Home made ready meals

I love making home made ready meals. On the surface it seems like a strange concept. Surely the whole point of a ready meal is that there is no cooking involved? There are problems with shop bought ready meals, not least that they often taste nasty. They also have a huge carbon footprint and come with masses of packaging. That's not to say that I would never use a ready meal. They have a place in my lifestyle when we go away on a self-catering caravan or cottage holiday where the kitchen is basic and where, quite frankly, I'm on holiday and would rather not cook and wash up every day!

So how does a home made ready meal work? It is perhaps a bit ridiculous but if you make something one day then put in the freezer for a week, a month or whatever then heat it and eat it another day the separation between the effort and the eating makes it feel as if it were effortless. I have all sorts of things in my freezer that work like that: home-made chips from home grown potatoes, similarly, roast potatoes, various pasta meals, humus, pate, pies, pizzas etc.

One of my stock items is sausage rolls. My girls love these and there are so easy to make that it is slightly mad to consider buying them. Half a block of ready made puff pastry, a pack of sausage meat and some milk or egg to stick and glaze. Cut them up and freeze them on a tray then the next day dispense them into a bag. 10 minutes job done. Cook from frozen for 25 minutes at 200C.

Today I'm making crispy duck legs. Duck has got to be my all time favourite meat but it is more expensive than chicken so either I have to wait for it to be reduced or I have to make sure I make a lot of use of whatever I buy. This week duck legs were reduced by 50p so I bought two packs of two legs. There is a fair bit of preparation involved but most of it is time where you can leave it and get on with the rest of your life. Firstly arrange the legs on a tray and sprinkle with salt, pepper, five spice powder and a bit of brown sugar. Cover with Clingfilm and refrigerate overnight. This helps extract water out of the skin. Now wash off this curing mix and pat dry with kitchen paper. Leave the legs out, covered with kitchen paper for about an hour to dry the skin further then sprinkle on some more salt, pepper and five spice powder and cook in the oven for an hour and a half at 160C, basting once. Pour off the excess fat into a suitable plastic container and refrigerate. This fat can be used to cook roast potatoes or to make bird cakes to feed the birds. Cool the legs on a rack then freeze in pairs. When ready, thaw the legs and cook at 200C for 20 to 25 minutes. Serve with a stir fry and rice.