Easy family dinners

Yes, it’s finished, yeah hooray. The collection of recipes that I’ve been working on for you, for over 6 months, was completed Friday June 8th. And everyone who pre-ordered a copy has already received their volume of “Successful Home Cooking.” Have you received yours?

I thought it was only going to be 95 pages, but it kept growing and growing -- there was so much great stuff to include — that the document grew, and grew to 122 pages long!

It’s been quite an adventure putting this together. With suggestions from all over the globe (chicken tandoori), and readers sending me their wish lists for perfect lasagne, for a great spaghetti sauce recipe, for a fish recipe that is cooked perfectly, for apple pie that is sweet and sour and has a rich crumbly top, and for easy meals that come together with regular grocery store ingredients…

Well, you don’t have to listen to me

You can read what Dawn wrote:

“Dearest Shelley,

Thank you so much for sending me the pdf version of your book. Was I ever pleased when I came across your site two weeks ago. I immediately signed up for your newsletter and what excellent candor! It is so wonderful to have an email from a real person in my inbox every week.

I agree with you about your last email. I have been pulling my hair out in the kitchen because once I had settled on a free recipe [out of thousands] from the internet, it almost always turned out badly.

All I want are some down-to-earth recipes from somebody who has tried them and say they work.

Yours is the first cookbook I have ever bought — mine have all been passed down — and I don’t find my current recipes very practical because they are for six to eight [my Grandmother had a big family] and I am only cooking for three.

I am the kind of person that usually cooks meals that include all the food groups already [fajitas, stir-fries etc.] because I am panic-stricken about side-dishes. I will panic no more, however, because you have saved me the grief and simply told me what to include as a compliment to the meat dishes.

The book is comprehensive, the recipes interesting, mouth watering, the ingredients are available. To boot, you have included a price list of each recipe.

You have taken all the major kitchen concerns into consideration, yet kept it simple without making me feel stupid. What this cookbook is, really, is a cooking class with enough good solid recipes for me to keep busy for some time. The kitchen is no longer a place to fear, but a place to rejoice. I am all praise, Shelley — my only complaint is not finding you earlier!

With gratitude, Dawn (in Calgary, Alberta)”

 

Check out OneRoastChicken’s new publication, “Successful Home Cooking” which is now available for order. This is not just another cookbook. This is a cooking school in full-colour delivered right to your kitchen. All recipes include pages of colour photography and step-by-step instructions. And to keep you on budget, every recipe includes the price per serving. How about Meatloaf with Spicy Ketchup for $1.32 per serving? Or Chicken Tandoori for $1.81? Order your copy of “Successful Home Cooking” now…

Thanks and bon appetit!

Shelley MacDonald Beaulieu, Owner & Head Chef
www.oneroastchicken.com

Four things I always have in my freezer

I live in an apartment with a small freezer that is part of my fridge. So without the luxury or expense of a big deep freeze, I still use my in-fridge freezer all the time to make my cooking life easier. Here are four things that I always have:

1. When I’m making Chicken Tandoori which calls for 1.5 teaspoons of lemon juice, I take my lemon, remove the zest with a microplaner or box grater, and then wrap the zest in plastic and stick it in the freezer. This comes in handy for Apple Pie for One, which calls for just a bit of lemon zest. OK, so then I cut the lemon in half, and juice both halves, and this produces about 1/4 cup of lemon juice. I use what I need for Chicken Tandoori, then I put the rest in a small jar in the freezer. I save tiny jars for lemon juice, like the kind that capers come in.

2. I make a Roast Chicken dinner about every two weeks or so. In my house, a small chicken makes enough for the two of us for dinner (we eat the white meat), and then when the chicken has cooled off, I remove the leftover chicken and freeze it in a plastic container. Now I’m fully equipped for my favourite Friday night one-bowl dinner (Thai Curried Chicken). I just pull out the frozen chicken and add it to the pot of bubbling coconut milk and vegetables while the meat is still frozen.

