Hot Booby Chick - Roasted Chicken with Lemon and a Herbed Butter

This is a meal I just had to make.  I haven't really done all that much roasting but I couldn't resist this.  I based this recipe on a meme I had seen a long time ago involving a roast turkey with lemons for boobs.  We really don't need a roast that big, so we decided to create a roast chicken instead.  A common method of infusing delicious, moist flavour is to boil a lemon for a minute or so then stick it into the cavity along with fresh herbs and garlic while roasting.  This recipe changes things up just a little.   The lemons will make the breast meat beautiful, and the herbed butter will moisten the meat. Please feel free to swap the herbs we used for anything else you enjoy (eg sage, marjoram, oregano, even taragon).  If you want a lower calorie version, just leave out the herbed butter.

If your Sunday dinners have been a little on the boring side lately, then get this saucy chick into ya!

Enjoy.

Beef, Vegetable and Feta Medley

This week we were aiming for low carb healthy dinners to help us fight the rising waistline situation we have going on around here. I was planning to make my old favourite side salad which I haven't had in yonks with various meats for the week. Unfortunately, I forgot to buy all the ingredients. Then I couldn't face a cold side salad on a Winter's night.  This meal eventuated out of slowly changing my mind about what I wanted to make (multiple times along the way), and oh my gosh it ended up so yum.  I've made it twice now, and found it is equally tasty making it a simpler way in the second attempt. First go I had two nights worth of cheap steaks and had decided to cook up a veggie side stew. Then I chopped the meat, sealed and stirred it through toward the end. Second time around I just bought a 500g pack of diced beef and added it just after the onions and garlic. Of course the steak meat was a little tastier (and medium rare) but it was much simpler to just throw everything  in early on and leave it go.  Plus the meat is tender and slow cooked this way.  As much as this sounds like a hodge-podge meal from how I am describing it, let me assure you that this meal made on instinct is absolutely fabulous. It is totally healthy - just meat and veg and seasonings. Plus it is low cal, high protein, low fat and low carb. What else could you hope for? Of course you can serve it on rice which will add carbs and make it last six rather than four serves, but we were more than happy with this as a stand alone dish. This is a new regular!

Balsamic Glazed Pork on Warm Lentil Salad

This meal was a Friday at home date night meal I made for the Dragon. I found a good special on pork fillet and wanted to do something special with ingredients we had on hand in our pantry and fridge.  The result was a pretty easy meal to make over a glass of wine before retiring together to the balcony to overlook the city lights with our chimenea burning to set the mood. Toasted marshmallows made for a perfect desert.

I literally licked my plate clean. This meal is A.May.Zing. The pork is moist and soft, the glaze is beautiful and the lentil base is a perfect compliment. This is a great special dinner at home/date night meal.

One Pot Chorizo and Chicken Stew: Hot Mess

This meal was one of the Dragon's concoctions. He likes to call it "Hot Mess" but I prefer to use more descriptive titles most of the time, with the exception of my recent Blood of My Enemies recipe, because, well, it is awesome and who wouldn't want to start their day with it?  This meal was born out of what we had left in the fridge.  Trust me - Hot Mess cooking can become something truly divine.  This meal does not really belong in any particular country's cuisine given that it is such a  hodge-podge of ingredients and of spices.  We will call it Australian since that is where we live.

The Dragon and I cook very differently. I usually create meals based on a mix of research and prior experience of what works well together and what doesn't. The dragon's method is to take what we have in the house, then use his sense of smell to decide on a mix of spices for flavour. Often I vehemently disagree with his choice of which spices to mix, but he says "no - I smelled it and it's perfect, trust me".  I am learning to trust the Dragon's snout. In the end, Hot Mess was absolutely delicious and lasted 3 nights for both of us.

The Blood of my Enemies (Beetroot, Ginger, Celery, Pineapple and Rockmelon Juice)

Last week I spent a few nights away at a training workshop down south.  Unfortunately the workshop itself did not live up to its reputation, but there were a few other good things I took away instead.  For one, I made some lovely friends and had a ball outside of the workshop.  Secondly, I fell in love with juices.  One in particular included beetroot and carrot and a few other ingredients, and was red and frothy. This may sound a little gross but it looked a bit like blood with coagulate on the surface. We laughed about drinking the blood of our enemies, and I felt great afterwards. I was inspired to create my own version at home. Its a power drink!

