Tarragon chicken

I have quite a bit of tarragon growing in the garden. Not planted by me, just leftovers from the previous owners. Last year I didn't use the tarragon at all and this year I decided I have to try and use it for something. To be quite honest, I wasn't quite sure what the heck tarragon was. I had to look what it translates to in Finnish (it's rakuuna by the way) as I thought that might help me figure it out. It didn't as I realised I've never used it for anything. So I had to google what I could do with it, and one of the recipes that came up was tarragon chicken. We are very fond of chicken in this house, which you probably are in no doubt of if you have been following my blog. So feeling adventurous I decided to give tarragon chicken a try.

According to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge and wisdom, tarragon is an important part of French cuisine and it's particularly suitable for chicken, fish and egg dishes. It's part of Béarnaise sauce. Apparently it's also a part of a popular green soft drink in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.

I used this recipe by Nigella Lawson. It sounded straight forward and easy and didn't include any weird ingredients (although I have to admit I didn't have any vermouth in the house so I thought this is a good excuse to acquire some). I made some small changes to the recipe as I didn't have any freeze dried tarragon and I doubled the recipe as I had four chicken breasts to cook.

Tarragon chicken (serves 4):
2 tbsp olive oil
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
4 scallions
1 tsp finely chopped fresh tarragon
4 chicken breasts
2/3 cups of vermouth (and maybe then some...)
1 cup (250 ml) double cream
salt and black pepper to taste
3 tsp chopped fresh tarragon

The howto:
Heat the olive oil to medium heat in a large frying pan that has a lid. Add the garlic, scallions and tarragon. Cook for a minute while stirring. Add the chicken breasts curved side down and cook for 5 minutes. Scrape the scallions and remove from the pan if they start to burn. Turn the chicken breasts over and add the vermouth. Reduce heat and let simmer gently for 10 minutes with the lid on. Check that the chicken is cooked by cutting through in the thickest part of the fillet. If not, let simmer for a few more minutes. Remove chicken breasts from the pan, and add the cream. Bring to a boil, making sure to scrape any bits and pieces which may have gotten stuck to the pan. Add the tarragon and add salt and pepper to taste. Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve with potatoes and veg.

The verdict:
I have to admit, I can't say I'm a huge fan of tarragon after trying this recipe. I'm not saying it's bad, it just had nothing on, for example, this amazing sun dried tomato chicken recipe I tried a while ago. But the Culinary Consultant liked it and said he wouldn't mind having it again. So maybe there is use for our tarragon after all.

Chicken in sun dried tomato sauce

You know how Pinterest is full of chicken recipes? When you browse your feed, all you get is chicken recipes. Or is it just me? But why is it that when you go looking for chicken recipes you can't find a single one of them? It's like shopping. If you go for a browse, you find the most amazing things. But just try to go out there looking for a pair of black trousers and you are guaranteed to find nothing. I actually had to look up "chicken recipes" on the find function in Pinterest to find something worth making. And boy am I glad I did. I stumbled upon this recipe from Spicy Southern Kitchen, and it is amazing. Without trying to brag, I'm usually a decent cook and most of what I cook goes down without a problem. But this was just out of this world good!! I was actually going to post another recipe today, but that one got re-scheduled because I just had to share this. That is how good it is!

This recipe is dedicated to by Bestie. I think she would love this. She is a pastaholic. And she really doesn't like onions. I usually never cook anything without onions, so I really notice if they aren't there. It's like a cooking ritual, starting by chopping up that onion and sauteeing it. But this time it was garlic and the wonderful flavour of sun-dried tomatoes that were the stars of this show. As usual, the picture doesn't do the food justice.

Chicken in sun-dried tomato sauce (serves 4):
1 tbsp butter
1 clove of garlic
1 tbsp flour
3/4 cups chicken stock
4-5 chopped sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 cup double cream
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 to 1/2 tsp crushed red peppers
black pepper
2-3 tbsp of oil from the sun-dried tomatoes
4 chicken breasts
cooked pasta
1 cup peas or sweetcorn

The howto:
Finely chop the garlic clove. Melt the butter in a frying pan, cook the garlic until it starts to soften. Add the flour and mix, cook for a minute or so. Add 1/2 cup of the broth, a little bit at a time and mixing thoroughly to avoid any lumps. Add the finely chopped tomatoes, double cream, thyme and peppers and cook for a few minutes. Set aside in a bowl or small saucepan. Clean the pan, add the sun-dried tomato oil and cook the chicken breasts until cooked through (but make sure not to over-cook to avoid them becoming rubbery). Remove the chicken from the pan, add the remaining 1/4 cup of chicken stock, and scrape all the browned goodies from the pan to dissolve in the stock. Add the sauce and mix. Return the chicken to the pan, mix everything and cook until everything is heated thoroughly. Serve with pasta and peas or sweetcorn.

The verdict:
This is without a doubt one of the best chicken recipes ever! I just wanted to eat the sauce with a spoon straight from the pan. Double cream tends to do that... But it's worth every single calorie, I promise you. By a fluke I managed to cook the chicken to perfection, it was cooked through but very moist and juicy. And did I mention the sauce? Garlic, sun-dried tomatoes and just a pinch of heat from the red peppers. Trust me, you have to try this! The sooner the better. I may just make another batch this weekend again. Unless Pinterest pops up with another chicken recipe I want to try. But I find it hard to believe anything can be better than this!

