Cooking with PopLedge, this episode ‘Roast Chicken Pie’ using leftovers!

So lots of you liked my Rainbow cakes recipe the other day so I thought I’d share another tip/recipe with you!

Roasting a whole chicken is such good value and great for a Sunday meal but normally you get leftovers.

There’s a lot you can do with roast leftovers but this is my favourite!

It’s simple and yummy!

Basically save everything from your roast and make a pie!

1. After your roast save all the leftovers – I mean stuffing, sausages, chicken, vegetables, potatoes, the lot!
2. Always have some pastry in the freezer – I like Jus-Rol’s puff pastry (just make sure it’s not sweet!)
3. When you want to make your pie get everything out the freezer the night before…i.e the frozen roast leftovers and the pastry
4. Let the pastry come to room temperature it’s much easier to roll out later
5. Ok onto preparing it…I like to add onions to all my pies, so if you have any extra veg you want in your pie just fry it till it’s nice and soft
6. Add all the leftovers and fry for a couple more minutes
7. Add some chicken stock (I use an OXO cube and about 3/4 pint for my dish)
8. Add 2 tbsps of plain flour to thicken
9. Add some herbs – I like basil with chicken
10. Add some seasoning
11. Simmer for a couple of minutes and just adjust till you get something you like
12. Taste it – is the sauce good?
13. Transfer the whole mixture/filling into your pie dish
14. Roll out the pastry (sprinkle the surface with flour) and then cover the mixture with it (I just do a top to keep it healthier)
15. Decorate the top of the pie if you wish and press your fingers around the edge!
16. Brush the pastry with milk so it will brown
17. Cook for approx half an hour on 180c
18. Enjoy!

The great thing about pies is they are so versatile…I hate wasting food so really as long as the flavours are good anything goes!

Mine before going in the oven!

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Cooking with PopLedge! This episode ‘Rainbow Cup Cakes’!

I was in a cooking mood yesterday and had seen something similar on YouTube so I thought I’d give it a go!

Here’s a step by step guide to making these cute cakes!

1. Follow a #cupcake recipe – I’ll put mine in the pictures below, it’s very easy, basically put all ingredients in a bowl and stir till smooth – I’d say do it by hand, it’s fun and you can ‘feel’ when the mixture is ready!
2. Separate the mixture into four different bowls
3. Choose some food colouring! I just used a standard liquid colouring not a gel or anything like that
4. I chose Red, Yellow, Blue and Green – you can choose whatever colours you want, could be a flag colour or a club colour to personalise the cakes!
5. Drop a few drops of the colouring into the bowl, do this for each of the four colours i.e. one at a time not all together!
6. Get four different spoons – one for each coloured bowl!
7. Boil some water and put it into a cup with a small spoon – use this to get the mixture off the spoons towards the end but wash in-between each colour!
8. Spoon the mixtures into the cupcake holders – one at a time!  I went Red, Blue, Yellow and then Green!
9. You don’t need to mix them together or keep them especially separate it just works!
10. Pop in the oven, 15 minutes at 160 with a fan assisted oven or until the mixture is cooked.
11. If you have a cake tester it should come out clean when you put it into and out of the cake.
12. Transfer to cooling rack and allow them to air until cool
13. They actually look fab even when just baked…see my photos (you can just cut it up into chunks!) but if you want to ice then read on…
14. Trim the tops off (and eat them!)
15. Mix some icing sugar as per the packet instructions
16. Decorate with sprinkles!
17. EAT THOSE YUMMY CAKES RIGHT NOW!!

Photos and descriptions below, hope you have fun with making them!

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