One Pot Meals

Wether away travelling or at home one pot meals are a great idea. They get everything cooking in the same place eliminating the need for timing different meal elements, they allow the different flavours involved to mix together and best of all they leave you with only one pot to wash up!

Some great classic one pot meals include stews, chilli, Bolognese (sort of !) and they’re great for feeding the masses if you’re in a hostel and a group of you want to club together to make something filling and cheap. I used to love doing curries and stir fries in this way with a bunch of us holed up in the kitchen around a pot with the banter going and everyone digging in.

The banter is a big part of why I love to make on pot meals, it creates a centre point that everyone is sitting around and the conversation flows easily because of everyone sitting together and the informality. When I was travelling up the west coast of Australia one pot meals were all that were made for the reasons listed above, we had a lareg group of people who were just getting to know each other and meal times were when everyone really got chatting.

Of course this banter and free access to more food doesn’t always work out well as one lad found out. Sitting around the table after a big group dinner he and one of the girls who had been eating as well were getting on very well and had finally found a bit of quiet time together as everyone had left. Just as they were getting into an interesting conversation five or six of the group came back over deciding they wanted more food. There was people, there was noise and there was no way this couple were getting any private time without getting some stick from everyone else, so as this story demonstrates one pot meals can sometimes be a bit of a hinderance.

But in honour of that couple (and they are now a couple) here is a great one pot meal that can made anywhere.

For this recipe you will need:

equipment:

chopping board
knife
roasting dish

ingredients

75g x chorizo, chopped roughly
3 x garlic cloves, crushed or chopped roughly
6 x chicken things
3 x leaks, sliced thinly
30-40g x paremsan cheese
3 x slices of bread, torn roughly
5 x sprigs of fresh basil, roughly chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper


First pre heat the oven to 190 degrees C. Now get your leeks, garlic and chorizo into your oven dish and mix together well.
Next lay your chicken thighs on top of the mixture and season the whole lot with the salt and pepper. When that is done drizzle some olive oil over the top.
Take the torn up bread and grate the parmesan into it, mix well and sprinkle over the top of the contents of the dish.
Whack this into the oven for about 40 minutes. At this point sprinkle the basil over the top and return to the oven for another 5 minutes and serve immediately!

One pot meals, easy, peasy, lemon squeezey. Now enjoy!