Hugh's Stuffed Butternut Squash

By Helen

Main Ingredients:

• Squash
• Stilton
• Walnuts
• Thyme and honey

Veggie Lent flashback.

I am standing in Tesco the day before cooking for a vegetarian friend trying to understand how meals are structured without meat at the centre. We have squash, yes, and it's full of good things, but what goes on the side? Potatoes? Nice bread? A pork chop? Thankfully the recipe was simplicity itself.

The squash (squashes?) were cut in half, brushed with oil and garlic and then roasted for 45 minutes. The centre was then scraped out and mashed with a good chunk of Stilton, toasted walnuts and some thyme, the mixture spread back into the skins and the whole lot cooked for another 15 minutes with a drizzle of honey.

After much thought I added a side of peas with spring onions, cream and parmesan, although a salad would have been just as good (if less seasonal). I was pretty pleased with this one - the sweet squash fell apart at the first touch of a fork and made a delicious hash with the cheese and nuts. 

The combination would be equally good on long pasta (rich cheese sauce, bright cubes of squash and just a sprinkling of nuts) or even spooned into ravioli - maybe when I have more time!

At £2.05 a head this was pretty affordable and very easy - I'd definitely do it again, or something like it.

Best for... Wintery nights in setting the world to rights

Taken from... Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - River Cottage Every Day

Chris says... Who knew we could find so many uses for butternut squash? I still fancied a pork chop on the side though...

Delia's Pollo Cacciatora with Tagliatelle

By Chris,

Main Ingredients:

• 2x Chicken legs
• 350g Vine tomatoes
• Garlic, onion, bay and rosemary
• White wine and white wine vinegar

Given how often I cook while watching Channel 4, I knew this would happen eventually. Someone on Come Dine With Me was cooking the same dish as me at the same time! Chicken cacciatora (or hunter's chicken to you and me) isn't exactly what I'd call dinner party food, but it is very comforting on a foggy autumn day. 

First up, Delia says to quarter a chicken and then cut each leg joint in half. Since I wasn't feeling adventurous enough to try butchering a bird, I just bought a couple of legs and bisected them.

The hunks of meat were flash fried in some very hot olive oil until golden and set aside for half an hour.  Next, I made a start on the sauce by chopping a whole onion and frying it for eight minutes - much longer than I'd normally give over to frying an large member of the allium family, but this resulted in lovely brown, partially caramelised onions, which formed the basis of a rich, but sweet sauce. 

Then one clove of garlic was added, before the fresh tomatoes. Delia's instructions were deceptively simple - this was the fiddliest bit of the recipe by far. Stripping the skins off, even with the aid of boiling water, was an annoying process and made me very thankful for the small mercy of tinned tomatoes.

For seasoning, I then added salt and pepper, one teaspoon of tomato paste, a sprinkling of fresh rosemary and a bay leaf. Finally, a glass of white wine and a splash of white wine vinegar was added to the mix. This was simmered for 20 minutes to reduce, before the chicken pieces were added and the whole thing was then stewed for 40 minutes.

Everything I've described so far suggests a fairly straightforward pasta sauce, but it really came together at the end, with the sweetness of the wine and tomatoes balancing out the punchy herbs. When served with tagliatelle and a fresh garden salad, this was more than worth the hassle. And at £1.89 a head, a veritable bargain!

Best for... A rich Italian treat to get you dreaming about next summer's holidays.

Taken from... Delia Smith - How to Cook: Book Two

Helen says... Chris's effort looked much better than the one on TV!

Jamie's Sticky Pan-Fried Scallops (and Chocolate Brownies)

By Helen
Main Ingredients:

• Frozen scallops
• Honey
• Chinese five-spice
• Broccoli and asparagus
• Rice, spring onions and eggs

A good chocolate brownie recipe is closely-guarded and much envied. 

This one - although at the time seeming unnecessarily complicated and slowing me down when I wanted to get started on my main course -was pretty impressive. Dark chocolate was blitzed with butter, sugar, cocoa powder, four eggs, a morsel of flour and a handful of crystallised ginger, then poured into a tin with dried cherries and pecans sprinkled over the top (as below).

While that was in the oven I could get started on the rest of the meal - covering the scallops in oil, lemon zest and five-spice, before frying with honey, chopped chilli and a little garlic.

This was my first experience cooking scallops and the fact that they were frozen rather than fresh meant they were juicy rather than sticky. They were also smaller than I expected (only about the diameter of a penny) so at least they didn't take any longer to cook.

Carbs were provided by boiling some rice and stirring in beaten eggs, soy sauce and chopped spring onions, before sprinkling over a little coriander and sweet chilli sauce. Some simple greens (asparagus and broccoli) was dressed with oil and lime juice to add some colour.

I wouldn't usually have suggested such a rich dessert after a meal like this but it worked surprisingly well - the added fruit and nuts in the brownies meant they weren't cloyingly sweet and the hint of ginger went down well after the chilli too.

If you can bear to just have the main course, it came out at £2.77 a head - not bad considering most of that was scallops. Factor in the dessert and it's more like £4.48 a head (but that includes an extra piece of brownie each to make your work colleagues jealous the next day).

Taken from... Jamie Oliver - 30 Minute Meals

Best for... Convincing people they DO like shellfish - and rewarding them for trying something new

Chris says... I've never seen four plates quite so clean, yet somehow everyone found room for Brownie...

Jamie's Tray-Baked Chicken with Creamed Spinach

By Chris,

Main ingredients:

• 6x Chicken breasts
• Maris Piper potatoes
• 400g Baby Spinach
• Garlic, Parmesan and Streaky Bacon

Ahh chicken and bacon, what a timeless combination! This recipe is a great use for a really good quality chicken breast, and a great way to introduce people to spinach - in the least healthy way possible... Many of Jamie's 30-Minute Meals are heavily reliant on herbs, but this one is worse than most, with four herbs employed, not to mention two spices and plenty of garlic.

Start off by boiling about a kilo of washed and diced potatoes, then fry a fistful of spring onions in olive oil. To the onions add three cloves of garlic, some thyme leaves, butter, nutmeg and a splash of boiling water. Next up, roll the chicken breasts in salt, pepper, olive oil, oregano and paprika, then fry in butter for two minutes on each side to seal in the juices. While these are going, wilt the spinach down in the pan with the onions.

Next up the chicken is moved to a baking tray, then lined with steaky bacon, and four lemon quarters are stuffed in, along with some rosemary and cherry tomatoes (which I forgot, d'oh!). The whole thing is then grilled at 200 degrees (gas mark six) for 14 minutes. Once the spinach has wilted down, pour on cream and grate over a decent helping of parmesan to make a nice gloopy sauce. Finally, dry off the potatoes by frying them in a pan for a few minutes with garlic, salt and rosemary.

This is one of the fiddlier 30-Minute Meals I've done so far, which took 45 minutes in total, but the potatoes, and chicken came out perfect and the spinach is tempting enough to turn even the most ardent veggiephobe into Popeye. 

Without the tomatoes (which will make a cracking salad tomorrow) it all came to a fairly reasonable £2.50 a head, including a bonus sixth chicken breast for everyone to fight over.

Best for... Using up all the frozen herbs in your freezer and introducing people to spinach

Taken from... Jamie Oliver - 30-Minute Meals

Helen says... Not spectacular but pretty tasty - and the timings made sure the chicken was perfectly cooked