Pigs in Blankets Sausage Rolls

I made Pigs in Blankets Swirls a few weeks ago, but thought I'd try making more traditionally shaped sausage rolls for an extended family gathering the day after Boxing Day

Makes 8/16

320g pack ready rolled puff pastry
8 slices of streaky bacon
8 sausages or 500g sausage meat 

If using sausages, remove the casings by cutting them off with scissors. 

Lay the pastry out on the greaseproof paper it comes with, with one of the longest sides towards you.  With a rolling pin, roll the pastry out towards and away from you to make it a little wider.  

Cut the pastry in half lengthways from left to right to make two long strips.

Lay short lengths of bacon along the middle of the pastry strips.  After cutting the first few slices of bacon in half, I worked out I needed to cut them in three to cover the middle of the pastry.

Divide the sausagemeat in half and spread each half evenly over the bacon, along the middle of each pastry strip, right up to the edges.  If using sausages, just lay four skinned sausages along the bacon on each pastry strip.

Fold the longside of the pastry over to the over and crimp it closed with a fork.  Lightly score each pastry roll into 4, or 8 if you want mini sausage rolls. 

Once scored, cut with sharp scissors.  Drag the greaseproof paper onto a baking tray and arrange the cut sausage rolls with a bit of space between them.

Bake at 180C for 40 minutes until golden brown, turning half way though the cooking time.  Best eaten hot.  Can be reheated at 180C for 7 minutes in an air fryer.

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Pigs in Blankets Swirls

I started off thinking I was going to make Pigs in Blankets Sausage Rolls.  There are so many recipes out there, with red onion chutney, with cranberry sauce, with Camembert or Brie, with Camembert & Brie and Red Onion Chutney or Cranberry Sauce. But I thought I'd keep mine traditional with just sausagemeat and bacon, and opted for a swirl as I thought it less fiddly.

As ready rolled puff pastry is often vegan, it should be possible to make a vegan/vegetarian version of these with vegetarian sausages and vegetarian bacon.

Makes 18

320g pack ready rolled puff pastry

300g pack streaky bacon

6 sausages

Remove the sausages from their casing by squeezing or cutting off and mash together.  I bought Co-op Irresistible Cumberland Sausages and found the casing incredibly soft so just squished them together with my fingers.

Roll the pastry out on it's greaseproof paper on a chopping board.

Spread the sausagemeat evenly all over the pastry, right up to the edges.

Cover the sausagemeat with strips of streaky bacon in the direction you are going to roll (this makes slicing easier), spacing them out evenly and again right up to what will be the ends of your roll.  I rolled the long side to make smaller swirls, so made sure I had a slice of bacon right up to the left and right hand side.

Carefully roll up the pastry like an Artic Roll.

Slice into 2cm rounds with a sharp knife.  If the greaseproof paper the pastry came on has not been too damaged/cut in the process, arrange the swirls on this on a large flat baking tray or on new piece if needed with a bit of space between them.

Bake at 180C for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.  Best eaten warm, but my son was very happy to eat cold swirls for breakfast on his way into college.

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Sausage & Potato Traybake

We make this every time we go to France, currently twice a year, with good quality Toulouse sausage, merquez, or cooking chorizo from local butchers. 

Vegetables like chunks of red peppers and cherry tomatoes could be added when you add the sausages, but my teens would rather a green salad. 

Serves 4

1kg small potatoes, halved 
1kg sausages 
1 tbsp olive oil or butter 

Preheat the oven to 220C.

Toss the potatoes and oil together in a large high side baking dish, or dot with butter if you have no oil (as we did, on arriving for our first night at our Airbnb). 

Bake the potatoes uncovered for 20 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and stir around the potatoes, then lay on the sausages. Return to the oven for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes take the dish out the oven again, remove the sausages to a plate and stir around the potatoes, pushing the browner ones to the middle, and the lighter ones to the sides of the dish. Return the sausages to the dish with their paler undersides facing up. Bake for another 15 minutes or until golden brown and the juices run clear (a bit hard to tell with merquez). 

Serve with a green salad or something green.

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Air Fryer Toad in the Hole

Not a regular dish at home, but thought I'd try it out as the kids love sausages and most comfort foods.