Chicken and leek pie

I seem to be completely out of sync with my blogging schedule. I realise I didn't publish a single food blog post over the weekend! But it all got a bit crazy with a surprise visitor. Well, he wasn't so much of a surprise to the Culinary Consultant, just to me. Can you say communication breakdown? So it all ended with me running around like crazy trying to clean the whole house (which usually takes at least three hours) in less than an hour and a half. To his defence, the Culinary Consultant did chip in when I started to run up and down the stairs with a mop in my hand a completely panicked face. 

Any left over time I had in the weekend was spent crafting. I had a few cards I wanted to finish. Funnily enough, I seem to manage at least from time to time to photograph my cards in daylight, whereas I never manage that feat with my food. I always seem to eat when it's dark. But spring is coming, along with the slim chance that I manage to photograph some food in actual daylight! 

Today's recipe is just a simple an humble chicken and leek pie. I love pies. And I love to get the corner pieces with loads of pastry. Who wouldn't love flaky pastry? And the creamy hot filling oozing out when you cut the pie. I get hungry just looking at the picture!

Chicken and leek pie (serves 4-5):
3 tbsp olive oil
600 g mushrooms
1 leek
500 g chicken (I used thigh fillets as that was what I had in the freezer)
300 ml (1 1/4 cup) single cream
1 egg
150 g cheddar, grated
1-2 tsp mild curry powder
1-2 tsp tandoori curry powder
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp ground pepper
a pinch of salt 
1/2 tsp pilau rice seasoning

1 pack of puff pastry, egg for brushing

The howto:
Start by preparing the mushrooms, leek and chicken. Peel the mushrooms (if you wish, I always peel mushrooms, although the Culinary Consultant thinks I'm crazy) and thinly slice them. Cut the leek in half and wash thoroughly before chopping. Dice the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan, and fry the mushrooms in two batches and set aside in a large bowl. Add another tablespoon of oil to the pan, and cook the leak briefly, I like it to still be green and a bit crunchy instead of limp and pale. Add to the bowl with the mushrooms. Add the last tablespoon of oil into the pan and cook the chicken until cooked through. While the chicken is cooking, preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Add the chicken in with the mushrooms and leeks. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix. Line a pie tin with puff pastry, and add the filling. Add the pastry lid on top, and seal the puff pastry with a fork or by pinching the pastry base and top. Brush with egg and bake for 45 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. 

The verdict:
I like the slight twist in seasoning to this otherwise very traditional pie. There is just something very comforting with a good pie. I also love how the leek brightens everything up with that bright green colour and gives you an excuse to pretend there is actually something healthy in there as well. Oh, who am I kidding. But like I said, the point of making a pie in a square instead of a round tin is that you have the corner pieces which have more pastry than you would get in a round tin. 

Pot roasted chicken with apples and cider

Sometimes I get myself into the most ridiculous situations. A few nights ago, the road I usually drive to get home was closed. I still don't know the roads around here very well, and there aren't too many route options to take to get home as we live pretty much in the middle of no-where. So I had carefully looked at the maps and planned my alternative route home. It was past 9pm in the evening, I was exhausted after two classes at the gym. And when I get to the roundabout where the road was closed, and I was going to take my alternative route, that too was blocked. No pre-warning whatsoever. There was only one way I could go at the roundabout which was completely the wrong direction. To make a long story short, about 40 minutes later I made a damsel in distress call to the Culinary Consultant who came and rescued me. We drove back home on some teeny tiny things which were supposed to resemble roads. I was so happy when I finally made it home about an hour and a half after first heading off home from the gym. Goes to show it might be good to have a bit more local knowledge. As a thank you for dragging my poor man off the sofa late on a Friday night, I wanted to cook something extra nice for him.

We eat a lot of chicken at the InvisiblePinkHouse. I dread to think how many chickens have given up their lives for our dinners. The Culinary Consultant really likes his chicken. I don't mind it. I always used to cook only chicken breasts, but then we started experimenting with roasting whole chickens. After doing it a few times, it became routine, and it's a really quick and easy way to prepare a nice Sunday roast dinner and at the same time have plenty of leftovers for the following week. I like to use the chicken for my packed lunch salads. And there are endless options for using up the leftovers. Chicken soup, pie, enchiladas, fajitas, sandwiches... When I saw this recipe for pot roasted chicken in cider on one of my favourite food blogs, The English Kitchen, I knew I wanted to try it. The fact that we still have plenty of apples from our own apple tree stored in our conservatory made it even more appealing. 

I have made some minor adjustments to the original recipe, but please hop over to the English Kitchen to check out the original blog post. Also, the pictures are much better than mine which once again were taken in the dark and turned out really bad. But trust me, no matter how it looks, it tastes amazing and is well worth the prep time!

