Mrs Hubbard's Dinners

Mrs Hubbard, went to her cupboard and found it was bare, How many of us could change our name to Mrs Hubbard?


Here I will share my improvised and hopefully child friendly meals, in the hope that it will, 1. document them so I can refer back, did I mention I have a terrible memory, I'm sure I did.  and 2. so that others may either use them or share their own bespoke budget dinners.



So tonight I have left over chicken, mushrooms and onions, plus the usual frozen veg, which I always keep for those just before you should really go shopping days.  Oh, and the normal dried pasta shapes which everyone ought to keep stocked in their cupboards, kids love it, I like it and my husband now eats it quite happily, so always a one meal for everyone choice.  Watch this space for an update on the success or otherwise of this chicken based meal.



Well, as planned I scratted about in the cupboards and freezer and chose my ingredients for tonight's feast.  I was a little later than normal so pasta it was.

• Dry Spaghetti (which should have been pasta tubes, before I realised my daughter had left me with enough for four pixies not four humans).
• Left over chopped chicken from the roast.
• Frozen Spinach x 2 cubes.
• mushrooms, a handful or two. 
• A glug of white wine which happened to be open and needed to be used, you may wish to finish off the rest via a glass.
• chicken stock (1 Oxo cube in a mug of hot water).

Ok, so I fried the mushrooms in butter, salt and pepper added a little flour to thicken and then added a small amount of the stock.  Turned up the heat til bubbling madly and threw in a big glug of white wine.  Boiled it all down a little and added the spinach which I had quickly defrosted in some hot water in the microwave for 2 minutes.  Mixed it all around added a little more salt and pepper, some cheats dried garlic from my spice rack and then left for 10 minutes to all cook together.  At this point I think I may have started boiling my spaghetti as I did forget.


As I have a very fussy son who basically eats no veg apart from carrots only if they're steamed, and Broccoli with absolutely no stalks (basically Broccoli sprinkles), I liquidised everything up at this point with my trusty hand liquidiser to make a smoother sauce.  I then added my leftover chicken, left to bubble gently for 10/15 minutes and that was it, 30 minutes later Spinach, Mushroom and Chicken sauce with Spaghetti.  Everyone ate the lot! A successful, healthy, improv dinner for four.