On the plus side, it is quick and filling. But even though it was not as greasy as my memory of Toad in the Hole, two out of three of us agreed we'd rather have bangers & mash.

Serves 2

4 good quality sausages

1 tbsp olive oil

70g plain flour

1 egg

100 ml milk

Salt & pepper to season

Toss the sausages in the oil in an air fryer liner and cook at 200C for 5 minutes.  After 5 minutes turn the sausages over and cook/brown the other side for another 5 minutes.

Whilst the sausages are cooking, beat the flour, egg, milk, salt and pepper into a smooth batter.

When the second 5 minutes is up, pour the batter over the sausages and cook for a further 8-10 minutes until the batter has puffed up and is a dark golden brown.

In an attempt to make it healthy I served it with a homemade red cabbage coleslaw, but nobody had room for it.

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Frankfurter Rice

Frankfurter rice is old student favourite, taught to me by the mother of my first boyfriend who left us lovingly handwritten recipes fearing we were going to starve when left to housesit for a week.

It is  it is a dish I probably haven't cooked in 15 years, as my tastes and income moved on. However, on Sunday Daddy appeared back from Mini Rugby with a warm aluminium foil bundle containing over 20 long hotdogs leftover from the post match feeding frenzy. And, in a true waste not want not approach of my parents generation, I duly divided them up into meal sized quantities and froze them, leaving an odd number  to try frankfurter rice on the kids.

Serves a greedy 4

1 pack or tin of hot dogs (about 5)
1.5 mugs basmati rice
1 mug frozen sweetcorn
1 large onion
1 clove of garlic
1 tablespoon sunflower oil
2 tsp ground cumin
1 chicken stock cube

Peel and finely chop the onion and garlic.  Gently fry in the oil in a large saucepan whilst you slice the frankfurters into small rounds and add this to the onion and garlic when it starts to brown.  Stir in the cumin and leave to fry for a minute also before adding the sweetcorn, rice, crumbled stock cube, and 1 3/4 mugs of boiling water (1.5 times the volume of rice).

Bring to the boil and simmer with the lid on for 10 minutes, then turn the heat off and simmer with out lifting the lid for another 10 minutes. This 'traditionally' is served in our house with chilli sauce.

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Jamie Oliver's Toad in the Hole

The kids announced they liked the Toad in the Hole served up at school last week so I resolved to make it for them.

The only one other time I made it (Delia's Toad in the Hole) it wasn't exactly a success, but 3 years on maybe things have changed.

It did, on the whole, go down better than the first time.  But due to the 'pudding' rising so spectacularly, I had to open the oven earlier than advised in the recipe to lower the oven dish to stop it burning on the top oven element.  I don't know whether this was the reason the pudding stuck to the bottom  of my terracotta baking dish.  Not enough oil certainly wasn't an issue.  So one child didn't eat the burnt bits, and all three found the gravy too vinegary.

Jamie Oliver's Toad in the Hole

Ingredients
sunflower oil
8 large quality higher-welfare sausages
4 sprigs of fresh rosemary
2 large red onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 knobs of unsalted butter
6 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 level tablespoon vegetable stock powder or 1 organic vegetable stock cube

Batter
285 ml milk
115 g plain flour
3 large free-range eggs

Method

1. Mix the batter ingredients together with a pinch of sea salt, and put to one side. I like the batter to go huge so the key thing is to have an appropriately-sized baking tin – the thinner the better – as we need to get the oil smoking hot.
2. Put 1cm of sunflower oil into a baking tin, then place on the middle shelf of your oven at its highest setting (240–250ºC/475ºF/gas 9). Place a larger tray underneath it to catch any oil that overflows from the tin while cooking. 
3. When the oil is very hot, add the sausages – keep an eye on them and allow them to colour until lightly golden.
4. At this point, take the tin out of the oven, being very careful, and pour the batter over the sausages. Throw a couple of sprigs of rosemary into the batter.
5. It will bubble and possibly even spit a little, so carefully put the tin back in the oven, and close the door. Don't open it for at least 20 minutes, as Yorkshire puddings can be a bit temperamental when rising. Remove from the oven when golden and crisp.
6. For the onion gravy, peel and finely slice the onions and garlic, then simply fry off in the butter on a medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until they go sweet and translucent. You could add a little thyme or rosemary here, if you like. Add the balsamic vinegar and allow it to cook down by half.
7. At this point, I do cheat a little and add a stock cube or powder. You can get some good ones in the supermarkets now that aren't full of rubbish. Sprinkle this in and add a little water. Allow to simmer and you'll have a really tasty onion gravy.
8. Serve at the table with the Toad in the Hole, mashed potatoes, greens and baked beans or maybe a green salad if you're feeling a little guilty!