Pot roasted chicken with apples and cider:

1 tbsp oil

1 medium sized roasting chicken (mine was just over 2 kg)

200 g bacon lardons (original recipe said 175 g but the pack I bought was 200 g so used all of it)

1 large brown onion, peeled and coarsely chopped

8 small cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

2 fresh sprigs of rosemary, leaves stripped and roughly chopped

250ml apple cider

150ml chicken stock (5 fluid ounces)

4 small apples

25g butter

2 tsp caster sugar

freshly grated nutmeg (I only had dried nutmeg)

1/4 cup water

2 1/2 tsp corn flour

fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste  

The howto:
Preheat your oven to 190 degrees C. Start by seasoning your chicken outside and inside with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a flame proof casserole or roaster if you have one, or in my case, a big frying pan, and brown the chicken on all sides. Transfer the chicken to the side. In the same casserole or frying pan, cook the bacon lardons until starting to brown. Add the onion and cook until it starts to soften. Add the garlic and rosemary and cook for another few minutes. Add the apple cider and cook until the amount of liquid has reduced by about two thirds. The place the chicken on top of the sauce (or transfer the sauce from the pan to the casserole and the place the chicken on top), cover with aluminium foil and a tightly fitting lid. The original recipe suggested to roast for an hour. I have always trusted the formula on the wrapping for the chicken: Cook 45 minutes for each kilogram plus add 20-30 minutes. For my two kg chicken this meant roasting for two hours. 

While the chicken is cooking, prepare the apples. Peel and cut them into chunks. Cook on medium heat in a frying pan in the butter until apples start to soften a bit. Add the sugar and nutmeg and cook for a few more minutes. Let cool. When the chicken is ready, remove from oven and place on a carving tray, cover with aluminium foil and let rest for about 10 minutes. Pour the contents of the casserole into a saucepan and let cook and reduce for about 10 minutes. Mix the water and corn flour and add to the sauce, let boil for a few minutes to thicken. Taste, and season with black pepper and salt if needed. I found no salt was needed. Add the apples to the sauce. Carve the chicken and serve drenched in the apple sauce.

The verdict:
I chose to cook this recipe as the apple and cider combo sounded delicious, but also because it was a different method to how I usually cook chicken. Although this method doesn't produce nice, crispy skin which the Culinary Consultant loves, the meat was really moist and juicy. And then there is the sauce. The sauce with the bacon lardons and apple chunks is simply amazing. Beyond a doubt one of the finest and most tasty sauces I have ever managed to make in my entire life. The original recipe suggests to thicken your sauce with a butter and flour mixture which I am not very fond of, so I decided to stick with my trusty cornflour. The original recipe also suggests adding cream to the sauce, but I didn't have any at home and didn't want to buy a whole tub just to use a tablespoon or two so I left it out and it still turned out really good.

The recipe is really convenient to cook in one pot most of the way if you have a roaster or casserole which can also handle cooking on the hob. As I have an induction hob in my kitchen and no induction compatible roasters I did the preparation steps in a big frying pan, then transferred everything to the roaster, and again transferred the juices back to a saucepan when it came time to prepare the sauce. A bit more work, but not too bad. And definitely worth the yummy result.

Card of the day:
As you may or may not have noticed, my cards now have a blog of their own. So please, head on over to InvisiblePinkCards to take a look, I think the card blog will be updated a bit more frequently than the food blog, as I have quite a bit of backlog of crafting projects to publish. But don't worry, the food blog will also go on as usual. If you want to be kept up to date with new blog posts on both blogs, you can like the InvisiblePinkFacebookpage.

Hungary inspired soup/stew

Returning back from my holiday I am again in the process of trying to empty out the bachelor pad kitchen to the best of my abilities. It seems like moving day is finally approaching, as we should have all papers needed for exchange completed by now, so keeping my fingers crossed for being able to complete in July. To be honest, I'm still hoping for mid July rather than late July, but I have been told I shouldn't be holding my breath. 

Today's recipe is Hungarian inspired. We brought back about a ton of paprika powder. Apparently, the new in thing is smoked paprika. It used to be all about "where do you buy your wine?", then there was the question of "where do you buy your olive oil?" and now paprika powder is all the range. Obviously, I couldn't imagine buying my paprika anywhere else than Hungary. The culinary consultant absolutely loved the goulash (beef) soup served over there, but I have a freezer full of chicken and turkey so I made my own adaptation with white meat instead. And I pretty much just tossed in what veggies I happened to have around, although I have to admit I did buy the carrots. Everything else I had in house. Of course, the sausage, paprika and goulash spice mix have only been in house since late last night when we landed, but I say it still counts! 

Hungarian inspired slow chicken stew (serves 5-6):
500 g turkey fillet stir fry strips
3-4 carrots cut into slices
3-4 potatoes cut into cubes
2 yellow onions, roughly chopped
1/2 cup (or so) Hungarian salami cut into cubes
1 tbsp sweet paprika powder
1 tbsp Goulash spice mix (this is the mix I used, I have no idea what's in it as the ingredients are all in hungarian, although the ingredient list for another goulash spice mix seems to contain paprika, sugar, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, marjoram, caraway, garlic, thyme, pimento, cloves)
2 cups frozen veggies (I used a mix of peas, cauliflower and carrots)

The howto:
Add all ingredients except the frozen veggies in the slow cooker along with 2-4 cups of water (depending if you want more of a stew or soup). Cook on low for 5 hours or high for about an hour and then low for three hours. If you don't have a slow cooker, I'm sure cooking on a regular stove would work just fine as well. Add the frozen veggies and let cook for another half hour or so. Serve with a slice of bread.

The verdict:
This was extremely quick and easy to make and although it didn't taste exactly like the goulash soup, it was still rather tasty. I would have added some tomato puree had I had any, a few tablespoons would do nicely. I served it with thick slices of roast garlic bread I found in the Co-op. After whining for so long that there is no decent bread to be found on this island, I'm surprised I have now bought two loaves of bread from the Co-op, both really delicious. 

