Tweak week 3: Recipe Help

Your MTM...

… and recipe help

Your MTM this week is quite light compared to the previous two.

First up your Pulled Chicken – prep and leave it to do its magic in the slow cooker.

Pulled Chicken

4 large chicken breasts

2 tbsp Worcester sauce

½ tsp chilli

pinch of cayenne

250ml tomato ketchup

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

2 tsps lemon juice

1 garlic clove, crushed or 1 tsp garlic paste

125ml maple syrup

Place the chicken breasts in a slow cooker – low setting. Place the remaining ingredients in a bowl and mix until well blended.

Pour over the chicken and cook for 6 hours. Shred with two forks and cook for a further 30 minutes.

A healthy accompaniment would be rice – try and steer clear of bread but if you must indulge have a warmed pitta, split and filled with the chicken, the raw slaw base and use some of the remaining marinade drizzled over the slaw. Reserve the remaining marinade and “fridge”.

As usual pop your jacket potatoes into the oven to bake – bearing in mind that you'll need extra to cover your Spie this week.

Whatever vegetables you've on your shopping list don't forget to include extra for your stir fry. The marinade from the pulled chicken is great flavour to toss through it for 2/3 minutes just before serving. Don't forget that if you want noodles, use the nests that are quick and easy. A great store cupboard addition for a stir fry is a can of water chestnuts - crunch and texture both.

Couscous is very easy to prepare – select the required weight, add boiling water, mix well, cover and allow the water to be absorbed for 5 minutes. Fluff up with a fork and it's ready – how plain and tasteless is that! Couscous is durum wheat semolina and, like any staple, rice, potatoes blah, blah, it's what you put with the staple that gives it its flavour. I would use stock instead of water – a great base and you can tailor it to suit vegetarians or meat eaters.

If you've got a surfeit of fresh herbs that need using up here's the perfect vehicle, along with any leftover roasted vegetables.

Use Middle Eastern spices like a pinch of cinnamon or a larger pinch of cumin. Try sumac or ras el hanout which is a blend of spices - fried with a drop of rapeseed oil to release their flavour and then add onions, garlic and sliced mushrooms too. Add to your fluffed up couscous.

Add a preserved lemon for extra zing. Rinse the lemon, scoop out and discard the pulp and finely slice it.

Add a can of chick peas along with some roasted pine nuts.

If you are a fruit lover throw in a handful of pomegranate seeds, chop some ready to eat dried apricots and/or a handful of sultanas.

If you don't want wholly vegetarian, you could add a baked salmon fillet.

Just a few ideas for you!

Your Spie base is quick and easy – prep in a frying pan on the hob. When the base is ready, tip it into your trusty foil tray – you could do individual portions or a whole – individual portions would be less faffing around – Thursday lunch is then ready to go.

Oh and just in case you thought I'd forgotten – if you are really committed to tweaking you will of course be omitting the butter and grated cheese topping from the Spie – nice try!

The filling for your baked jacket potato is :

Sumac-roasted Tomatoes

6 ripe tomatoes

salt and black pepper

light sprinkling of molasses sugar

olive oil

1 tbsp sumac

sprigs of thyme, leaves only

Pre-heat oven 140 fan/160c/gas mark 2.

Cut the tomatoes in half and place on a baking try. Season with salt and pepper, add a light sprinkling of sugar. Drizzle with oil, then sprinkle with the sumac and thyme leaves.

Slow-roast the tomatoes until soft and beginning to caramelise, about 20-30 minutes.

Serve with crumbled feta cheese.

I take no credit for this recipe – it came from Laura Santtini's book Flash Cooking (Fit Fast Flavours for Busy People) – a great addition to your bookshelf.

Waxing lyrical on ratatouille – have a look at the following post.