A Mum's Notes
1. There are very few timings in Jamie's method.  Browning sausages in a hot oven took considerably longer than I would have imagined.  But the quoted "50 minutes cooking time" is probably about right for a total cooking time.
2. My batter stuck.  Why? I used a terracotta baking dish and wonder if metal might have been better.
3. I would use considerably less vinegar than stated in the recipe.  Maybe just 1 tbsp, or use red wine instead.  There is also no measurement of water to add.  I wanted quite a lot of gravy for a family of 5 and know that you usually add 500ml water to a stock cube.  So I added 300ml of just boiled water.  I also wanted a slightly thick gravy so I added 2 level tbsp of plain flour to the cooked down onions just before adding the boiling water.

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My Leftover Turkey Compilation

Picture may date from 2013 but I thought it worthwhile to trawl through my recipes and update a compilation of leftover turkey recipes as I need it every year!

In no particular order:-

• Turkey stock - same principle as chicken stock, you just might need a bigger pan!
• Turkey Minestrone
• Mulligatawny (Curried Vegetable & Meat Soup)
• Jamie Oliver's Sweet Leek & Turkey Pie - a warming winner every year
• Turkey, Mushroom & Sweetcorn Pie or Casserole - swap chicken for turkey 
• Turkey & Chipolata Cassoulet - substitute chicken for turkey
• Red or Green Thai Turkey Curry
• Turkey Chilli con Carne
• Wokless Turkey & Noodles - I would substitute 2 handfuls of chopped cooked turkey for the chicken in this recipe
• Christmas Turkey Noodle Soup
• Turkey Congee (Rice Soup/Porridge) - I made this with duck stock last year but turkey would work just as well
• Spicy Korean Turkey Rice Salad - a fitting end to turkey and cranberry sauce
• Veg Rich Toddler & Kids Curry - use Patak's curry paste with leftover turkey, carrots, sprouts etc 
• Turkey Vindaloo
• Turkey Korma - use cooked turkey instead of diced chicken
• Turkey Katsu Curry -  make the sauce for this curry by simmering the sauce ingredients for 2 minutes.  Add chopped turkey to heat through and then the cornflour to thicken. 
• Leftover Roast Chicken (or Turkey) with Chorizo & Butter Beans

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Bolognese/Ragu Sauce made with Leftovers

The leftover Pork & Stilton, Venison & Damson, and Cumberland sausages from the last BBQ of the year found their way into this ragu, which in turn was made into a midweek lasagne.  The meat part  of this sauce could equally be made with leftover roast beef or roast pork.

A food processor makes light work of all the vegetable & meat chopping.

1 onion
1 large carrot
1 stick of celery
1 clove of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
2 large handfuls of leftover meat
1 tin chopped tomatoes

Peel the onion and carrot.  Roughly chop onion and garlic and process into a fine rubble in the food processor.  Fry gently in a wide saucepan to soften whilst you roughly chop and process the celery and carrot to a fine rubble too.  Add these to the pan once chopped.  Cover and sweat over a gently heat for 5 minutes or so whilst you roughly chop the meat and process this to a rubble.

Once the onions start to look translucent, push the vegetables to once side, turn up the heat a little and add the meat.  Leave it to sizzle for a few minutes before adding the tomatoes (liquidised if you like, as my kids prefer) together with a can of recently boiled water.

Bring to the boil and simmer with the lid of for 20-30 minutes and the sauce has reduced and thickened to your taste.  If using leftover roast you may wish to add pepper and salt to taste.  Using processed meat, I found there was no need to add any further seasoning.

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Sausages & Easy Onion Gravy

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The kids are big fans of sausages, and after discovering that cooking sausages this way both gives them the gravy they like, and makes the sausages incredibly soft for fickle tastes, this is the way that we always cook them now at home.

