This dish is inspired by a Margaret Fulton recipe, but this version is quicker and easier.  While I’m sure my version doesn’t have the depth of flavour that Mrs Fulton’s does, there’s a lot less mucking around, so a doable dish for a week night meal.

As with many spice dishes, there are a few ingredients, but most are pantry staples. And when I say spicy, this dish isn’t hot. I took out the saffron because it’s too pricey for my pantry, so if you prefer, throw in some saffron with the other spices. I also put the raisins and chickpeas in with the chicken rather than in with the couscous because I like my couscous plain and buttery and the sultanas swell and go juicy and impart their flavour to the stew, while the chickpeas absorb some of the spice flavour. Thigh fillets have more fat on them and therefore taste a whole lot better (especially in stews) than breast, but chicken breast works just as well. I used tinned tomatoes because the ones in the shop at the moment aren’t worth buying. Freeze any leftover tomatoes and chickpeas for later use as pizza sauce or for a quick homemade hummus.

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Chilli beef freezes well, so makes a good freezer backup meal. We normally have this with rice, but it’s nice with corn chips for a treat. I had leftovers the other day with some fresh, mashed avocado, yum. To boost the vegetable content, add some sliced mushrooms, capsicum, diced carrot, peas or whatever you have on hand.

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This is one of our favourite dishes. Mushrooms, paprika, mustard, wine and sour cream – these are a few of my favourite things. This dish is so quick, easy and tasty and most of the ingredients are pantry staples, I don’t know why anyone would want to make this with a packet mix.

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Why make bolognaise from scratch when you can get it pretty cheap and easy from a bottle? That’s what I thought anyway until I didn’t have any in the cupboard and decided to make it myself. I have never gone back to the store bought bottled pasta sauce.

This makes a very rich, tasty bolognaise. And it’s not that much harder or more time consuming than the bottled variety. It is a foundation recipe, though. You can add anything you like: olives, sun dried tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, corn, kidney beans, extra garlic, fresh herbs, spices… endless possibilities. Or you could remove ingredients that you don’t like or don’t have on hand like the capsicum or mushrooms. A tasty variation is adding a couple of crushed cloves to the sauce. It adds a subtle but lovely aroma to your bolognaise.

Of course, instead of serving this over spaghetti, you could make a simple white sauce, layer with a few sheets of pasta, grate some cheese over the top and have lasagne instead.

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Kekap Manis is a sweet soy sauce. Along with the lime juice, it makes a nice combo of salty, sweet and sour. I like to cut my vegetables into matchstick shapes, but it takes longer to do it this way and isn’t necessary. Alternatively, you can use frozen stir fry veggies making this a very quick dish to prepare and cook. Use whatever vegetables you like, substitute the water chestnuts for unsalted cashews for a different flavour.

I usually buy topside beef in bulk and slice and portion the lot before freezing it, which saves a couple of minutes at dinner time. To get tender stir fry meat, cut the meat against the grain, fry it quickly and briefly and in small batches at high heat until just browned (you don’t want it to stew in it’s juices and it will continue to cook once removed from the heat, so no need to over do it), and don’t let it boil in the sauce when you add it back at the end of the cooking.

As far as the oil goes, use one that cooks well at high temperatures. I use macadamia nut oil because it is grown and cold pressed locally and I have a cheap supply. Rice bran oil also has a high smoke point and is good for stir fry – just don’t use olive oil because it will burn.

The recipe below is for two people, about 100g of meat per person is good for a stir fry and just increase the vegetables and add a little more lime and kekap manis.

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An oldie but a goodie. This version is easy to throw in the oven and forget about for an hour or so. I read a recipe recently that included vegetables in the actual sauce, but I find it easier to add them to the rice when boiling it. My mum used to make this without the sour cream, so if you don’t want to add it, the apricot chicken will turn out fine without it. I just really like creamy dishes.

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This dish was inspired by a recipe I read on an American cooking website a few years ago. I had to convert the dish back into real food, however. Real onion instead of onion powder, real cheese instead of slices of plastic cheese, and I threw in some vegetables to make it a bit healthier.

You can add whatever vegetables you have in the crisper. Sometimes I will also throw in some kidney beans and some chilli or paprika for a different taste. Also, a splash of wine is always a welcome addition. If you prefer, use ready made passata or pasta sauce in place of the paste, tinned toms and herbs.

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Chicken drumsticks are our staple roast because they are cheap and tasty, but I’m always looking for new ways to prepare them. This recipe was inspired by an old magazine. For us, this is just a pantry staple meal, I like to use herbs and spices so keep quite a few in the pantry. We found the marinade to be a little ‘chalky’ and lacks that great fresh coriander flavour that I expected so I’ve substituted some of the ground coriander for fresh. You can leave it (and the chilli) out if you prefer. We served this with homemade chips and salad.

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Navarin of lamb is a traditional French stew made with lamb or mutton and root vegetables. There are many variations to this recipe, but this is the one that I learnt in high school and have been cooking ever since. As far as stews go, this is definitely one of my favourite.

If you’ve ever wondered what the difference between a casserole and a stew is, a stew is traditionally cooked on the stove top, where a casserole is cooked in the oven. Cook this in the stew pot or crock pot or even an electric frypan.

Check this recipe to make your own bouquet garni, or just buy them at the store – they look like tea bags with herbs in them. Don’t make the mistake I did once and ask the butcher for lamb neck. That’s exactly what I got: a whole lamb’s neck. I’m not normally queasy, but this just about made me so, and it was a bugger to cut the meat off.

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I’ve been watching too much telly. I had a craving for one of those chicken sauces in a jar. It tempted me in the supermarket as I walked past it’s shelf.

I didn’t buy it, I decided to make my own version which was pretty easy and doesn’t include any extras like preservatives or artificial flavours.

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