Author: Caroline

Light on the new recipes this month.  Have been re-cooking lots of favourites. This month we tried…

Air Fryer Pork bites (different from the last lot). Yummo. I love pork belly done in the air fryer.

Satay chicken So much better than the bottled sauce I usually buy. Added a bit extra peanut butter. Reading through the reviews a lot of people said they add half water, half coconut milk so I’ll try that next time.

Slow cooked Beef Stroganoff. Pretty good. Love being able to just chuck everything in the slow cooker and leave it til it’s time to eat.

and some sweet treats,

White chocolate raspberry muffins

Weet-bix Slice

End of the month and we’ve got some more new recipes for you. Not as many this month as we’ve been focusing on family favourites.

Creamy French Chicken Potato Bake
Sooooooo good. A great winter staple. Chicken, potatoes, creamy. Yum.

Slow cook sizzling Mongolian beef
Personally not really a fan of this one. Not sure why. Hubby loved it.

Air Fry pork belly bites.
Hubby made this one for Mother’s Day tea. Was super yummy. He can’t find the recipe again.

Pork tenderloin with Creamy Mustard Sauce
Another Recipe Tin Eats one. Was good. Might make a few changes to the sauce though as we’re not a fan of the tarragon (to be honest we did use dried not fresh). Going to give it another go using chives & parsley.

Slow cook beef stew
The website name says it all – Damn Delicious. Simple and delicious. One of the best stews I’ve eaten.

Homemade LCMs
Super easy. This one is a thermomix recipe. Miss A made these and was very impressed with her work. We used pink & white marshmallows and stirred through some choc chips (which melted slightly) and 100s and 1000s. Will be adding this one to the lunchbox snacks list.

Creamy French onion chicken pasta bake
This was so good. We took out the mushrooms (cause heathens in my house don’t eat them) and spinach and added carrot, onion, peas & corn. Put it in 2 smaller containers and we had the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Honey garlic chicken tray bake
Another super yum recipe. We added a heap of other veggies to fill it out a bit more.

No where near as many recipes in April, but some yummy ones no the less.

Cheese & Bacon Rissoles

Quick & relatively easy. Super yummy BUT a pain in the rear when it comes to cooking as they just fall apart when you cook them. Will make it again but do some tweaking and report back.

Beef Cannelloni

Made this one without the spinach, cause I’m the only one who eats it. Have had requests for this one again so taking that as a hit.

Chicken Curry

Think this will be our go to. Super easy and yummy. Also the leftovers my delicious pies.

Chicken meatballs with homemade Tzatziki (I do want to try the souvlaki in this recipe too)

Takes me back to my childhood when we’d grab the pita pockets, fill with salad and whatever meatballs Mum had cooked. Leftovers (if there are any) make a delicious lunch. Also decided to make my own tzatziki to spoon over it. Eldest decided it would make a great lunch dip with veggie sticks. *thumbs up* Littlest actually ate these but said she didn’t like them when asked if she’d eat them again.

Butter chicken

I LOVE butter chicken. It’s been years since I made my own from scratch. This one is good and spicy. I only added half the amount of hot spices too. Hubby said it was perfect.

Finally this month we had French Onion Sausages and Cheesy Mash

So good. Everyone enjoyed it and asked for seconds. In the recipe book it goes!

Lots more new recipes this month, so strap in, it’s a long one.

First up we have a recipe from RecipeTinEats (we’re trying LOTS from there this month) – Honey Garlic chicken.

Thoughts…. loved it. sauce didn’t really thicken up but it was super yum. Could have had seconds, if there had been any.

Egg & Bacon sausage rolls. Simple as. Mix up some cooked bacon, egg and a little cheese. Put your puff pastry in the sausage roll maker. Add the mixture. Top with more puff pastry and cook for 10-15 minutes. Want a pizza version? Make a mix of tomato (or bbq) sauce, cooked diced onion, diced salami or twiggy sticks, diced ham and pizza cheese.