As Big Boy professes not to like cooked onion (but loves it raw!) I decant the gravy into a blender cup just before serving and liquidise it so he is none the wise about the onion.  I have to say this works better when using cider or white wine as the gravy base as when I liquidised the red wine in the above sauce it looked an odd pale pinky purple which threw the kids a little.

Serves 2 adults of 3 kids
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 small knob of butter
1 tsp cooking oil
6 sausages (I cooked venison sausages above, but usually use Lincolnshire or Cumberland or other herby ones.
1 glass of white wine, red wine, cider, or beer

You really need a frying pan with a lid to cook this, which I think is called a saute pan. If not try to use a frying you can cover with a large plate, or just watch it carefully when simmering to ensure the pan doesn't dry out.

Fry the sliced onions in the hot butter and oil until they begin to brown.  Push the onions to the sides and brown the sausages lightly (otherwise they look anemic when served).  Add the garlic and wine.  Cover and simmer gently for 20 minutes.  Serve with buttery mashed potato and greens, if your kids are amenable. 

Slow Cooker Cassoulet (Duck, Sausage & Bean Casserole)

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An unofficial New Year's Resolution is to use our slow cooker at least once a week.  The weather seems to lend itself to stews right now, plus in this new term I now need to have tea ready by 4.30pm on Monday and Tuesday.

As a practise run I made a slow cooker Cassoulet yesterday.  Cassoulet is a casserole from the Languedoc region of France typically containing a combination of sausages or pork, goose, duck or mutton and haricot beans.  The duck is usually 'confit' which is salt cured and cooked in it's own fat.  But Evans the Butcher's in Alresford doesn't stretch to that, and I'm not sure I would want such a rich ingredient so soon after Christmas, so I just used a pack of two duck legs.

This stew turned out a lot bigger than anticipated, and I estimate it costs little more than £1 a serving.

Serves 8
2 duck legs
6 pork sausages, herby if possible
100g smoky bacon or lardons
1 onion, finely diced
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 glass white wine
400ml passata (or liquidised can of tomatoes)
1 chicken stock cube
2 tbsp plain flour
250g haricot, cannelini, or pinto beans (soaked overnight)
1 tbsp olive oil
Large bay leaf
Sprig of rosemary

Soak the beans overnight or for 8 hours.  Cassoulet is traditionally made with white beans but I haven't been able to find any for months now in supermarkets so I used pinto beans.  After soaking, drain and bring to the boil in fresh water.  Boil rapidly for 10 minutes without the lid on, then simmer for 30 minutes with a lid on.  Drain, reserving the cooking liquid.

Whilst the beans are cooking, heat the oil in a frying pan and brown the duck legs.  When browned place in the warming slow cooker, then lightly brown the sausages, place them in the slow cooker, and finally brown the chopped bacon, onions and garlic and scrape this all into the slow cooker.

Place the frying pan back on the heat and de-glaze with the wine, scraping off all the meaty bits once it starts boiling.  Crush the stock cube and dissolve this in the hot wine.  Mix the flour thoroughly into the passata and then add to the frying pan together with 2 cans of the cooking water from the beans.  Stir the heating tomato mixture and the flour will start to thicken the sauce.  Once the sauce starts to bubble, pour over the meat in the slow cooker, add the beans and give a good stir to mix everything in and get all the meat under the sauce.  Poke the bay and rosemary into the sauce.

Cook for 7 hours on high, checking every now and then that it is not sticking to the bottom, or overnight/throughout the day on Auto.  If concerned it will stick to the slow cooker dish you could always leave out the flour with the passata and instead stir in a tablespoon of cornflour mixed with a little cold water to a double cream consistency 45-30 minutes before the end of cooking time with the slow cooker turned up to high.  Have to say though that the cornflour is as yet untested in this household.

Flake the duck flesh off the bone and chop the sausages up to ensure everyone gets a bit of everything.  Serve with mash, baked potatoes, garlic bread, whatever! Plus green vegetables or salad.

Homemade Sausage Rolls

 

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Been meaning to try making sausage rolls at home for a long time.  There really is nothing to it.  And if you have the time, you could always mix up a few extra flavourings into fresh sausage meat.

6 pack good quality sausages (I used pork, watercress & stilton from the local butcher)

1 pack ready rolled puff pastry

1 egg.

Pre-heat oven to 200C.  