Card of the day:
I miss crafting so much, and suspect that once I get into my new craft room, I will spend so much time there. I have a huge load of crafting supplies that I have ordered but not got to play with yet. And I recently received the new Stampin' Up catalogue and I keep browsing through it every night in bed. 

This card is the last in my three wedding card collection. It was made for my friends who got married last weekend. They live on a boat, and the theme of the wedding was boats. In fact the bride and groom (and most of the guests) arrived to the wedding in a flotilla of canal boat. The card is very simply embossed with the Cuttlebug swirls folder on glossy silver paper. The cardstock is dark blue very heavy cardstock which I got from a friend and have no idea what make it is. I used a Hobbycraft border punch to create the border, and made a simple bow from a silver lined white ribbon. Last, I added a few silver gemstones. Inside, I made a sleeve of white paper and stamped the sentiments Congratulations and May All Your Dreams Come True in Tim Holtz Chipped Sapphire distress ink along with three small hearts.

Creamy chicken and sweet potato curry

It has been a busy few days. Well, it's been busy in general with the new job sucking all the life out of me, but this week was particularly bad. On Monday I made a round trip to Milan for a meeting, and let me tell you there is nothing glamourous about travelling for work. Getting up at 4.30 to make the train, getting to London to realise the Heathrow Express is not running and having to sit in morning rush hour traffic in a taxi, praying for it to get to the airport on time. Then after a long day of walking (in heels...) you get back right before midnight to face a 45 minute queue to the passport control. Sigh. 

Yesterday was as crazy, trying to finish everything before the holiday and ended up working halfway through the night. This morning my email box was full of messages saying they couldn't access the files I shared with them, so havd to still catch up on some things this morning. But now I'm finally officially on holiday. We went to meet with our mortgage advisor in the morning, and everything should now be set up for the exchange which is a great relief. And I'm hoping we will be able to complete in mid-late July, which is not a moment too soon. As much as I appreciate that I have saved an absolute fortune not having to pay rent while living here, having to stay in the bachelor pad for much longer would probably drive me and the Culinary Consultant insane (ok, it's debatable whether there would be any change for me there, but still, you get the point...). There was hardly enough space here for him when he was alone, and now with all my stuff, there are boxes, bags and various piles of stuff everywhere. We have narrow paths going from the kitchen to the sofa and to the bedroom, but other than that it's just stuff everywhere. It's like the houses from TV programs about hoarders, it really is that bad. We are so lucky to be moving into something bigger soon. Although I dread the amount of housework that will be needed to keep the place running. The first thing I will have to find is a reliable cleaner. But I can't wait to have access to all my clothes and kitchen stuff again.

Right now I'm blogging to try and calm down my stress levels after getting all of the work done, and focus on the trip ahead. I'm going to Hungary for the weeding of a good friend. I'm looking forward to seeing her again after a long time, and I'm also very excited about seeing Hungary. We will be staying in Budapest for a few days, and then travelling to my friend's home town in southwestern Hungary. It will be fantastic, although the weather forecast isn't the most promising. I got me a guide book for Budapest and have made a lot of notes of what I want to do and see, most of them restaurants, coffee shops and chocolatiers. Expect a blog post about Hungarian food when I get back. 

I have not made too many plans for the holiday, as I want it to be relaxing as well, instead of just trying to see everything in a few short days. I really need to let my brain switch off a little bit. My brain has been on overload because of work, and I realised last night I had even forgotten to print my boarding passes for the flight! That has never happened before, I'm really thorough with stuff like that, printing everything days ahead, all hotel reservations, maps and stuff. Now I can't even tell you the names of our hotels, I'm just hoping there will be good 3G reception everywhere we go so that I can look it up as I go along.

I will leave you with a recipe for a curry I made the other night as I had a few leftover sweet potatoes which looked like they might not make it for much longer, and some chicken in the freezer to use up. It is a very mild and creamy curry and I liked it very much. I also made some home made naan breads with it, which I will blog about some other time. This recipe is stolen from BBC good food, and slightly modified.

Creamy chicken and sweet potato curry (serves 4):
1 tbsp olive oil
2-3 tbsp mild curry paste (I used Tesco Rendang curry paste)
1 onion
2 sweet potatoes
2 chicken fillets
1/2 cup red lentils
300 ml chicken stock (I also added a few tbsp of the juices from last weekend's roasted chicken)
400 ml can coconut milk
1/3 cup soya beans (or peas)

The howto:
Chop the chicken fillets and sweet potatoes to bite sized pieces. Slice onion (or finely chop if that's how you prefer your onion. I felt like going for slices). Prepare the chicken stock. Heat the oil in a deep frying pan or wok. Add the curry paste and let cook for a minute or two. Add the chicken, sweet potatoes and lentils and coat in the curry paste and let cook for a few minutes. Add chicken stock and coconut milk and let cook until the sweet potato is soft, 20-25 minutes. (add a bit more liquid if your lentils are absorbing too much liquid, depending on how much sauce you like. I like quite a thick curry so this worked out well for me) Add soya beans and cook for another minute or two. Serve with rice and/or naan bread.

