What to do... with some smoked salmon and a little time

Sometimes you plan your meals carefully in advance.
Other times... well, other times you have a handful of things in the fridge, a few of which you REALLY need to use quickly, a lot of hunger and a little time.
Last night was one of those other times. I didn't take a lot of pictures because when I started it out I didn't think it would amount to much - but it was sooooo tasty I decided I had to share it!

Again, the quantities of each ingredient are rather flexible.
This one is not "diet" in any way - it's still quite full of protein and fairly low in carbs, though!




Ingredients
1 small tbsp butter (or coconut oil, or olive oil...)
1 pack of smoked salmon
1 tub of low fat cream cheese (any brand)
10 olives, thinly sliced (I used black, adjust amount and colour to your preferences)
5 seafood sticks, sliced (adjust amount to taste)
5 handfuls of spelt penne (feel free to use other pasta shapes/types)
1 cube of vegetable stock
1 tbsp tomato puree
Cheese (ex: Cheddar; something that melts nicely) - optional
Panko crumbs (or normal bread crumbs, or pound some corn flakes)
1 tsp Onion granules (or 1 actual onion, finely diced)
2 tsp Garlic powder (or 4 cloves of actual garlic, finely diced)
2 tbsp cornflour
Dry dill to taste (I used about 2 tsp)
Black pepper to taste (I always use freshly ground)

Prep time: 2 minutes (10 if using actual onion and garlic)
Cooking time: 10 minutes +  15 minutes
Serves: 5

Making it:

Turn oven on to 180 C.

Boil the pasta in a saucepan - check the instructions and "steal" around 3 minutes from the required cooking time.
Drain, rinse in cold water and set aside.
In the same pot, add the fat of your choice, the sliced seafood sticks, the onion granules and the garlic powder.
None of this needs much cooking, so just give it a quick stir around to ensure the fat coats everything and gets the flavour from the spices.
Boil some water in the kettle.
Now shred the salmon right into the pan and give it another stir.
Add the dill and stir again.
Add the tomato puree...and stir! Yep, you got the gist of it now.
Whilst the tomato puree gets acquainted with the rest of the ingredients and cooks down a bit, melt the stock cube in a little boiling water. I used around 1/2 cup of water.
When the cube is fully dissolved add it to the pan.... and stir.
Add the cornflour and stir until the mix starts thickening up. Think along the lines of the consistency of wall paint. If it's a lot more consistent than that, add a little water. If it's not consistent enough, add a little more cornflour.
Now get a spatula into that tub of cream cheese and scrape alll of that white goodness into the pan. Stir until melted and combined with the rest of the ingredients.
This should now be thick enough to stick to the pasta and coat it evenly.
Grind some black pepper into the mix.
Add the olives, add the pasta, and do your last bit of stirring.
Note that all of this process took around 10 minutes - less if you have lined up your ingredients on the counter and are not making the recipe up as you go along and diving into every cupboard looking for stuff.

Slide it all into an oven proof dish.
At this point I took out the slab of Cheddar cheese and used the vegetable peeler to get some thin slices scattered over the mix (I find this method more entertaining than grating + I end up using less cheese and still feel I covered the tray + there's something magical about feeling the peeler digging into the cheese).
Finally scatter crumbs over the top - as much or as little as you like - and pop it all into the oven.

It took me 15 minutes to get my tray golden brown - you can leave it more or less time depending on how toasted you like it.
I served it with some salad greens and it was surprisingly awesome - I hope you enjoy it!

PS: I can think of a few variations - next time I'm thinking of adding grated carrot and/or thinly sliced peppers to the mix to up the V factor.

PS2: Notice I completely skipped the salt - I figured between the smoked salmon and the olives there was more than enough

What to do... to avoid puff pastry on your chicken pie

Now that Winter has properly descended upon us, the expression "comfort food" started popping up in my mind more frequently.
On the other hand, comfort food = warm + calorific, which leads to other things popping, like the buttons on my jeans. Terrified, I started looking for alternatives.
The only fat in this chicken pot pie pretty much comes from the oil used to cook down the ingredients. I replaced the puff pastry with filo, and the sauce remains creamy thanks to good old cornstarch.

