegetables even add leftover stuffing!

Leftover Beef and Bean Hotpot Pie

A few weeks ago I made a delicious Slow Cooked Beef and Bean Hotpot. One thing that I love about cooking a large slow cooked meal are the leftovers. Leftovers make such great second meals and I always enjoy transforming them into a completely new dish.

I always find that leftover meals are so flavoursome and I often find that the meals taste even better the second time around.

When I had some leftovers from my Beef and Bean Hotpot I knew the perfect way to transform this meal was into a cottage pie style meal. Cottage pie meals are always a huge success in our house and a meal that the children always love.

This is what I did...

Leftover Turkey Bake

When I was clearing out my freezer last week I found one last piece of leftover turkey breast. You will probably know how much I love using leftover meat in new meals. I often find that when the meat is cooked for a second time it is a lot more flavoursome!

Today's recipe is a great way to increase the amount of vegetables in your meals. If you are following the Slimming World plan this is a delicious free from meal and is full of speed vegetables and protein! Turkey is also a super low fat meat!

This is what I did....

Leftover Roast Beef Pie

This pie is a delicious way to use up any leftover beef from a roast dinner. I always find that when roast beef is recooked in a different dish the flavours develop even more and make the meat even tastier!

This dish is not only great for leftovers but is also an easy meal to make. Even if you do not have a lot of beef left to use you can bulk it out with extra vegetables. I have made my own pastry but you can always use pre made which can be a lot easier if you are preparing this meal on a busy day!

This is what I did...

Summer Vegetables, Chicken and Rice Dish

Regular readers will know that I love creating new meals with leftovers!

That is how this meal came along. I had half a chicken left after a Sunday roast. I normally end up cooking a Leftover Curry but as we are wanting to increase our vegetable intake I wanted to create a healthier leftovers meal.

I have combined the leftover chicken with plenty of vegetables and brown rice.

This is what I did...

Chicken and Mushroom Cottage Pie - Family Favourites

This meal is a great way to use up any leftover chicken from a roast dinner. You will all know that I love creating meals which use up any leftovers. Using leftover not only saves money and reduces waste but makes delicious meals.

This week I am sharing with you a recipe which is a twist on a chicken cottage pie.

We love cottage pie but I wanted to do something a bit different and steer away from the stock/gravy sauce. In this dish I have used a soup as a sauce. Not only is it a quick and easy way to create a sauce for a meal but it is so flavoursome!

This is what I did...

Leftover Chicken Korma with Schwartz

If you are a regular reader you will know that I love using our leftovers from a roast dinner to make a curry. Curry has to be one of our favourite meals so when Schwartz asked me if I would like to try their new curry range I was excited to give them a try.

Schwartz new curry range includes Rogan Josh, Biryani, Balti and Korma mixes.

Thanks to these handy sachets you can easily make traditional Indian curries at home.

They are a great way to enjoy take away style meals for a fraction of the cost! Perfect for a night in or a great way to use up roast dinner leftovers, as I did in this recipe.

Leftover Roast Beef Pasta - Family Favourites

If you are a regular reader you will know that I love creating new meals with leftovers. Last week I bought a large piece of beef just so that we would have plenty of leftovers for extra meals.

For this weeks Family Favourites I thought that I would share a delicious leftover pasta dish. If you do not have any left overs it can also be made with streak strips.

This is what I did..

Leftover Roast Beef Pasta

Ingredients - serves 4 - 5

400g leftover roast beef, cut into strips
1 red onion, chopped
1 sweet red pepper, chopped
1 sweet orange pepper, chopped
6 medium mushrooms, chopped
1 stalk of celery, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
Cayenne pepper
1 beef stock cube
1/2 tsp oregano

Method

1 - Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan and gently fry the onion, red pepper, orange pepper, mushroom, celery and garlic together until starting to soften

2 - Add the strips of cooked leftover roast beef and cook for a further 10 minutes

3 - Pour over the chopped tomatoes and bring to the boil

4 - Sprinkle over as much or as little cayenne pepper as you wish, I normally add about 1/4 tsp and find that it hot enough for the family

5 - Add the oregano and the beef stock cube and simmer for 5 minutes and serve on a bed of pasta

This is not only a tasty meal but is quick to make. Serve with just pasta or add some garlic bread to make it go even further.

I am sharing this weeks Family Favourites recipe with A Mummy Too - Recipe of the Week and Supergolden Bakes - Cook, Blog, Share

Turkey Curry with Added Goodness - Family Favourites

This is the first Family Favourites recipe of 2015 and what better way to start the year than with leftover turkey!

Using leftovers are a great way of reducing waste and ultimately saving money. If you are not going to use them straight away simply place them in a freezer bag and freeze!

For this week's Family Favourite recipe I am sharing with you my turkey curry that has added goodness. Chicken can also be used, but I used turkey as I had a lot left over from Christmas and New Year.

This dish is a great way to get some added greens into the children.

This is what I did...

Turkey Curry with Added Goodness

Ingredients

500g leftover turkey or chicken, diced
1 red onion, chopped
3 stems of kale, stalks removed and chopped
2 carrots, grated
6 mushrooms, chopped
1ltr - 1.5ltr chicken stock
2tbsp cream
2tbsp mild/medium curry powder
2tbsp plain flour
2tbsp butter
2tbsp oil
3tbsp mango chutney

Method

1 -  Melt the butter and oil together in a saute pan over a medium heat

2 - Add the onions and grated carrots and gently cook for 5 minutes

3 - Add the grated carrots and the chopped kale and cook for a further 5 minutes

4 - Stir in the curry powder and flour to create a roux

5 - Gradually pour in the stock until you have the desired consistency and bring to the boil stirring continuously

6 - Mix in the mango chutney and the turkey then simmer for 10 minutes

7 - Once the turkey has heated through stir in the cream and serve with wholegrain rice and naan bread

This is a dish which can be easily adapted to whichever leftover meat you may have or even a vegetable curry.

Enjoy and here's to a great 2015 full of delicious meals x

Leftover Turkey Recipe Ideas

No doubt I will not be the only one who has got a lot of leftover turkey from Christmas dinner.

I love using leftovers in meals. The meat always seems to add so much flavour to a dish. So I thought that I would share with you four of my favourite ways to transform leftovers into a delicious new meal.

Below are a three recipes which work really well with turkey. Simply substitute the chicken/bacon for turkey and enjoy!

Ginger and Lemongrass Turkey

Marinade the cooked turkey as in the original recipe. To reheat the meat cook in a teaspoon of olive oil over a medium heat until hot. Serve with potatoes and vegetables.

Christmas Curry

My favourite way to use up leftover meat has to be in a curry. This recipe is a delicious sweet curry that the whole family will love!

Creamy Turkey and Chorizo

This recipe is a great way to add a Spanish twist to turkey!

Turkey and Broccoli Pesto Pasta

Simply change the bacon for leftover turkey for this deliciously light meal.

Of course you could always go for a good old turkey sandwich!

How ever you choose to eat your leftovers enjoy x