The verdict:
I'm not a friend of very spicy food. Even small amounts of chilli hurt my mouth, and often make my gums and tongue hurt quite badly, like it has been burned from really hot food. I prefer more subtle flavours, and I absolutely loved this curry. I used a mild curry paste and the coconut milk just gives the dish such a creamy texture and wonderful flavour. I should use coconut milk more often, as every time I do, I love how it turns out. And I like the addition of soya beans, not necessarily so much for the flavour, but I love the look of them. The original recipe had peas, but I wanted something a bit more healthy. But I have to admit, the peas would probably have worked really well. One big problem I have with peas over here is, that if you buy them frozen, the smallest pack you can get is about the size of a small elephant. Back home you could get small packs of frozen peas perfect for using up all in one go, but this pea crazy people are selling them by the tonne. And when you keep them in the freezer for a while, they get all dried up and lose their flavour. So I went for the soya beans as they came in a smaller pack than peas. 

Card of the day:
This is the card I made for my friend's wedding. The invitation had a brown colour scheme, and I know my friend likes yellow, so I settled on that for a colour theme. Other than that I wanted it to be quite natural and I think it turned out quite nice. The cardstock is Tim Holtz Distress collection cardstock, and the colours are Old Paper, Vintage photo and Mustard Seed. The embossing folder is Cuttlebug Birds and Swirls, and the heart stamp is from a Tim Holtz. The sentiment is from the Lawn Fawn critters ever after set (which I only just ordered and can't wait to get to play around with!!). The bow is actually from a chocolate box (don't tell anyone) that I decided to re-use. You can't quite see it on the photo, but I sprayed some Perfect Pearls mist onto the Old paper cardstock, it looks almost like there is some white powder on the card, but it's really the shimmer. I hope my friend will like the card as much as I do.

Balsamic chicken

I know I have been the world's worst blogger lately. Life just has an awful way of getting in the way with the things I want to do. I am hoping that some of the things that have been taking up so much of my time will be resolved after next week, in fact I'm keeping all my fingers and toes crossed. I cooked something on Friday, but after a little misunderstanding on dinner timing with the Culinary Consultant, I was so hungry by the time I took it all out of the oven that I forgot to take pictures. Major fail as well, as it was really delicious. Sundried tomato and cream cheese stuffed chicken fillets wrapped in bacon, and served with a tomato and mushroom sauce and garlic and cream potatoes. At least that gives me a chance to recreate that meal another time.

So for now, there will be nothing too exciting, just something I whipped up a while ago. I'm continuing on my theme of Ugly Food. But when you see the list of ingredients for this dish, you understand there was no way to make it pretty. But again, you have to look beyond appearances. If you could only have experienced the scent drifting from my oven and spreading all over my tiny flat. And if you would have been there when I bit into my first bite of this chicken, you would understand why those horrible ugly lumps of chicken meat have made it to the blog.

There are two highlights during my day at work. The ultimate highlight is leaving the place, obviously, but a close second is lunchtime. I get together with my friends, and we forget all about work for a while and just chat about something fun or silly. That's one of the advantages of speaking a foreign language, you can talk about the most inappropriate things at lunch and don't have to worry about anyone overhearing. 

Food-wise my lunch is not exactly a culinary highlight. My usual lunch is very boring. Chicken salad. It consists of a few big handfuls of baby spinach, half a cucumber, ten cherry tomatoes, a sweet pepper and a chicken fillet. Thats 320 calories right there, in the bag. Usually I just bake the chicken fillet in the oven with a dash of garlic pepper on top. That gets boring very quickly. Sometimes I do go crazy and mix it up a bit. Tuna instead of chicken, maybe with a hard boiled egg on the side. Sometimes I add some beans. Or, if I really want to make it special, I add a tablespoon of dressing. 

I was trying to find new low carb food inspiration, so I was browsing through my old Bootcamp recipe book. It's full of great, healthy recipes and this was one of them. I wasn't quite convinced when I read the list of ingredients but decided to give it a go anyways. Well, to be quite honest, this isn't much of a recipe, it's just a really yummy marinade. It takes all of about a minute of your time. 

Balsamic chicken (serves 4):
4 chicken fillets
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp honey
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp oregano (dried)

The howto:
Mix all the ingredients (except the chicken fillets) together. Coat the chicken fillets with the marinade, and leave over night in the fridge. Cook in 200 degrees C for 20-25 minutes, or until juices run clear (cooking time depends on the size of the fillets, but be sure not to overcook them, as that makes them dry).

I like to use a Lock&Lock plastic container for the marinade. It's totally liquid and smell proof, and its easy to just chuck everything in there, close the lid tightly and give it a good shake to distribute the marinade evenly. You could also use one of those big ziplock bags, but first of all I don't trust the seal to actually stay sealed all through the process, and even more importantly, I don't want to use anything disposable if I can avoid it. 

The verdict:
I really liked the sweetness of the honey and the balsamic in this recipe. But then again, I absolutely love sweet flavours in food. I very rarely add any sugar (or honey, syrup etc) in my food, as I don't want to get used to cooking my food too sweet. But sometimes it's really nice to treat yourself a little. And this chicken certainly made my lunch salad much more enjoyable. I like it that it's really quick and still gives great flavour, and you can cook a big bunch of fillets ahead of time, freeze them individually and then always have chicken available to pop into the lunch box.


