Cheesy chicken and yoghurt pasta bake

If you're serious about keeping your food spend down, it's important to develop the skill of looking in the fridge to see what there is before going shopping.  Britain throws away a staggering amount of food - about a third of what we buy - so it's really important to use everything up and not chuck any ends of anything away.

There's plain yoghurt, lots of cheese, mushrooms, we've got a load of chicken breasts in the freezer at the moment because the butcher's doing a special offer on them...  pasta bake it is!  There's always pasta in the cupboard, so all I needed to buy for this was a leek.

Dead simple, this one - all you do is boil the pasta, give the meat and veg a bit of time in a frying pan to bring out the flavours, then bake the whole lot in a mixture of yoghurt and grated cheese.

Start with a chopped leek and some mushrooms, just sweating over a low heat until soft.  Do you like garlic?  Chuck a finely chopped and crushed garlic clove in too then.

You'll want to get your pasta on the go at this point - I used 75g penne (because that's what was left in the packet), which takes 10 minutes to cook - around the same time as the leek and chicken need.

Once the veg is softened, transfer to an oven-proof dish, turn the heat up under the pan and fry the chicken on both sides.  It doesn't need to be cooked through as it's going in the oven later.  This has got nothing to do with sealing anything in, it's just that the frying creates tasty flavours on the surface of the meat.  You could skip this step, but it's much nicer this way.

Put the chicken in the oven-proof dish, and the cooked pasta, and add any herbs you fancy at this point - I just stuck to salt, pepper and tarragon.  I like tarragon with chicken.

Mix it all up so that you get a homogenous mix, not layers.

Add plain yoghurt (however much is left in the pot) and a handful of grated cheese (again, I haven't weighed it - just what was left).

Mix it all up again and chuck it in the oven.  180C for 20 minutes should just about do the trick.

This seems like the appropriate moment to mention that the oven in the new place only works on its "fan" setting.  I've always been a bit distrustful of fan ovens, but I've had nothing but good results so far.  Keep a close eye on proceedings though, they do work quicker so the chances of a little burniness around the edges is that much higher.

This is one of those wonderfully adaptable ones.  You don't like leek?  Use an onion instead, or shallots.  Mushrooms?  Leave 'em out.  Got a lonely slice of ham left in the bottom of the packet?  Cut that up and throw it in, chicken and ham go really well together.  Don't like tarragon?  No problem.  Use whatever you think goes well with chicken.  Low carb diet?  Leave the pasta out and double the meat and veg.