Slow cooker coq au vin (and a fast day meal!)

It’s been a while between posts as I wanted to make this the first of what I hope will become the standard format for this blog which will feature one fast day and one non-fast day meal each week.

I began writing this with Dido’s ‘Sand in my Shoes’ stuck in my head last Monday, extremely grumpy about finding myself not in a tropical paradise where the most challenging decision of the day is ‘beach or pool’ but back in Dubai, in my office, on a fast day and facing the necessity of going for a run. It was perfect to be able to focus on blogging about two recipes for the week, as being back in my own kitchen is my major consolation whenever I find myself home from a holiday :-). The meals (and thus the blog post) spanned the whole week so I wasn’t able to share it until now.

The fast meal is the baked spaghetti squash with goats cheese and pesto which I have talked about before (it’s rapidly becoming a fast day favourite to be honest and you’ll see why as it’s so delicious and so easy!). The non-fast meal is a slow cooker coq au vin which I found here: http://www.blog.thezenofslowcooking.com/slow-cooker-coq-au-vin-a-la-julia-child-2/ best name for a blog ever!

Baked spaghetti squash with goats cheese and pesto (serves 1 – 300 calories pp)

• Two cups of spaghetti squash (62 calories)
• 50g goats cheese (121 calories)
• 1.5 tbsp pesto (112 calories)
• Dash balsamic vinegar (5 calories) (there's also a splash of white wine shown in the picture which is a bit of a cheat, as I didn't add those calories in)

1. Preheat the oven, pierce the spaghetti squash skin several times and bake for 1 hour
2. Cut open the spaghetti squash scrape out the seeds and tease the strands of flesh out with a fork*
3. Measure out the amount of spaghetti squash and mix with the other ingredients until combined

* You can either do this whilst it’s hot (though burnt fingers can result) or wait until it has cooled. If you wait until it’s cooled put the measured out squash and the other ingredients in a pan on the heat to combine, stirring constantly

Slow cooker coq au vin (serves 6 – 446 calories pp)

• 1 kg skinless chicken thighs
• 1/3 cup flour
• salt & pepper 3 tbsp olive oil
• 200g lardons
• 12 baby onions, (24 pearl) peeled and left whole
• ¼ cup cognac
• 1 3/4  cup red wine
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 large sprig thyme (or a generous 1/2 tsp dried)
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 bay leaf

1. Add the flour, salt and pepper and chicken thighs to a large Ziploc bag and shake to coat the chicken
2. Heat 2tbsp of the olive oil in a frying pan, and fry the chicken two minutes on each site to brown. Once browned stir in any remaining flour and put the chicken in the slow cooker
3. Heat the final tbsp. of oil and fry the lardons and onions (also mushrooms if using, I didn’t because I hate mushrooms) until the lardons are cooked. Add the lardons and onions to the slow cooker
4. Add the rest of the ingredients to the slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours (the original recipe gives an option for cooking on low too, but I didn’t try it)