Card of the day:
This time the card of the day is a very simple one. I made it to try out a new stamp I bought a while ago. The stamp (called Thistle) is just one of those HobbyCraft stamps that are sold individually, and while they are clearly not the most high quality stamps out there, they are perfect when you are just starting out your papercrafting hobby as you don't have to break the bank to get a few stamps to create variability in your projects. I used VersaColor, which is very handy as it comes in small pads, again allowing the buildup of several different colours without going bankrupt. Here I used Cyan (19), Turquoise (20) and Violet (17) onto HobbyCraft ivory cardstock. I then heat embossed with Ranger super fine detail clear embossing powder. The sentiment is from HobbyCraft Clear Stamps General Sentiments 21 pk, and the little fuzzball is from the Kanban clear stam set Flower Scrolls. I finished by sponging on some TIm Holtz Distress ink Broken China onto the edges, attached the sentiment with dimensionals and snailed it all onto C6 Kraft card from Craft UK Limited. The finishing touch was a spray of Perfect Pearls mist. Click here for a video of the amazing Tim showing you how to make your own mist. I used the colour Perfect Pearl which is a clear colour. You can really see the lovely shiny sparkle on the card. I think the card turned out quite good, and it's a good example you don't necessarily need all the bells and whistles out there to make a pretty card. Not to say I wouldn't like all the bells and whistles... But stamping is fun, and making a card doesn't have to take more than a few minutes.

Chicken pot pie with biscuits

This whole biscuit thing had me really confused for quite some time. Yes, I realise I'm easily confused, but still. I started my food blog about a year ago, and that's also when I started to follow other food blogs and Pinterest. I actually didn't actively follow any food blogs when I started my own, it was started because last Easter I ended up baking and cooking quite a lot over the holidays, and I wanted a place where I could store my recipes and the accompanying pictures. So I thought, instead of just jutting them down in my own files, I might as well share them online. At least that way my mum would see what I'm up to. And I think she might still be one of my few readers, and if anyone else out there actually reads this, please feel free to leave a comment as I would absolutely love to hear about you. And why oh why do I always get inspired to start writing my blog posts in the morning about ten minutes before I have to dash off to the bus. Well, I will just have to continue to pour my heart out about biscuits some other time. 

Anyways. I'm back, so let's return to my confusion over biscuits. I always thought biscuits are like cookies. At least that's what they are over here in the UK. But clearly in the US, they are more like scones. I'm sure there is technically a difference between biscuits and scones, but let's not get nitpicky. And I had never thought about putting them in food, for me scones are eaten with tea. As in a cup of tea, not supper. Tea was also a source of much confusion for me before I realised the Brits actually mean supper when they say tea. Again, why? There is a perfectly good, non-ambiguous word like supper, but oh well. And then there is dinner and supper? Aren't they the same? But apparently not. Very confusing for someone who speaks a language where there is just one word for the meal you eat in the evening. And again I drifted off from biscuits. The point was, when I saw this lovely recipe for chicken pot pie with biscuits from Joy the Baker I was doing a bit of a happy dance in my head. And my tummy. How genius to bake the scones, no I mean biscuits, on top of food! Kind of like dumplings, but not submerged. This was a completely new concept to me, so I just had to try it. Obviously since then, I have seen many recipes with biscuits used in a similar way, but this was the original I tried a while ago, and it really made an impression. It's so warming and comforting, and such great winter food.

My recipe is inspired by this recipe from Joy the Baker. I only made some minor modifications to the biscuits, but a major re-working of the filling. I skipped making the creamy dreamy sauce that goes with the original recipe, replacing it by more veggies and crushed tomatoes. If you don't mind the extra calories, make sure to check out the original recipe, as it looks absolutely delicious. I didn't have any cream cheese for the biscuits, but I did have some leftover Stilton in my fridge, so I used that instead. Also, I halved the amount of the dough for the biscuits.

Biscuits:
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
2 tbsp chopped fresh chives
30 g butter
50 g cream cheese (or Stilton, or maybe Brie)
95 ml buttermilk (I used regular milk)

Filling: 1 tbsp oil of choice
2 onions
1 clove of garlic
4 carrots
4 stalks of celery
1 courgette
2 cups water
1 can (400g) tinned tomatoes
salt and pepper
4 chicken fillets, cooked and diced
1 chicken stock cube

The howto:
First make the biscuits. Mix flour, baking powder, soda, salt, pepper and chives. With your fingers, mix in butter and cream cheese until the mixture is crumbly, but has texture. Add buttermilk, and mix very quickly to form a dough. Knead with your hands until the dough is about 3 cm (a bit more than an inch) thick, and use a cookie cutter to make round biscuits. I used a very small cutter to have tiny little biscuits, because I thought that would look nice, adjust the thickness of the disc of dough if you are making bigger biscuits. 

To make the filling, start by chopping all the veggies. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Heat up oil in a frying pan, and add onions. Let cook until translucent. Then add garlic, carrots and celery. Let cook for about 10 minutes, the veg should still be firm. Pour veg into an oven proof dish along with the courgette and add water and tinned tomatoes. Sprinkle chicken evenly over the veg and season with salt and pepper. Finish by crumbling the chicken stock cube on top of the chicken and place biscuits evenly on top of it all. You can brush the biscuits with milk or egg wash if you like (I didn't). Bake for about 25 minutes, until the biscuits are golden brown.

The verdict:
My version of this chicken pot pie is a bit simplified from the original, which includes making a white sauce with cream cheese for the filling. Mine is much more humble but it's bursting with flavours from the veg. Also, the biscuits are perfectly crumbly and delicious and I think adding in the Stilton instead of cream cheese did bring lots of delicious flavour as well. 

This recipe is not exactly low carb or low calorie, but sometimes you have to treat yourself a little, and this pot pie certainly did the trick. I was going to freeze a few servings, but after having a taste, I just ate it all in a few days, with no left-overs to freeze. 

