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.

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.

Berry Beautiful Smoothie

I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to get sick of smoothies. They are too darn good. We would have them every weekday morning if we could drag ourselves out of bed early enough to actually EAT breakfast.  We were so good for so long, and lately with all of the renovation we have been doing in all of our spare time, we are over-tired so rarely manage to get up early enough to eat at home. This means hitting the egg bacon and cheese muffin for breakfast from the work cafeteria way more often than I should admit.  My waistline cannot lie though. Sigh.

We miss our morning routine and are working on it.  One of the strategies involves making things easier. Our nutrininja is great and makes the smoothest smoothies we have ever smoothed.  We also recently bought a vertical deep freeze (lifelong dream of mine, yes I am that boring).  A couple of weekends ago I  filled two drawers with smoothie supplies.....I got some funny looks at the checkout I can tell you that!

I found out that bananas keep for 6 months in the freezer. Given the large variability in banana prices over the course of the year where I live, as well as the fact that frozen bananas require no peeling and make for a creamier smoothie, I bought all of the ready-to-eat ones in the store. ALL of them.  We took them home, peeled them, chopped them, put the pieces flat into freezer bags (with 5 bananas per bag to provide one week of smoothies per bag) and filled a drawer. Another drawer is now filled with various other frozen fruit when it was on special - pinapple chunks, rasberries, strawberries, blueberries, mixed berries, mangoes, cherries...you name it. Now each week we simply have to grab a bag of bananas and a bag of fruit from the deep freeze on Sundays, move it to the normal freezer for the week and its a breeze! Smoothies don't even require ice if the other ingredients are already frozen!  We even have frozen spinach in cube form!  Now to actually get up in time.....

All of that aside, here is the delicious smoothie that I made for us both this morning. Simple and yummy. Pictured with one of the gorgeous flowers the Dragon got me - the colour is out of this world.

Portuguese Chicken and Lentil Casserole

It is Winter here and we are loving warming casseroles. Who doesn't?  This meal was born out of having chicken and lentils ready to be used and having wanted to try Portuguese spices for some time. The flavour is fresh and hearty.  The first time I made this we served it as a casserole on top of rice, but lately I have found that adding rice to casseroles bulks them out well, reduces the amount of rice you eat over all and tastes great! Plus you don't need to spend the time cooking rice the next night. Much simpler.

Kasundi Chicken Curry

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may remember the amazing Indian relish that I made about a year and a half ago after being inspired by (of all things) a tasty mid-flight meal.  Who'd have thought it?  Anyway, I have had a hankering to make some more kasundi to put some into a curry and freeze some in my fancy new deep freeze *dances happily*. I'm keen to learn to do canning, and in time I want to make and can big batches of this stuff because it is so tasty and works in so many different ways.  We have used it in a butter chicken curry before, but tonight it will be a different kasundi curry and it will be high protein deliciousness.

Smokey Chicken Basque

Oh my gosh sometimes I just need smokey deliciousness for a few nights.  This meal hits that spot within me so so well.  I first made this about 8 years ago without the smokiness, and with chorizo instead of sausages and ham instead of bacon.  It worked perfectly well.  Recently I dusted off the old recipe and decided to try giving it some new life.

Pizzata: Pizza Frittata

Because - Why not?

I really want pizza.  But it blows my tummy up like a balloon and leaves me bloated and yuck.  So I thought I'd try something a little different as an experiment.  If the carby crust doesn't sit well with me, I may as well try another kind of crust.  I'm not going to pretend this is super healthy, but it could be if you made a few little changes. Plus it does have high protein and a few veggies.

Meatzza worked a treat! Sweet potato pizza base worked. Why not a pizza frittata? Even better - a pizzata! Badum tish!

Individual Healthy Cottage Pies

This is a delicious meal that the Dragon made for us this week.  It is comforting and warming, which is great because it is just starting to cool down.  I love the slight smoky edge to it.  It has been a bit of a stressful week, so this meal hit the spot.  Plus its packed full of vegetables, has high protein, low fat and a good amount of carbs.  Hitting all the boxes! Boom!

Greek Chicken Rissoles

Rissoles are such an easy old timey favourite dish.  Sometimes you get bored of the same-old-same-old, and need to spice them up a bit.  A while ago I posted my favourite lamb rissoles which always go down a treat.  In our kitchen, we had some chicken mince, a few veggies and some Greek Yiros seasoning which were itching to be used, so I came up with a new spin on an old favourite.  It was SO GOOD! I shouldn't be surprised.  Lately I've been just rolling chicken breasts in Greek Yiros seasoning and cooking them and they have been De.Licious.