Greek Beef pasta bake. Kind of lasagne, kind of not. I’m not a huge fan of lasagne in general but this was ok. Feta in the pasta layer always a yum though.

Noodle salad. Made this one mainly as a lunch option for the big kiddo. She wasn’t overly keen so I had it for lunch for a couple of days. Flavour improves each day.

Thai chicken skewers with Peanut sauce. So good. Skewers were a little over done but it was the first time cooking them in the air fryer. Note to self – Peanut sauce is for dipping, not making a quick satay chicken.

General Tsao chicken. One hubby picked from our air fryer cookbook. Big thumbs up from everyone except the fussy child.

Chicken curry. Changed this one up a bit and added snow peas instead of frozen peas. Love a good curry, especially with coconut cream or milk.

Lamb koftas with yoghurt dressing and flat bread. This one has already gone in our cookbook of recipes to do again. Delicious. Flat bread recipe is super quick and easy. Fussy miss actually cooked this one for us (with help & supervision) and actually tried it. She loved the flat bread and salad, not so much the koftas or dressing.

Beef with broccoli think everyone enjoyed this one. Added a few extra veg as not everyone in our house eats broccoli

and finally this month…

Beef stir fry with Honey Pepper sauce Another super yummy stir fry for our favourites recipe book. Takes about 15 minutes too which always a win in my book.

Hubby was in charge of choosing our new recipes this fortnight and he loves his soup so soup it was. He found a recipe for a creamy chicken soup and added it to the list.

We’d had a roast chicken the night before and I used it to make one of my Mum’s favourite recipes – Crusted Chicken Noble. I’ll have to share the recipe because it such a yummy meal. Mum used to whip it up when we were having family over for a meal. After the meal I boiled the bones and wings using the recipe here to make my own stock.

Anywho, onto our soup recipe. It came from the site Recipe Tin Eats. We’ve added a bunch of recipes from there to our try list.

Homemade Cream of Chicken Soup

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 50 g / 3.5 tbsp unsalted butter
• ½ cup / 75 g flour
• 1 garlic clove , minced
• ½ small brown onion , finely chopped
• 1 small carrot , diced
• 1/2 red capsicum/bell pepper , finely chopped
• 1 small celery stick , diced
• 2 cups / 500 ml chicken stock / broth , preferably low sodium
• 3 cups / 750 ml milk , any fat %
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp EACH garlic powder , onion powder, dried thyme, black pepper (“Spices”)
• 3/4 cup frozen peas
• 1 cup cooked chicken , diced or shredded
• Croutons

Instructions

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Add onion and garlic and cook for 2 minutes until partly translucent but not browned.
2. Add carrots, celery and capsicum, cook for 1 minute to soften.
3. Add butter and melt. Then add flour and mix until incorporated, and stir constantly for 1 minute.
4. Add broth, mix until flour is incorporated, then add milk. Mix to combine, then add salt, Spices, chicken and peas.
5. Bring to simmer, mixing occasionally to stop bottom of sticking. As it heats, it will thicken – about 4 to 5 minutes. Don’t let it bubble.
6. Once thickened to your taste, adjust salt and pepper. Ladle into bowls and serve garnished with croutons and fresh thyme if desired.

Would I do anything different next time? Add more chicken meat. Omit the black pepper but add some at the end. It’s definitely one for the book though and we’ll make it again.

Chicken is one of our favourite things to cook. Hubby would eat it nearly every night if he could. Hence why the first 2 new recipes we tried this year are chicken.

I love a good chop suey so thought this would be a hit. I was right, everyone loved it, even the super fussy one.

You can check it out at

https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/super-saucy-chicken-chop-suey-recipe/yjgfsjzm

Going back to this series as one of my plans for this year is to try at least one or 2 new recipes a week, so expect more recipe sharing.

First for the year is Apricot chicken rissoles. The recipe came from Taste and you can find it here.

What we thought: Big thumbs up from 3. One isn’t eating much still but loved the potato. One day she’ll eat more *sigh*