Monday 5 January 2009

The £7.42 Chicken Challenge: Part III

We've had two dinners this week with the left over chicken from the roast dinner, including some very tasty home-made fajitas. They were probably not very authentic, but they tasted good and there was enough left over for my lunch the next day too.

Next up was some pasta sauce with vegetables. As I am feeling a bit unhealthy after Christmas, I decided this would be a good way to use up some of the chicken and have a fairly well-balanced meal.

Roasted Vegetable Pasta Sauce
Serves 2

1 small aubergine
1 medium courgette
1 green pepper
3 cloves of garlic
1 onion
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
Sprigs of rosemary
Some cooked chicken
olive oil
salt and pepper

First chop up the aubergine, the courgette and the pepper into largish chunks, and put them in a roasting tin. Sprinkle over some salt, pepper, rosemary and the garlic cloves (still in their skins) and drizzle with a little olive oil. Roast at 200C for about 40 minutes. They should be starting to turn black around the edges, but soft on the inside.

Cut the onion up into small pieces, and fry it in a small amount of olive oil. Add in the roasted vegetables, except the garlic. The garlic should be soft enough to squeeze out of the skins into the pan as well. Add the canned tomatoes straight away, and stir it up! I also added some more rosemary, some tomato puree and some pepper at this point.
(You could use real tomatoes in this step, but as the ones in the shops at the moment are pretty rough, tinned was a better option.)

Once that is bubbling away, cut up the chicken in to small pieces. Add it in at the last minute, as you don't want to cook it, just reheat it. The amount of chicken you use is up to you, as I was trying to make this cheap and healthy I didn't use much, but if you put in lots you could probably stretch this to 3 or 4 portions instead of two.

I served this with tagliatelle, but I think it would work best with a chunkier shape like giant conchiglioni, as that would catch the larger vegetables.

Tagliatelle with roasted vegetables and tomato sauce.

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