Fish, spinach and rice parcel

This is a bit like the koulibiac recipe I've done before - except with a bit more veg. The parcel sounds rather sinister, but is actually made with puff pastry. Hurrah!

You'll need:

trout - a couple of fillets
200g (ish) cooked rice
1/3 bag of fresh spinach, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1 lemon, zested
salt and black pepper
250g block puff pastry

Stick the oven on at about 200 degrees C, and get out a large baking tray.

First of all, fry your onion in a little olive oil until it turns translucent. Chuck into a large bowl, and mix in the cooked rice. Add the spinach, and mix until everything has turned green.

Cover the trout with cold water, and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes or so until the fish is poached, and has turned pink throughout. Remove from the water, flake and add to the spinach/rice mix. Season everything with the lemon zest, and a good screw of salt and black pepper.

Roll out your puff pastry into a long rectangle, and then put carefully on your lined/greased oven tray. Place the fish/rice/spinach mix in a line down the middle of the pastry. It'll be quite a big, fat line - carefully ease the pastry up on both sides, and pinch together at the top (if it doesn't stick, use a little water to wet it).

Sling the whole parcel/roll into the oven, and bake for 25-30 minutes. It's really nice with a green salad, and a wedge or two of lemon.

Chicken and rice in a chard parcel

One of the more random meals we've had recently, inspired by the fact there was a load of Swiss/rainbow chard in the fridge after a trip to the allotment.

Makes enough for 4. You'll need:

2 chicken breasts, sliced into chunks
1 onion, finely sliced
10 large leaves of chard
dried thyme
about half a mugful of rice (or whatever cooked rice you've got lurking in your fridge)
1 small courgette, diced
1 green pepper, diced

1 tin of tomatoes
a splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar

Stick the oven on at about 180 degrees C.

First of all make your tomato sauce - it's a doddle. Simply tip the tin of tomatoes into a large frying pan, add a splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

While that's going on, cook your rice (or extract it from the fridge). Sling it into a large bowl.

Add a slug of olive oil to a frying pan, and brown your chicken. Tip it into the bowl of rice. Add the onion, pepper and courgette to the chickeny pan (you may have to add a little extra olive oil), and cook on a low heat until they've softened. Tip this lot into the bowl, and season with salt and black pepper - you should now have everything you need for the filling.

Plunge the large leaves of chard into a pan of boiling water for 3-4 minutes, until they've softened. You're now ready to wrap...take each leaf, and plonk a good spoonful of the filling in the middle. Fold over the edges of the leaf to make a parcel, and place in an ovenproof baking dish.

Once you've done all the parcels, drizzle the tomato sauce on top, until they're nicely covered. You could top it with a little cheese too, before you sling it in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until everything is heated through and piping hot.

Fish parcels, with tomatoes, olives and parsley

A funny old day today - we went to the Baltic this afternoon, which was unusually uninspiring (all the kids things in the Quay on Level 2 just looked battered and old, and there didn't seem to be much that engaged you).

We ended up taking so long at the supermarket afterwards (thank you Tesco, your new layout is most unappreciated) that tea had to be something bung-in-the-oven-quick that would cook in 20 minutes while we watched a bit of telly.

You'll need:

a fillet each of white fish or salmon (we had pouting, which I'd never come across before, but was cheap in Morrisons. I think salmon would have been better - it was a bit bland)
half a jar of black olives
half a punnet of cherry tomatoes, halved
some long stems of parsley (we are still inundated with the stuff, even in March)
a little olive oil
black pepper

Turn the oven on to about 180 degrees C. Take a large piece of foil (squareish), and place a fillet in the centre. Chuck a tablespoon of cherry tomatoes on top, add 8-10 black olives and a couple of stems of parsley, and drizzle a little olive oil over the top. Season well with black pepper.

Fold up the foil into a parcel, and then place on a baking tray (if it leaks, you don't want fish juice all over the floor of your oven). Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or so - depending on the thickness of your fish.

We ate ours with some boiled, buttered potatoes, and some shredded cabbage.

Black halibut and parma ham parcels

Sounds poncey. In reality, it's whatever cheap fish Morrisons had, wrapped in some parma ham. We'd been out all afternoon strawberry picking (and eating) near Corbridge, so when we got home this was all I felt like cooking.

You need:

some nice pieces of fish - black halibut was ok, but was one of those fish that falls apart rather, and is a bit squidgy. Something firm (like monkfish, assuming you win the lottery, or salmon), might be a better bet.
a few slices of parma ham

Check the fish for pinbones, and remove any that you see. Wrap each piece in parma ham. Stick in the oven (at around 175 degrees C) for about 20-30 minutes, until the parma ham goes crispy, and the fish is cooked through. It'd probably work quite well if you pan fried the fish pieces too.

We ate this with chips (slice some large potatoes reasonably thinly (leave the skins on), drizzle a bit of olive oil over the top, and stick in the oven on a high heat for 30 minutes or so), a green salad and some rhubarb chutney.

Obviously, there were strawberries for pudding...