Creamy Chicken & Bacon with Tortellini

8 Chicken thigh fillets
Olive Oil
A packet of McCormick 'Slow Cooker' Country Chicken Casserole Recipe Base
10 rindless bacon rashers (no fatty bits!)
Baby Spinach Leaves (the big Coles Packet)
200gm sliced mushrooms
600ml Lite Sour Cream
Fresh Sage leaves
Fresh Rosemary
Latina Fresh Cheese and Spinach Tortellini (Family Size)
Parmesan
Salt / pepper

In a baking tray, cover the chicken thighs with a little bit of oil, and all of the Recipe Base with Qtr cup of water to make sure all the dry recipe base is moistened and all the chicken is covered. Add the washed spinach leaves (add some salt) and mushrooms and chopped sage and rosemary. Chop the bacon into whatever size you like and fry the bacon. Add cooked bacon to the chicken dish. Stir through 2/3rds (400ml) of the Sour Cream and make sure everything is combined well.

Place chicken dish in the oven and cook through. I cooked it for an hour on 125 degrees and turned the oven off. It probably rested for about half an hour in the heated oven. When I started the Tortellini, I turned the oven back on 150 degrees for about 20 minutes. Wanted to make sure it didn't dry out ... but it could all be done at once on a higher heat.

Boil salted water, add the Tortellini and cook till al dente. Drain, place back in the saucepan and stir in the remaining third of the Sour Cream, some parmesan and salt / pepper and more chopped sage / rosemary.

Plate the Tortellini first, then plate a chicken thigh or two to each person on top. Spoon over the spinach, mushroom and bacon mixture including a spoonful of juicy stuff on top of the chicken.

Add more parmesan or salt / pepper if needed, but it probably didn't need it!

I served four adults and had left overs so it could probably stretch to 8, if you dole the chicken thighs out more judiciously!

Quick n Easy Seafood Stir-Fry

Buy some fresh prawns and mixed seafood. About 200 gms per person.
Some veges for stir-frying - snowpeas, purple cabbage, broccoli florettes, onion - anything! Safeway has them in a pre-packaged pack in the fresh aisle for the absolute cheats!
Olive Oil.
Lemon

Heat Olive Oil
Toss Seafood for a few minutes until the prawns are bright orangy-pink.
Add the veges and toss so that the snowpeas glisten and green-up.
Squeeze the lemon juice over it all.

10 minutes!

Serve in bowls, so you can pour the juices over and make sure a nice green snow-pea is on top - the colour of it makes the dish stand out and look delectable.

YUM.

Extra ideas:
Add bean shoots for crunch.
Chilli for those that can handle it.
Rice Noodles if you need a bit more substance, but then serve less seafood per person, I guess ... depends if you're hungry!

Cowburgers and Cockadoodledooburgers

My brother is going to be a Dad. I am thrilled for Davo and Alli ... and cannot wait ... Alli is only 4-5 weeks pregnant and so my niece / nephew is going to be born in about February 2011. They tolD Mum yesterday and she nearly broke AlLi's ribs with her hug.

Both of them came over last night with Melissa and Dave and baby Saxon; Matt and Bec and baby Harmony. Davo practised his Dad-skills - he'll be alright!

Home-made hamburgers:

THE COWBURGER
Beef Mince
Chopped Chives
Parsley Flakes
Chopped Onion
6 eggs (coz I used about a kilo of beef mince and I have plenty left over)
A medium jar of tomato-based pasta sauce - I can't remember which one - just choose a flavour you like.
Corn-flour / Maize Flour.
Mush all the above together ; Roll it into balls; Roll the balls in a bit more flour.... so easy it probably isn't worth posting about!

THE COCKADOODLEDOOBURGER
Chicken Mince
Chopped Chives
Parsley Flakes
Chopped Onion
6 eggs (which was too many I think ... maybe 4 would do)
A small jar of Basil Pesto - could have used two I think.... flavour was subtle but I wanted it to punch through...
Corn-flour / Maize Flour and Almond Meal (coz I ran out of flour, coz it was too mushy and I had to keep adding the dry ingredients so I could get the mixture tacky enough) ...
Mush all the above together ; Roll it into balls; Roll the balls in a bit more flour or almond meal....as above!

SERVED WITH:
Hamburger Rolls (der-Fred)
Sliced Tomato
Sliced Beetroot
Baby Spinach leaves
Mushrooms
Pineapple Slices
Cheese
Mayo
Tomato Sauce
BBQ Sauce
Basil Pesto

You name it you could have had it!!!!!
We will be eating burgers for a week - there's so much left over!!! I think I can make the leftover mixture into a pie, but this involves baking ... and it might be beyond me.

You can see that I completely make my recipes up, and have no idea what quantities I use .. so sorry if these recipes are no use to you whatsoever. Craig joked last night about my hit and miss experimental cooking and he's right ... very often we have to throw the concoction away and get pizza.

I can proudly announce, however, that I am three for three .... the last three meals I made which are all posted on this blog - have been successes. This was clearly a simple case of cookery so let's not mince words (get it?) and pretend we're on MasterChef .... still it tasted good and when served with love, laughter and a healthy dose of scotch, bourbon, beer and wine (and the other condiments!!) it makes for a heartily contented little old me.

Ostensibly the shin-dig was for Ben' birthday and the donut cake (which was "made" by me as further evidence that I can't bake! Make a pyramid of donuts and stick candles in it...)) was quite cute with it's eleven candles upon it. We regailed him with a horrifying rendition of Happy Birthday (we all start at different times and sing it as loudly and off-key as possible, peeing ourselves laughing the whole way through). This was David and Alli's first experience of Happy Birthday for this side of my clan ... at first Davo thought we were starting it like a choir - with harmonies and the like ... well no. He stands corrected. Ben was delightedly embarrassed.

So filled with happiness right now ....