Quick Indonesian Peanut Chicken

Sharwood's Indonesian Peanut Satay (4lbs)

The other night I made a large batch of a dish using chicken and the bottled Sharwood's Indonesian Satay sauce.  This product from the UK makes for a quick and tasty dish, much like the Butter Chicken dish I make.  As always, I served with Basmati rice.

The sauce has a very strong flavour so I use 33% more chicken than called for but other than that, this meal is embarrassingly simple.  I like it because as a dish it's quick to make, freezes great and the ingredient list doesn't have anything I cannot pronounce.

• 4 lbs boneless skinless chicken thigh
• 3 jars Sharwood's Indonesian Satay 

Trim the bulk of the excess fat off the chicken (save for stock) and cut the thighs into bite-sized pieces.  Heat  a dash of light tasting olive in your wok or large saucepan and add the chicken.  Heat the chicken completely through and reduce heat to a medium-low.  Add your 3 jars of sauce and continue heating.  The dish is essentially complete at this point, but remember to stir frequently to keep the sauce from burning while heating up the sauce.  I bring it just to a simmer which only takes 5 or 10 minutes. Serve with Basmati rice.

The Sharwood's sauce can go on sale, but generally this dish costs $55 in product and results in at least 10 healthy servings for the four of us.  That's $5.50 per meal per person, still far cheaper than eating out and it's fast and tasty.

!Foodie

Spicy Sloppy Joes

Sloppy Joes.   A loose meat sandwich that is a great freezable, hearty, budget friendly meal that we enjoy here on occasion.  The family grew up with Manwich based sloppy joes and I'll make that sometimes, but personally I prefer the more complex flavours of my version (which is a variation on how my mother made it for us growing up).  Yesterday I made a batch using 4lbs of ground beef, the following is how I made this weeks version.

I start by browning the beef in batches with a little Olive Oil and then sweat a finely chopped large onion (about 2 cups) and 3 minced Jalapeños in the same pan and add the browned beef back in.  I season to taste (hold back on the salt) and then add cans of Campbell's Chicken Gumbo soup (which adds some salt).  1 can per pound of ground beef.  Turn up the heat and start bringing this mix to a simmer.  From here you can add hot sauces (I added a table spoon of Sriracha sauce), a table spoon of mustard and a lot of ketchup.  Start with a cup of ketchup and add more until it tastes the way you want.  Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Adjust the seasoning and serve on Kaiser rolls (or hamburger rolls, or just plain bread).

• 4 lbs ground beef
• large onion, finely chopped
• 3 Jalapeños, minced
• 4 cans Campbell's Chicken Gumbo soup
• 1 tbsp prepared yellow mustard
• 1 - 2 cups of ketchup

If my math is correct, all told this costs me around $30 for a batch this size.  For $30 I get two meals for the family and a couple of lunches out of it, so about $3.00 a serving.

Quick Indian Butter Chicken

One of our favorite meals is butter chicken, we eat it fairly regularly.  I use the store-bought Asian Home Gourmet Indian Butter Chicken from Sobey's here and it works out well.  We've tried different sauces and pastes but we like this one the best.  I hope one day to make a better version from scratch but I'm not there yet.

I made a large batch last night.  A quadruple batch in fact.  A normal meal for us would normally be a double batch (2x packets and double the ingredients) with some naan bread but this summer I started making meals in advance and freezing them so the plan was to make 2 future Butter Chicken suppers.  The plan changed to 1 future meal and 1 meal right then but that's okay.

My large batch of Butter Chicken used the following:

• 4 packets of AHG Butter Chicken
• 4 lbs boneless skinless chicken thigh
• 1 28 oz can tomatoes, pureed
• 1 litre plain yogurt
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 1/4 cup butter
• No Water

My recipe is slightly different than the one listed on the packets; more chicken and no water added.

I heat the butter up in my large wok-like pan.   Saute the onions until very soft, about 5 minutes, add in the paste and bring to a strong simmer.  I like to really cook the paste, butter and onions for a good minute or two.  Then add the tomato puree and the yogurt.  Stir thoroughly and bring back to simmer.  Add your chicken which should be cut into bite-sized pieces.

Return to a simmer and cook uncovered until the chicken is cooked, about 20 minutes.  Continue cooking until it is to the consistency you prefer.  I do give it a good stir to keep it well mixed.

My choice of ingredients are part of what makes our meals what they are:

1.  I use local, free-run chicken.  This particular batch was made from chicken from a new butcher I finally found.  I am not sure what farm her chicken comes from, I need to ask.
2.  I prefer fresh, ripe tomatoes, ideally ones low in juice, like a beefsteak.  This batch used canned tomatoes as a test.  The canned (low salt) are better for budget, the fresh are better for taste and nutrients.
3. I use a Balkan-style plain yogurt, I need to try a Greek-style sometime to see if it makes for an even creamier finished product.
4. I try to dice my onions up fairly small so they're almost liquified by the time the cooking is finished.
5. I use real butter, we are phasing out margarine in an effort to reduce the unpronounceable chemicals in our diet.

The total ingredient cost for this batch was about $50 and it provides 12 healthy servings for the four of us (2 suppers and leftovers for work/school lunches the next day).  That's $4.25 per meal per person.  Not the cheapest meal I make for the family, but it is far cheaper than eating out.

!Foodie