Thanks Claudia

One of my favourite cookbooks is Picnic by Claudia Roden. I like the way she talks about food, it's a good read. While of course the food is good out of doors (I love picnics), I use some of the recipes in this book for 'normal' meals too.

Once I have cooked any recipe the first time I will start to experiment with variations. Claudia gives two versions of a chicken pie with moroccan flavours, which I have cooked many times. It's decicious both hot and cold. Now I use an amalgam of both to create my own version. It's a quick and easy recipe that I can put together before Mr S becomes too over the top!

I bake a couple of chicken fillets in the oven, covered with tinfoil to keep them moist, and flavoured with lemon and any other herbs or spices I have at hand.

Into a white sauce I put the chopped chicken, slow sauteed leek or onion, toasted slivered almond and/or pinenuts, pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Claudia gives a fantastic pastry recipe, but at the moment I just don't have the time, so I use pre rolled.

And here it is... with the demands of Mr S, every meal I cook is a huge achievement... and this one was delicious!