The Dragon and I usually just do smoothies in our nutrininja. Usually we take a banana and almond milk base, then add various fruits/veggies/other add ins.  We don't really do much juicing. Juicers themselves seem a waste because they take out all of the good fibre, so the nutrinja seemed like the perfect way to start making yum juices at home.  We have been having this particular one with breakfast every day this week and we have been feeling really healthy as a result. I've been pre-chopping all the fruit and veg on the weekend so they are ready to assemble in the nutrininja cup each night before bed, put into the fridge, then in the morning we can just grab, blitz, laugh maniacally and go!

From my very un-educated trawl of the internet, pseudoscience tells me that this may benefit blood pressure, the liver, kidneys and pancreas, but just eating healthily generally will do that for you.  Don't be fooled into thinking drinking one juice is going to make you healthy, but in combination with a balanced and healthy diet generally, this juice is a great addition.

I present to you the Blood of My Enemies.

Love Pizza

Who needs it to be Valentines Day to do a cheesy romantic gesture? These are always much more fun every other day of the year.  Around Valentines Day this year all of my usual amusing picture websites were flooded with images of terribly constructed heat shaped pizzas which people ordered for home delivery on V Day. We all know that V Day is a completely commercialised venture, and it would seem that a variety of (primarily American) franchise pizza establishments required their franchises to create something "romantic" with very limited training. This did not work. We can do better.

Enlivening Orange, Ginger and Mint Juice

Welcome back! After a long hiatus I am ready to return to blogging again. Life had gotten really hectic with home renovations and my being unwell for some time, so I haven't been able to dedicate the time to this.  I've made a bunch of changes to my life to simplify things now (which includes dedicated rest days with no plans and no projects/jobs) and I am feeling healthier and more relaxed. In addition to that, I have time again!  So without further ado.....

This juice is perfect for a Saturday afternoon.  It is so simple - just three ingredients - and it tastes zingy and delicious.  Interestingly it also tastes quite creamy, despite not having any ingredients in it which would usually be used to make a "creamy" finish.  One of the many things I love about my nutrininja is how it can use the whole fruit and make it into something great.  For this, I don't even need to take the seeds out of the oranges - simply chop it up, take off the skin and you are good to go! It has heaps of fibre and goodness, including vitamin C, folate and calcium.

Also I figured out how to put text on my photos using Gimp, which makes me happy.

Chicken, Bacon and Leek Casserole

This meal is not pretty. At all. It is, however, delicious. Sometimes I want pure comfort food but I don't want to feel bloated and guilty afterwards.  This meal hits that spot.  And  more.  Plus it has stupidly high amounts of protein. I can't emphasise enough how much you need to cook this meal. It tastes so so naughty but is so so nice.

Happy Tropical Smoothie

I've been through a very challenging time in my personal life recently after losing a close family member, which is why I haven't been posting very much for a while.  When life hits you for a ringer, it is easy to stop taking care of yourself.  I ate a lot of comfort food even though I know better, and the Dragon helped out by doing a lot of the cooking for me and generally being a superstar husband by helping my family and I through a really difficult time.  After allowing myself a week or so of leeway, though, I needed something yummy and healthy to help light the way back on track towards a healthy and bright future. It is time to start taking better care of myself again.  I wanted to make something which reminded me of a happier time, so what could be a better mood lifter than a delicious tropical smoothie to remind us of our honeymoon in Fiji? I have to say that it helped! This smoothie will lift you up when you need it and will also help you to celebrate the happiest of times.  It would also work as a delicious party mocktail.  Add a dash of champagne (post blending) and you have a tropical cocktail!

Rasberry, Mint and Banana Protein Smoothie

Inspired by the razzberries in Pokemon Go, I bought some frozen rasberries a while ago which have been sitting in my deep freeze waiting to be used.  This morning I wanted a pick me up smoothie to help wake me up because we have been working very hard turning our long garage/laundry into two rooms, with a garage in one and a laundry/storage space/workbench area in the other.  It has taken a looooong time (bye bye weekends and most of my social life for some time now) and we have another big day of work ahead us installing the workbench itself and shelving above it.  I figured that the sweet tang of rasberries would hit the spot.  Our newly potted mint has started growing on our balcony garden and is looking fresh and plump so I couldn't resist combining the two. I pretty much always include bananas because they make smoothies creamy and breakfasty. The resulting smoothie is simple, high protein and just plain yum.  It would coax any pokemon into being happy to be caught!