We served the rissoles with quinoa tabouleh because our parsley, mint and spring onions were ready for harvesting from our balcony garden, and it is one of my all time favourite sides.  We made these rissoles earlier in the week without the feta and tomato paste, then immediately made it again with the additions once we finished the first batch.  We loved the original recipe, but knew that those couple of additions would take it to the next level.  Love. These. Rissoles. We will have them again!

Stir Fried Chicken with Egg and Noodles

One of my favourite lunches to make for myself as a teenager was two minute chicken noodles with an egg stirred through in the hot pan. As weird as it sounds, I loved it so so so much.  I wanted to create a (healthier) blast from the past for dinner one night this week, and this is what I came up with.  It made use of some bok choy, shallots and cayenne chilli which we have been growing in our balcony garden, which was even better.  Cooking with food you have grown yourself feels so grounded and beautiful.  This meal takes all of 10 minutes to make and serves 4.  I loved it.  The egg adds protein, holds everything together, and tastes great.

Chicken Gumby - a healthy and delicious Gumbo

Traditional gumbo is an amazing Louisiana casserole with Creole flavours - smoked paprika, cumin, coriander seed and dried oregano.   Yum.  It is to Louisiana as Chilli is to Texas.  Naturally this makes me curious.  While onion, celery and carrot make the basis of much French and Italian food, the trinity of Louisiana cooking is onion, celery and green capsicum, and is central to making a good gumbo.  This meal is economical and delicious.

Gumbo is basically a casserole made with some sort of thickener (roux, filé or okra), veggies and delicious herbs and spices.  For most modern Louisiana cooks, gumbo starts by making a roux using a cup of flour and a cup of butter.  To begin, you melt the butter and slowly add flour (stirring constantly, being careful not to burn the roux).  Once the roux turns a red-brown/chocolate-brown colour, it is ready to go and the vegetables can be added.  This process takes approximately 45 minutes to an hour.

I've chosen to skip the roux (sacrilege I know!) to make a tasty version which is easier on the old arteries.  I've also made it quicker to throw together on a weeknight.  Basically, I love traditional gumbo, but it loves my hips too much.  I've made my own version, by shaking wholemeal flour and spices with the chicken rather than doing it the traditional way.  I've always found that this thickens the sauce well and results in a nice tender chicken.  Basically I've created something akin to the flavour of gumbo, but I call mine gumby because it is not completely authentic.  Plus I do love that little green slab of clay.  This meal serves 4-6.

Hunter's Stew (Chicken Cacciatore)

When I was a kid, chicken cacciatore was a common family dinner and I loved it.  It consisted of cooked chicken in a jar of pre-made sauce on rice.  It was an easy meal for my busy Mum to throw together mid-week for her picky kids (well to be honest I was the picky one, my brother was the easy kid).  Recently I started craving it again after many years, but I wanted to make a more authentic version of this Italian nomfest.  After cooking from scratch for the past few years, I just can't go back to sauce from a jar - it just tastes like preservatives, sugar and salt to me.  I've gone and spoiled myself.

Traditionally, Cacciatore means Hunters Stew.  It can be made from chicken, bunny (eep!), pork, pheasant or any other white meat and refers to cooking how a hunter would.  Traditionally the whole carcass would be chopped up and used, however while I wanted to do this semi traditionally, I couldn't be bothered going to quite that level of authenticity.  I have just used four large lean chicken breasts.  It has been argued that Cacciatore is the Italian version of the French Poulet Chasseur, but I personally love the Italian style.  

The base ingredients are: white meat, onion, capsicum, garlic, white wine (Northern Italian style) or red wine (Southern Italian Style) and herbs. In my opinion most Italian and French food is better when started with a mirepoix, so I have added celery and carrots to the onion base. A lot of recipes will include mushrooms (which a hunter could easily gather from the forest) but I hate them  so you won't find any mushrooms here.  Rosemary and other woodsy herbs are also more traditional, but I was keen to harvest some of our basil so I opted for this instead.  The other non traditional addition was asparagus, just because I love it so much and couldn't help myself.  Omit it if you want to stick to a more authentic recipe. I also threw in some leftover cherry tomatoes, but did not include this in the recipe because they are not necessary. This meal is traditionally served on pasta or polenta, but we chose to serve it on brown rice.  It adds a nutty flavour and doesn't bloat me up like a balloon like pasta does.

I made this in big batch style on a Sunday night to serve both of us for three to four week nights (depending on serving size), but just halve the recipe if you don't want to make such a big batch.  Alternatively just freeze the leftovers.

Veggie Omlette

Mmmmm....Saturday morning with nowhere I have to be.....a rare and special treat.  I decided to take advantage by using up a bunch of leftover veggies and feta in my fridge/herbs from my balcony garden  and was incredibly happy with the healthy and delicious breakfast concoction that arose.  This breakfast is almost too easy.  We enjoyed eating it slowly while sipping coffee and chatting on the balcony.  Happy sigh.