Getting back on track chicken

I've been having just a teeny tiny bit of a problem getting back on track with my nutrition plan after getting back from my holiday, and being sick, and being very undisciplined in general. I thought I really need to make something that is healthy but doesn't taste healthy. Something which packs such a punch of flavours that I don't think about all that unhealthy bad food I've been craving. I needed something that is healthy, high in protein, low in fat and full of flavour. Also, I happened to have some parsley and coriander which had been hanging around my fridge for just a bit too long, so I needed to use  them up asap. Looking around in my kitchen, I spied a huge garlic and my omnipresent piece of ginger root (fresh ginger root is one of those things I always keep in my kitchen). And my eyes landed on my mortar and pestle which I bought probably a year ago, with the aim of making all sorts of spice mixes and my own pesto. But as so many of my other impuse buys, the mortar has just been serving as a garlic bowl. The sad truth is, I haven't used it, not even once. So now I finally thought I would break it in.

Back on track chicken (serves 4):
4 boneless chicken thighs (or fillets, if you prefer)
1 clove of garlic
a piece of fresh ginger about half the size of your thumb (ok I know, we all have different sized thumbs, but you know... just wing it!)
a bunch of fresh coriander (I used about 1/2 of a 31 g pack)
a bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley (I used about 1/2 of a 31 g pack)

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (or other oil of choice)

The howto:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Place chicken in an oven proof dish. Roughly chop the garlic, ginger, coriander and parsley, and place in a mortar. Using a pestle, grind until the garlic and ginger has been thoroughly smooched together with the herbs to a nice paste, and add olive oil. Spread the paste on top of the chicken, and cook in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until juicen from the chicken are clear. 

The verdict:

Not only did my improvised herb-y chicken taste really freshly of herbs and ginger, it also filled my kitchen with the most amazing aroma. Admittedly it's not the most beautiful dish I have ever cooked, but this is obviously your first time here if you were looking for pretty food. My food may not be pretty, but it is good. And this time, it's also healthy. This dish almost made me think spring might be silently creeping closer. Could it be?

Man pleasing chicken

I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of recipes in the Pinterest Food and Drink section are for oven baked chicken. Chicken parmesan, chicken with mozzarella, chicken smothered in cream, sesame seed chicken, lemon chicken, chicken with cream, mozzarella, parmesan, sesame seeds and lemon... all of them claim to be something along the lines of "best chicken ever" or "better than x, y or z chicken". I still keep lying to myself that I'm trying to eat healthily, so I never pin any of these recipes, thinking if at some point I really want to make unhealthy chicken, I will always just run across them as they seem to pop up time and time again. 

What irony was it that when I really needed to find some yummy chicken recipe really quickly, I couldn't find any. I was having Y chromosome carrier over for dinner, and wanted to cook something he would like. Which inevitably would involve chicken. Thankfully I happened across this recipe for "Man pleasing chicken" from Witty in the City which I thought sounded pretty much like something I wanted. To enhance the man pleasing aspects of the recipe, I decided to stuff the chicken fillets with parmesan and bacon. What could be more man pleasing?

Man-pleasing chicken (serves 4):
4 chicken breast fillets
4 rashers of bacon
a chunk of parmesan 
ground black pepper
100 g of dijon mustard
3 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp white wine

The howto:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Cut four pieces of parmesan and wrap them in bacon. Cut a pocket in the chicken fillets and stuff the bacon wrapped parmesan into the fillets. Place in an oven proof tin and grind black pepper on both sides of the fillets. Mix mustard, syrup, vinegar and wine, and pour on top of the fillets. Bake for 30-40 minutes, depending on how big your fillets are.

The verdict:
Let me just tell you, this dish certainly lived up to its name! Y chromosome carrier seemed very happy with it. And so was this double X carrier as well. The chicken was juicy and moist and soft, and the sauce was nice with lots of flavour. I am not a big fan of mustard, so I was afraid I wouldn't like this recipe very much, but apparently the syrup nicely softens out the sting from the mustard. And then you work your way to the nice core of the fillet with the smoky bacon and the strong flavour from the parmesan. It all just came together perfectly. If you are in a hurry, you can always skip stuffing the fillets, and just smother the chicken in the sauce and into the oven it goes. Talk about fast food. If you have a bit more time, wrap the chicken in bacon, and then smother in sauce. Super quick, super easy and super good.  

Friday quickie and more Harissa

This Friday quickie is again a faux Friday dish, as it was cooked earlier this week. Currently I'm away in Norwich for a work thingy, unable to enjoy a Friday quickie. Although it also gave me an excuse not to go to Friday evening bootcamp, so I guess there is something good with the bad. Of course I would rather be home on my sofa slouching right now. 

This is part three in my triptych of recipes specifically aimed at using up the jar of Harissa I have in my fridge to prevent it from becoming one of those things you find in a few months at the back of the fridge growing new life forms. The two other recipes are Moroccan soups, one with chickpeas and quinoa and the other with cauliflower and roasted garlic. 

Recently I have mostly been cooking chicken legs and thighs as the majority of my cooking has been done in the slow cooker. Breast fillets easily go a bit dry if prepared that way, although I'm sure there are great recipes for chicken breast fillets in the slow cooker as well, just need to bring down the cooking time a bit. But roasted in the oven like this, they are delicious and a very healthy alternative. This recipe has no added fat or sugar and is high in protein and low in fat. Tomatoes also have a carotenoid called lycopene which has been shown to possibly be linked with reduced risk of certain types of cancer. Obviously, the data is far from conclusive, but be it this way or that, at least tomatoes are low in fat and sugar, have lots of good micronutrients such as vitamines. And of course they taste absolutely divine, and make this a beautiful, colourful dish. The recipe is from BBC Good Food.