3. I buy lean ground beef from the grocery store in a jumbo family pack, and then I freeze it in half-pound packages. When I want to make hamburgers, I pull out one half-pound package and a couple of sausages and I’m ready to cook. If we’re feeling more like Meatloaf with Spicy Ketchup, then I defrost three half-pound packages.

 

4. I make chicken broth from the leftover bones every time I roast a chicken. And once the broth is made, I freeze it in one-cup jars that might otherwise be used for jam, or I reuse pickle jars (or others) which hold about 4 cups. We go through a lot of chicken broth on a weekly basis so it’s definitely cheaper and easier to have homemade on hand. I use chicken broth instead of water to cook rice. I use it to make Instant Beef Soup (which uses a combination of beef and chicken broths to get the best flavour). And my favourite Thai Curried Chicken recipe needs 1/3 cup of broth in the sauce, and then more broth to cook the rice.

To make these recipes and more…

Check out OneRoastChicken’s new cookbook, “Successful Home Cooking” which is now available for order. This is not another cookbook. This is a cooking school in full-colour delivered right to your kitchen. All recipes include pages of colour photography and step-by-step instructions. And to keep you on budget, every recipe includes the price per serving. How about Meatloaf with Spicy Ketchup for $1.32 per serving? Or Chicken Tandoori for $1.81? Order your copy of “Successful Home Cooking” now…

Thanks and bon appetit!

Shelley MacDonald Beaulieu,
Owner & Head Chef
www.oneroastchicken.com

Recipe research > Lasagne & chicken tandoori

Lasagne

I wanted to update you on the recipe research in the One Roast Chicken test kitchen. For the great number of subscribers who have asked me to tackle lasagne (Andrea, D-J., Krista, Lolita, Darlene, & Amelia), everyone wants to know if there’s a recipe that is lovely, homemade, fast, healthy, and does not taste like a bowl of gooshy noodles.

Since I last reported on the lasagne trials a few weeks ago, I can tell you that I’m up to recipe #6 now. I try not to subject my poor husband to lasagne trials more than once every few weeks. And I’m happy to report that the meat version of the recipe is almost finished (yeah!) — it needs one more round of fine tuning, and then photography, and then it’ll be done.

In each recipe of the six trials, I changed different variables each time, trying to find the perfect equation of time + effort = flavour. Some things stay the same. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to use jarred sauce, in order to save time and work. I settled on Barilla Tomato and Basil sauce because it’s not too salty, and is readily available. I’ve experimented with the lasagne noodles (I’ve tried boil and no-boil noodles), and the filling (I’ve tried ricotta, cottage cheese, and a combination of both).

Meanwhile, while the meat lasagne is taking shape quite nicely, the vegetarian lasagne (as requested by Roberta) — of which I’ve done only one batch — is initially very uninspiring. I thought incorrectly that it would be super easy to adapt my meat lasagne recipe into a veggie one by replacing the meat with spinach. That didn’t really work. There are more veggie trials in my future before this recipe will be ready for publication.

Chicken Tandoori

Thanks to Karen and Satendra, I’ve also been working on a recipe for chicken tandoori. This dish uses inexpensive chicken thighs combined with a lovely, spicy marinade. While most of us won’t have the right kind of oven to prepare this dish in its most traditional fashion, I have instead been adapting the recipe for more regular ovens using the broiler. I’ve tested two versions so far, and both have been quite fabulous. The list of spices is a bit long, but the combined flavours and the simplicity of the preparation is really outstanding. This recipe is almost ready to share, stay tuned.

Upcoming research

After the lasagne and the chicken tandoori are perfected, my next adventure is Dutch apple pie (as requested by Nick). I’m totally excited to find a really great apple pie recipe that you can make for 2 people — a simple, put-it-together-after-dinner baby version of the giant pie.

If you have any recipes that you would like me to develop, just drop me a line I’d love to hear your feedback.

You can always reach me at shelley@oneroastchicken.com.

Thanks and bon appetit!

Shelley MacDonald Beaulieu, Owner & Head Chef

www.oneroastchicken.com