Having bought some chicken tenderloins at the supermarket for the excellent price of $10-99/kg, I was trying to figure out what I could do with it as I'm not a big chicken fan.
Here's how it goes, and it looks like I've ended up with 1.5 days dinner out of it.
850 gm chicken tenderloins (that's the inner part of the breast - no skin, bone or fat on it, just pure white chicken)
Marinade chicken in something, anything, for a couple of hours, then cook in water for a base, adding flavouring and a couple of chopped tomatoes. Add 3 or 4 crushed cloves of garlic just before you thicken the mixture. You will need to cook the chicken on a medium heat for about 25 minutes. Thicken mixture with cornflour as usual. (Tip. If you tip some of the water from the vegetables into the mix, it makes a nicer and more colourful sauce.)
Simultaneously, cook 0.5 kg of potatoes, three good-sized carrots and a whole head of broccoli. The carrots need to be sliced very thinly - about 2-3 mm.
Boil potatoes for later mashing, but for the carrots & broccoli, get a pan of water to boiling, throw the whole lot in and bring back to boil, but only for 2 or 3 minutes. Take off heat, tip out hot water and replace with cold. Then change the cold water after a couple of minutes - you need to stop the cooking process so they don't go mushy.
Prepare cheese sauce as shown in the lasagne recipe and cook a cup of any type of pasta while you're waiting. Drain when ready. (The pasta, not the cheese sauce!)
Using one third of the chicken, put a layer in a lasagne/casserole dish. As you can see, I used the same one as for lasagne, and I use it for shepherd's pie as well. Great invention.
Slice and spread as much broccoli as needed to make a layer, then put a think layer of cheese sauce over that. Use no more than 1/4 of the cheese here.
Then a layer of pasta, followed by another layer of chicken - again 1/3 of the total. Layer the carrots over that, then finish it off with the mashed potatoes and a the rest of the cheese sauce over the top.
Serve from the casserole dish, and as you can see, it gives a great, tasty, colourful and healthy meal that serves a family easily:
You will end up with 1/3 of the chicken and some vegetables left, so make sure to cover and place in the fridge - leftovers can be used for an additional meal - the chicken will get some sausages added to make tomorrow's dinner, I'm thinking - or to add to other meals. Extra vegetables can be frozen to put in casseroles, soups, stews or sauces at a later date.
Here is what it should look like when cooking. Note that winning frypan - if you don't have one, get one.
Cost:
Chicken: $10-34
Carrots: $1-15
Broccoli: $1-50
Potatoes: $1-50
Pasta: $0-50
Cheese sauce $1-50
Total $16-49 for five meals plus half a meal for five left over. I will turn that into a full meal with the $6-60 of beef sausages, making ten meals for $23-09. Try to get that deal at McDonalds!