I don’t know where this recipe is from so I’m not sure who to credit for it. It’s one my mum (and in turn her mum) gave to me from an old-looking magazine cutting, and I don’t know anything more than “it’s yummy!” and it’s such a simple dish to do!
Ingredients (serves 4)
4 tablespoons double cream
4-6 chicken pieces
225g frozen broccoli, thawed
298g can condensed cream of chicken soup
4 rounded tablespoons real mayonnaise
Half level teaspoon curry powder
50g English cheddar, grated
Instructions
1. Preheat a moderately hot oven (Gas 5, 375 deg. F, 190 deg. C)
2. Arrange the chicken and broccoli in a shallow baking dish.
3. Combine the undiluted chicken soup with the mayonnaise, cream and curry powder. Spoon this over the chicken and broccoli then sprinkle with the grated cheese.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the cheese is turning golden brown.
PHP is my favourite programming language of all time. It’s simple when you need it to be, and advanced when you need that extra power. I’m what many people would call an evangelist of PHP. Since starting work at Netbasic, I’ve really gone all out in using object-orientated programming (OOP) with PHP, and nearly everything I do is object-orientated now.
Let’s step back a moment to the title of this article, “PHP Basics”. Isn’t that an indication that this is a guide for beginners? You’d be right in thinking that, and I’m going to go from nearly the beginning. For the purposes of the tutorial, I will assume you know how to set up your own LAMP or WAMP server (and if you don’t there are countless great tutorials on that), and that you know how the internet works and some basic HTML/CSS. I will also assume that you have little-to-no experience of object orientated programming (although understanding OOP in C++ or Java for example would be a bonus!), little-to-no experience of general programming, and no experience of PHP.
The next question you’re probably asking is why am I writing a “PHP introduction” tutorial when there are countless already out there? The answer to that is that I’m trying a different approach that I’ve not seen before. I’m going to start at the object orientated level so that procedural PHP scripting doesn’t even factor into the equation. I’ve done quite a long preamble now with not much in the way of teaching PHP, so we’re going to start now.
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It annoys me when I see tutorials for learning PHP with code like this:
$fd = @file("doesnotexist");and this:
$md = mysql_connect("localhost", "user", "pass") or die("Could not connect!");It’s bad practice in the real programming world and shouldn’t happen. The at symbol (@) is used to silence any errors caused by calling a function as shown above, when proper error handling should be implemented. Similarly, the practice of using “or die” to error check needs to stop being taught.
Using this language in PHP really needs to stop because there are much better ways to handle errors, such as using exceptions, or any sort of error handling except this really. My personal favourite is using an exception and catching it further down the stack. There’s loads of tutorials on error handling so I won’t go into it, but I just wanted to vent my hatred for this poor excuse for shoddy coding.
And while I’m at it, stop using mysql_* functions and start using PDO! 
Yeah OK so this isn’t an original recipe, it’s shamelessly lifted from my Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food
book that my sister gave me a couple of years ago. I love this recipe and make it at least once a month though, and you can vary it by swapping out the korma paste with any sort of paste – tandoori, tikka massala etc.
Ingredients
- Half a Cucumber
- Lemon juice
- Red chilli
- Yoghurt
- Coriander
- 2x Naan bread
- 2x Salmon fillets
- Salt & Pepper
- Korma paste (e.g. Patak’s)
- Olive oil
Instructions
Chop the cucumber into small chunks and put in a pyrex bowl, saving a few pieces for garnish. De-seed and finely chop the red chilli and coriander (save a little of each as well) and add to bowl. Add a couple of splashes of lemon juice and the yoghurt. Season with salt & pepper, mix up well and leave on side.
Warm your naan bread in the oven. Slice the salmon into chunks about half an inch thick. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and add the salmon chunks, followed by 2 tablespoons of korma paste (more or less to taste). Mix up well as it cooks.
As soon as the salmon is cooked, place your naan bread on your serving plate, and spread out the cucumber/yoghurt mix around the large end of the naan. Add half the salmon on top, serve with the remaining cucumber, chilli and coriander on top. Yum.
Ratatouille is a great dish and full of vegetables which makes it cheap to do. I do Ratatouille slightly differently to many though as I exclude the common ingredients aubergine and bell peppers. My take on Ratatouille still keeps the tomato base in though, and I think it’s still just as yummy. Truth be told I vary the veg I put in each time, but I’ll write the recipe for the latest dish I made.
Ingredients (serves 4)
- 3/4 garlic cloves, crushed
- 3 small courgettes, chopped
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, sliced into batons
- Tin of chopped tomatoes
- 12-16 on-the-vine cherry tomatoes
- 5/6 broccoli florets
- 8 baby corns
- Your choice of herbs, e.g. Basil+Marjoram, Bay Leaf+Thyme or Provençal herbs mix
- Optional – Lea & Perrins
- Optional – 300g long grain rice
Instructions
Prepare all the vegetables. In a large saucepan, heat some olive oil and add garlic and onions. After a couple of minutes, add in the rest of the vegetables except the broccoli. Add the tin of tomatoes on top and add the herbs you have chosen. Optionally add some Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce. Give everything a good stir. After a couple of minutes add all the cherry tomatoes and broccoli and give a quick stir and cover.
If you want rice, in another saucepan immediately after adding the broccoli and cherry tomatoes, boil some water for the rice. After 5 minutes, add the rice and cook everything for a further 15 minutes. If you are not doing rice, just cook the ratatouille for 20 minutes with the lid on. Everything should be ready all at once – which is something I never get quite right, but thankfully this is such a simple dish so it makes it possible!