Salmon Steak with Quinoa Mint and Feta salad

A while ago a good friend of ours made an amazing salad.  My socks were literally blown off by how amazingly good it was - it tasted fresh and fulfilling and I wanted more.  Unfortunately he can't remember what went into it in order to give me the recipe.  So I have come up with my own version. Tada!

I remember quinoa, mint and feta.  The rest I've come up with to try to fill in what I think would work - and we got to use mint and flat leaf parsely from our balcony herb garden which was lovely.  I may post about our herb garden at some point because we have tried a few different methods and have finally found a method which is really working well.

Welcome to my delicious Thursday night feast.  I decided to pair it with a baked ginger and garlic salmon for night one, so have included the salmon in the recipe - it worked a treat.  On night two we had it with steak, and on night three we had it with chicken breast rolled in Greek Yiros seasoning and some blanched broccoli with slivered almonds.  It was gorgeous every time.  This is going to be a regular in our household.

American Style Pulled Pork 'n' Beans

My original plan was to make a home made baked beans recipe, however as per usual I got excited when I saw a pork shoulder in the grocery store.  So I decided to make something a little different.  I've been posting a lot of vegetarian food here lately.  I LOVE a good vegetarian meal and try to eat veggo at least 1-2 nights a week lately.  I think it has helped my weight loss actually.  But tonight I wanted to make some good hearty old fashioned American fare that could be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Traditional pork and beans uses haricot beans, but I have a soft spot for butter beans and kidney beans, so please forgive me this transgression. It is a great meal to make on a Sunday when you have time to slow cook some meat and take your time with the beans.  The recipe will feed 6-8 depending on your serving size, and it really does taste better each successive night as the flavours infuse more into the sauce.  Served with a piece of crusty bread or just on its own, this is a heart and tummy warming treat.

Lamb Burgers with Minted Yogurt

We have planted a herb garden!  We love it so much.  I wanted to use some mint and what goes better with mint than lamb?  This recipe is a beautiful Greek inspired meal that is thrown together in a jiffy. The lamb patties are even more delicious than you would imagine.  The mix itself is so versatile. This week we are in the mood for burgers, but they also make great lamb patties with a side salad (even better than burgers, unexpectedly - because it lets the flavour really shine), or as meatballs on matchsticks with side yoghurt garlic dipping sauce.  These are HANDS DOWN my favourite rissole/burger patties.  I absolutely love them.

Beef Larb Gai (Thai meat salad)

I dream of taking a gastronomic tour of Thailand at some point.  Thai food has such a beautiful balance of flavours, fragrance and colours.  It is the kind of food that you don't measure exact quantities for, but rather add more or less based on taste.  That is how I like to cook.

This recipe is loosely based around larb gai, which is usually made with pork mince, but I was in the mood for red meat.  Larb gai is a thai meat salad - yes you heard me right.  Meat. Salad.  Omnomnomnom.  It is meant to be a crunchy meat.  Yumyumyum.  It can be served in a lettuce leaf or on rice, as I chose to do tonight.  Traditional larb gai uses sticky rice in the mix which has been ground into a powder, but I've stuck to various beautiful crunchy veggies from the onion family (shallots and salad onions) for crunch.  The fresh herbs make the dish.  It is healthy and delicious.

Chicken Karahi - a divine Middle Eastern meal

Given how much I've discovered that I love cooking Middle Eastern flavours, it struck me that I've not been to many restaurants to try some authentic meals.  We went to a local restaurant which specialises in Afghani food but includes a few recipes from some other middle eastern countries and I was. In. Love.  There was literally no one else there which was both odd and a shame, and there were no visible wait staff so we had to say "hello?" loudly a couple of times to get the attention of the waitress.

We ordered a Bulani  (a beautiful savory potato pastry with herbs and spices) to share as our entre and I want to learn to make it.  Then we shared a tekka kebab meal (zomg the spices blew me away - I have yet to figure out what they were) and a Chicken Karahi. (NB - Karahi, not Koshari - these are very different recipes).

Karahi was soooo good.  Now to make it for real you need to use a bunch of ghee (clarified butter) and given that I am trying to lose weight for my wedding I was keen to find out if I could make a tasty version of this without all of the excess fat.  The restaurant we visited served it with eggs on top, but none of the recipes online that I have encountered do so.  I wanted to try to re-create our restaurant meal, so I've included them for funs :)

Here is what I came up with after much research. And Zomg. Yum. Messy fun, like my Spiced Lamb with Quinoa Tabbouli recipe.  Gotta say I love a share-meal with pita bread.  There's something bonding about the experience of eating together this way. Yum yum yum.