Unroll the pastry and cut in half to make two long halves with.  Lay your half pieces of pastry with the length of the pastry laying left to right.  

Beat the egg and brush half a long side of pastry with beaten egg from the mid line to the edge nearest you.  

Cut off the sausage skins with a sharp knife or scissors and lay three sausages end to end down the middle of the pastry.  

Fold the top part of the pastry over the sausage bringing the long edges together,  Gently press down the long edges first with your finger and then with a fork.  Brush the beaten egg over the top, cut into three, roughly at the end of each sausage inside, and then slash each roll a few times to help the pastry open up.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and the sausage is cooked through.

Sausagemeat version

When googling the oven temperature and timings for homemade sausage rolls I came across a website called Jamie's Home Cooking Skills  Intended for teaching cooking in schools, it does have some great ideas for things for kids to cook at home, and this homemade sausage roll recipe in particular.

Slow Cooked Pork & Beans (Boston Baked Beans)

I had tried Boston Baked Beans once before but when I heard Tim Hayward talking about his favourite DIY Food (the book is on my Christmas wishlist) I felt the urge to try it again.  The lovely ham bone and fat left over from a ham hock a few days before was too good to waste.

I did have to tweet Tim, who very kindly tweeted back a series of tweets with his guide to cooking baked beans, just in case there was a killer recipe out there.  But I ended up basing my recipe on an old WI book, The Home and Country Cookbook, because my poor planning had led me to tweet only 5 minutes before I needed to cook.

The recipe and the guide were pretty much a long the same lines, apart from the suggestion of passata which probably hadn't reached England's shores when the WI recipe was written.  For the complete baked bean look and flavour I would definitely add this or pureed tinned tomatoes next time.  Although, despite it's very wholefood look, my young children did me proud by announcing 'I love this' before they'd even started.

Serves 4

350g haricot or cannellini beans, soaked overnight and boiled for 30 minutes - keep the cooking liquid!
500g tomato passata or liquidise a tin of tomatoes
2 tbsp black treacle
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp English Mustard
1 tsp salt
1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 tbsp wine vinegar
1 tsp brown sugar
2 onions, finely chopped
6 whole cloves
5 slices of belly pork, or pork chops, leftover ham, sausages.  Chop into mouth sized cubes.

If using a slow cooker, put all the ingredients into a saucepan and heat to simmering.  I skipped this step and the food in the slow cooker took about an hour to start to cook!  Pour the hot ingredients into the warmed slow cooker on medium/high and top up with enough liquid from cooking the beans to make sure everything is covered by about 1cm of 'sauce'.  Cook on medium high (I cooked mine on High as my slow cooker only has low or high settings) for 6 hours or when the meat has melted into the sauce.

If you don't have slow cooker, pre-heat the oven to 150C, heat all the ingredients up in a heavy ovenproof casserole dish topped up with bean cooking water as above.  Cover tightly with a lid and cook slowly in the oven for 6 hours.

Remove the cloves if you can find them.  Serve with crusty bread, potatoes, mash, pasta whatever.

Sausages Cooked in Cider

We are having a sausagey day.  Sausage rolls and Scotch Eggs for lunch, and sausages for tea.  Not the best planning but it goes down well with the kids.

Usually when I cook sausages for the kids I just brown them lightly, splosh in a little water and clamp a well fitting lid on the pan and let the sausages simmer for about 20 minutes.  This makes for soft braised sausages that even 4 year olds with unwieldy knife skills can cut.

But today, with lovely plump pork & black pudding sausages from our local butcher, my glance fell upon a half full bottle of cider.  Used for a chicken dish a few weeks ago, it has sat going flat in the corner of the counter waiting for a use.  Dad was convinced it wasn't 'alright' but I'm not sure how 'unright' a opened and neglected bottle of alcohol can be (unless something has crawled/flown into it and died a happy inebriated death), other than flat which is no great loss in cooking.  A crafty swig whilst the kids played on the Wii in the other room proved I was right, and I poured about 125ml into the bottom of the pan before clamping on the lid.

The kids are unaware of the alcoholic content of the 'gravy' that the pasta is swimming in, and I can only hope they sleep the better for it.  Particularly as my 7 and 4 year olds have announced they want to sleep head to toe in the same single bed tonight having slept in two single beds pushed together for the last 7 nights on holiday.