Harissa roasted chicken (serves 4):
4 chicken breast fillets
2 tsp Harissa paste
1 tbsp oregano
(olive oil, salt, pepper)
300 g cherry tomatoes
olives (I used a 200 g can of lemon stuffed green olives)

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Food really can't get much easier or quicker than this. Put the chicken fillets in a roasting tin, and rub with Harissa paste and oregano. If you want to, drizzle olive oil on top and season with salt and pepper. I didn't add any of either as I thought the olives would be salty enough and the pepper wouldn't taste very much through the Harissa. Cook for about 10 minutes. The original recipe says to cover with foil, but as you could probably guess, I couldn't be bothered to do that. Add olives and tomatoes, and roast for another 10 minutes. Serve with a green salad, or my new favourite, cauliflower and broccoli mash. Which is simply steamed cauliflower and broccoli blended with a knob of butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. Absolutely delicious!

The verdict:
I always tend to over cook chicken breasts. And although it's important to make sure chicken is cooked through, breasts don't need more than 15-20 minutes in the oven so keep an eye on them. There is a bit of fluids leaking from the olives and tomatoes, so the chicken was cooking in those lovely juices keeping it nice and moist. The harissa brings quite a kick to the chicken and roasted cherry tomatoes get a wonderful sweet flavour. This is truly fast food suitable for any quick dinner. It's also great for the lunchbox, I made four servings and packed in single serving Tupperware to take along to work. 

Awesome but ugly Crockpot chicken

I love my Crockpot. I know I've only had it for a few weeks, and it seems a bit extreme to be in love after a few weeks. But like I said before, when you know you just know. There has been so much going on in my life lately, and finding time for cooking has been really tough. And as usual, I'm on a serious mission to shed the blubber I managed to accumulate during my summer holiday binge, so I really need proper, healthy food. And the Crockpot can do that for me. In the evening, I load it up with veggies and meat, and in the morning I wake up to a Crockpot full of dinner. Or lunch. Well, healthy, proper, good food anyways. The only problem is, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night to the drool-inducing scent of cooking meat. And I just want to grab a spoon and dig in. So far I have been able to resist, but I'm sure one of these nights I will sleep-eat. You know, kind of like sleep walking, but eating instead of walking. Oh, how I wish I could sleep-burpee. That would be great, being able to exercise in your sleep, and then have it all over and done with in the morning. Well, sometimes when I wake up before six am for bootcamp, and head out to the park for a 6.15 am start, I almost feel like exercising in my sleep. Of course, after being made to run for several minutes with a tyre on my back, I don't feel quite like I'm asleep anymore.

Well, enough about working out and back to the more interesting things. I just got home from the gym, and had the first taste of the Crockpot chicken I cooked recently. And I just had to write a post on it immediately. The best thing about this recipe is that it's absolutely failsafe. Even if you never cooked anything in your entire life, there is no way you can fail with the Crockpot. Meat, veg and some fluids, whichever you prefer. Give it a good eight hours, and it's done. Kinda like magic. There is just one downside with Crockpot food... it looks terrible. It tastes great, it's easy and convenient, but it most certainly doesn't make the most appetising photos. Sorry about that. But trust me, beauty is only skin deep!

Crockpot chicken (serves 4):
1 small chicken (mine was 1.3 kg)
6 parsnips
2 onions
1 glass white wine
1 chicken stock pot
1-2 tbsp mustard
1 tbsp black pepper
big bunch of thyme

The howto:
Put the chicken at the bottom of the Crockpot, and top with thyme. Peel parsnips, and chop them in half. Place on top of the chicken. Slice the onions thickly and place on top. Mix the white wine with the stock pot, mustard, pepper and pour over. Add some water if you feel like you want more liquid in the pot. Cook for eight hours on low.

The verdict:
There is no easier way to cook. It takes five minutes or so to set everything up, and then you can go on with your life for the next eight hours. The chicken cooks until it literally falls off the bone. I had problems getting it out of the cooker, it just kept disintegrating. I guess some people would prefer to take the skin (or at least the majority of it) off before cooking to make it more healthy. But keeping the skin on gives a wonderful, albeit quite fatty, broth. If you feel like being a bit fancy, you could strain the broth, and maybe cook it with a bit of cornflour to make it thicken into a proper sauce, the juices from the chicken with the thyme and mustard make a wonderful sauce. I couldn't be bothered to actually do all of that, so I just used the juices from the bottom of the crockpot and poured them over the meat. Oh and the parsnips, did I already mention the parsnips? They seem to be perfect for cooking in the Crockpot. They don't go all soft and too mushy like many other veg I have tried, but they came out perfect. Perfectly cooked, but not too soft. And wonderfully flavoured from the broth and the chicken juices. This is definitely my new favourite way of having chicken. And I'm pretty sure you can do the same in the oven if you don't have a slow cooker, just make sure you have a good tight fitting lid and make sure there is liquid in the pan at all times and cook in low temperature until the chicken is super tender. Although, I wouldn't leave it in over night. Which is why I lovelovelovelovelove my Crockpot.