The quantities for each ingredient are quite flexible - just go with your instinct!

Each portion is around 9 WW points, and loaded with healthy vegetables! Great for a winter night.

Ingredients
2 tbsp coconut oil
4 chicken thighs
2 medium carrots
10 mushrooms
1 large onion
1/2 cauliflower
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 cube vegetable stock
250 ml hot water
250 ml milk
100 ml white wine
Salt
Black pepper
Cinnamon
Smoked paprika
Garlic powder
Onion granules
French Mustard
Oil for brushing

Prep time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 20 mins + 20 mins
Serves: 8

Making it

First of all: most ingredients can be swapped if there is something you don't fancy.

Turn the oven on (190 C).

Start by warming up your chosen oil - I like coconut oil because it tastes nice, behaves well under high heat and has a number of benefits for you - but you can pick whatever you like.

You can use considerably less oil if you are using a non-stick pan; I am very attached to my cast iron pan and all the wonderful things it does for the food, so I need a bit more.

I also like to have the ingredients handy to minimize prep time.
I always end up forgetting something, but it's a start!

I recommend using onion - you can pick what type. You can also add leek, or shallots, or both.
When it comes to the rest of the vegetables, you can pick whatever you like.
Carrot works well to give it a bit of sweetness; I've done it with courgette in the past as well, other people prefer celery. Today I needed to use some cauliflower, so of it went.

Chop the onion/shallot/leek first and put it in the pan as soon as the oil is hot.

Let it cook until translucent whilst you chop rest of the veg.
Add the rest of the veg to the pan and stir.

Let the veg cook down whilst you cut the mushrooms.
Naturally, you can chop everything before you start, but I find that the chopping time acts as a pacer for the cooking time (and it stops me being bored staring at the pan urging it to cook faster).

Add the mushrooms.

At this point add salt and black pepper to taste.
The salt will draw the water out of the mushrooms and help them cook down faster (so you can make room in the pan for the meat!)

Chop the chicken into bite sized pieces and add it to the pan. I like making a little well in the ingredients so the chicken can sit on the hot pan directly to brown.

Stir the ingredients to ensure all the chicken has a fair chance to turn golden. It doesn't need to cook through - the oven will take care of that. We just want it nicely sealed for flavour.

Now it's time to add the spices; I used a good dash of garlic powder, some onion granules, two shakes of smoked paprika, one shake of cinnamon, one little dash of dill.

You can use whatever spices you like - and don't be scared of the cinnamon, you won't taste it - it just uplifts the whole dish.

You can now pour the wine in a stir to ensure all the ingredients get a share of the spices and the wine. Leave it to cook down while you start making the sauce.

It's very easy: melt the stock cube and mustard in the hot water, stirring well.
Dissolve the cornstarch in just enough milk to make a liquid mix. Once dissolved, add the rest of the milk, stir and pour it into the stock mix.
Once the wine in the pan is nicely bubbling away and looks nicely combined with the meat and veg juices, pour the sauce in.

(No pictures of the sauce being made, as I managed to nick my finger with a knife and that scattered my thoughts for a little bit...)

Now you want to stir carefully until you feel the sauce thickening. Because it is spread across a large surface this should start happening almost immediately.

As soon as it's thick and creamy, you can turn the heat off.

Place the mixture in a pie dish of your choice. Take the filo pastry sheet by sheet, crumple it up in your hand, and place over the mix.

Keep going until you cover all the surface. I used 5 sheets.

No need to worry about venting holes, as the filo won't be air tight.

Brush or spray the filo pastry with an oil of your choice.

I have my trusted spray can filled with olive oil - it's great for using when baking for oil the trays, you get away with using much less of it and getting very even coverage.

Get it into the oven and cook for around 20 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown.

The result is a creamy pie with a very crispy topping - plus in places where the pastry absorbs the sauce from the pie it goes all gooey and that is lovely too!

There's few carbs and fat to be found on this recipe, and it's still warming, creamy and delicious!

Freezing: the pie on the picture is actually only half of the portion; I have frozen the other half, and it can just be thawed and covered in filo pastry to provide me with a lovely, freshly baked pie!