Dad & I will eat the same tonight, minus the pasta, possibly with some onion and sage quickly fried with the sausages before adding the cider to make a cider onion gravy.

Delia's Toad in the Hole with Onion Gravy

I noticed this recipe for Toad in the Hole on Delia's website when looking up steamed pudding recipes - more about that another time!

I had already announced to the kids before school that it was going to sausages for tea, and we had agreed on gravy rather than tomato sauce, so Toad in the Hole didn't seem too far off what we'd agreed.

Sadly the kids didn't greet it as well as they could have done.  Sprout did eat all her two sausage helping, including the 'pastry', but pushed the onions aside.  Big Boy was completely taken aback  and declared without trying it that he didn't like it.  When I told him pasta had egg in he looked shocked and completely stopped eating in favour of asking how pasta was made.  And then lay on the table complaining of earache.  Princess struggled with the meltingly soft pastry.  I finished off 1 1/2 small helpings despite it being my fast day to warm and cheer me up.

Toad in the Hole with Onion Gravy
I made a few tweaks to Delia's recipe, most notably not roasting the onions to save on washing up, adding a splash of wine to the gravy as I found the taste a bit thin, and I would add finely chopped onion next time to meet the kids approval.  I also added thyme to the batter

Serves 4-6

12 good quality sausages (I used free range pork, sage & onion)
1 tbsp sunflower oil

Batter
150g plain flour
2 large eggs
250ml semi skimmed milk
Salt & pepper
A few sprigs of thyme (optional)

Onion Gravy
1 large onion, peeled & sliced
1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tsp sugar
1 dessertspoon Worcestershire Sauce
1 tsp English Mustard
1 organic beef stock cube
250ml cold water
250ml white or red wine
1 rounded dessertspoon plain flour
Pepper & Salt

Pre-heat the oven to 220C

Start by making the batter.  I make this in a food processor to give it a really good mix.  Mix all the batter ingredients, together with a good pinch of pepper and salt until you have a smooth batter.  Leave to one side until ready.

Next gently fry the sliced or finely chopped onions in the oil in a frying pan with the sugar.  Check from time to time that they are not burning and turn off the heat if they are.

Put 1 tbsp sunflower oil in a high sided roasting dish together with the sausages and pop in the oven for 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes pour the batter carefully pour over the batter and put the sausages back in the oven for 30 minutes.

Turn the heat back on under the onions if you have turned it off and stir in the flour, Worcestershire Sauce, and mustard. Add the water, wine, and crumbled stock cube and bring to the boil, stirring regularly the ensure a lump free gravy.  Simmer for 5 minutes and check the seasoning.

The 'Toad' is done when it is lightly browned and the centre is not too soft.  Check with a knife if unsure that the batter is not runny!

Delia suggests serving it with mash, but I didn't think so much batter needed anymore carbohydrate!

I have subsequently attempted Jamie Oliver's Toad in the Hole with a little more success.

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Sausage & Beans or Cheat's Cassoulet

Cheat's Casserole with Butter Beans & Chicken Legs

A discovery of frozen pre-cooked beans and frozen sausages, and otherwise a lack of inspiration have led me to make a kind of cassoulet which shall be called sausages & beans in front of the kids.  As expected, they loved it.

Serves 4 (adults)
6 sausages
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Tin of haricot or cannelloni beans (as they look most like baked beans)
A sprig of fresh rosemary or sage
A glass of red wine

In a large pan with a lid over a medium heat, fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil until it starts to brown.  Snip the sausages into bite sized pieces over the pan and fry for a couple of minutes together with the herbs.  Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to the boil, adding a enough water to ensure everything is covered if necessary.  Simmer for 20 minutes.  Check the seasoning.

I serve this with mash or pasta.

The variations on this are almost endless;
1) You can add chicken drumsticks or thighs to this (fry them first then poke under the tomato sauce and simmer for about 20 minutes to ensure they are cooked through,
2) Duck legs or breasts instead of chicken,
3) Substitute the sausages for about 4-5 inches of chorizo and add another tin of beans or some chicken thighs,
4)  400g pork belly instead of sausages
5) You can stretch the meat even further by adding diced carrot and celery just after frying the onion and garlic
6) Use leftover roast chicken and/or sausages.