Breaded Pecorino Cheese Chicken Breasts and our Tesco Order for the Week

Our Tesco's order for the week got delivered today - so the blog can really begin.

Tesco charge a delivery fee for bringing your groceries to the door, the off peak delivery charge for today's order is £3.

The aim of the listings below is to try to decrease the build up of food over the weeks and thereby reduce the weekly shopping bill further, by only buying what we need for the week, using up what we have and also reducing the amount of food we throw out.

Food left over from the previous tesco's orders:

• 3 Chicken breasts
• 4 pork shoulder steaks
• 500g of pork sausage meat
• 2 smoked kippers
• Chillies - which I have chopped up and frozen, they are easy to pull apart and use
• 3 eggs
• 1 very very large piece of ginger (I got the order wrong on the weight), so I am going to store it in the freezer cut into usable chunks for when I need it - http://www.wikihow.com/Store-Ginger
• 250g of cheddar cheese
• 150g of pecorino cheese
• 6 Onions
• 250g butter
• 5 bulbs of garlic
• 900g of Trex
• 250g of Halloumi

Things like jam, tomato sauce and store cupboard items I have not included, otherwise the list would go on forever.

Total cost of this weeks food order: £44.32p

Items on this weeks food order:

1 X Savoy Cabbage - £0.76p
2 X Chicken breast quarters - £2.38p
4 X 250g of butter - £4.00
2 X 300g Unsmoked thick cut back bacon - £4.00
2 X 410g Diced beef - £7.00
1 X 400g closed cup mushroom - £0.95p
1 X 943g bagged chicken breast fillets - £9.99p
2 X 350g mature cheddar - £4.00p
1 X 1.065KG pork belly - £5.33p
1 X 2.5KG white potatoes - £1.35p
1 X 1KG long grain rice - £1.39p
2 X Strong white bread flour - £1.75p
4 X loose brown onions - £0.37p
2 X baking potatoes - £0.58p
5 X loose carrots £0.47p

During the week, I will show recipes with what I have done with the food, and see how much I have left over by next Tuesday, and see how much we can reduce the next order by.

Recipe

Tonight we are having breaded pecorino cheese chicken breast with pasta and cheese sauce, as I have a couple of chicken breasts left over from my last order, plus some pecorino cheese lurking in the fridge. This is a very cheap meal, and it can be stretched further if you have young children by halving the chicken breasts after they have been flattened.

Ingredients

Servings for 2 people

For the breaded chicken:

• 2 Chicken breasts skinless and boneless
• 8 TBLSP of breadcrumbs
• 3 TBLSP of finely grated pecorino cheese
• 1 Egg - whisked
• 2 TBLSP of plain flour
• 2 TBLSP of butter for frying

For the cheese sauce:

• 12g of plain flour
• 12g of butter
• 150 ML of milk
• 90 g of cheddar cheese grated

For the pasta:

• 150 g of dried pasta

Method

Method for the breaded chicken:

• Trim any excess fat of the chicken breasts

Chicken breasts about to be trimmed

• Lay a strip of cling film on the work surface, place chicken breasts on the cling film and put another strip of cling film over the top

The chicken breasts covered with cling film

• Take a rolling pin and gently hit the chicken breasts to flatten them out

The flattened chicken breasts

• In a separate dish, mix the grated pecorino cheese and the bread crumbs together

The mixed breadcrumbs and pecorino cheese

• In separate dishes lay out the flour, whisked egg, bread crumbs and cheese mix in front of you for ease

The ingredients ready for coating the chicken

• Take your flattened chicken breasts and dip them in the flour
• Then dip them in the whisked egg
• then dip them into the bread crumbs and pecorino cheese mix
• Melt the butter in a frying pan, and place the chicken into the pan. Note. Set the heat to low-medium, if you have the heat too high the outside will cook before chicken
• Cook the chicken, turning occasionally for approx 20-25 mins or until the chicken is cooked through and the outside nicely browned

The chicken cooking

Method for the cheesy pasta:

The sauce ingredients ready to go

• Put your pasta on to cook as per the instructions on the packet
• whilst the pasta is cooking, in a small pan melt the butter
• Add the flour and mix, over a medium heat and cook for about 30 seconds, stirring all the time

The flour and butter combined and cooked through

• Take the pan of the heat, and add the milk gradually and stir. Note - if you add the milk to fast you will get lumps, so add it bit by bit and stir into the paste
• Once all the milk has been added, return the pan to a medium heat and keep stirring all the time
• Eventually the sauce will thicken
• At this point add the cheese and melt it into the sauce
• Drain the pasta and return it to the pan, and pour the cheese sauce into the pasta and stir to coat the pasta
• Plate up, pouring any remaining butter in the frying pan over the chicken
• Serve and enjoy

The finished meal