Delicious roast chicken

Happy new year everyone! It's a new year, a new flat and a new kitchen for me and I'm looking forward to catching up with my cooking and blog.. Lets hope I get you all drooling with this recipe!

I made a roast chicken following a recipe from here: www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chicken-recipes/perfect-roast-chicken

My dad is an amazing self taught cook, and he told me to ALWAYS buy free range or organic chicken.. It's just worth paying that little bit extra for what will make an incredible difference to your meal. So following his advice I got a corn fed chicken which I am guessing had a happy life :-)

List of ingredients:

• 1.3 kg chicken
• 2 onions
• 2 carrots
• 2 sticks celery
• 1 bulb garlic
• olive oil
• sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 lemon
• 1 small bunch fresh thyme and rosemary & potatoes

So first things first... Take your chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before it goes into the oven. Preheat your oven to 240°C/475°F/gas 9.

All the ingredients together (apart from the olive oil, salt, pepper and potatoes)

Prepare the vegetables

Roughly chop them

Place all the vegetables and garlic into the middle of a large roasting tray and drizzle with olive oil.

Drizzle the chicken with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper, rubbing it all over the bird.

 

Carefully prick the lemon all over, using the tip of a sharp knife. Put the lemon inside the chicken's cavity, with the bunch of herbs.

Place the chicken on top of the vegetables in the roasting tray and put it into the preheated oven. Turn the heat down immediately to 200°C/400°F/gas 6 and cook the chicken for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Chop up the potatoes and place them in a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and place in the oven for 45 minutes.

This is it half way through cooking. Baste the chicken now and if the vegetables look dry, add a splash of water to the tray to stop them burning.

And there you go!

Καλἠ ὀρεξη!!!!

Fish linguine

I've wanted to make this recipe for ages. I remember finding it randomly and always looked forward to making it. So today was the today! And it was well worth the wait.. Really easy to make, and really tasty!

Here's where I got it from: www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/jamie-oliver/fish-linguine-recipe/index.html

Yum yum...!

Ingredients:

• olive oil 
• 1 clove garlic, grated
• 1 bulb fennel, herby tops removed and reserved
• 4 anchovies
• 1/2 onion
• 4 mackerel fillets, skin on, scaled and pinboned (the recipe actually uses red mullet)
• 1 lemon, zestet
• 1 red chilli (I used dried chillies)
• linguine

All the ingredients used

First start with the fennel and the garlic.

Grate both...

...then fry in some olive oil. Add the anchovies and onion.

Add the salt then lay the mackerel fillets, skin side up, on top. Sprinkle with the lemon zest, and pour in a little water (or white wine) to stop everything frying, and to start stewing. Add some olive oil, pepper and chillies. IN the meantime start cooking the pasta.

When the pasta is ready, remove the fish from the sauce and mix the pasta and sauce together, check the seasoning and serve with a drizzle of olive oil on top and some more fennel tops. Add half the juice from a lemon and some extra olive oil.

Καλἠ ὀρεξη!!

Chicken and mushroom pasta bake

After a long break from cooking... I'm back again! This time with a past bake I found on Jamie Oliver's website. I had mushrooms and pasta and was in the mood for something mushroomypastaycheesybaked.. So after a quick search this is the recipe I came across. And yes.. it was pretty good :-)

The recipe-> www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/chicken-mushroom-pasta-bake-spaghett

• a small handful of dried porcini mushrooms
• olive oil
• 4 chicken thighs, boned, skinned and cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced 
• 2 handfuls of mixed fresh mushrooms
• 200ml white wine
• 500g spaghetti
• 300ml single cream
• 200g Parmesan cheese, grated 
• a sprig of fresh basil, leaves picked

All the ingredients used.

 Start off by preheating oven to 200'C.

Put your porcini mushrooms in a bowl.

Pour over just enough boiling water to cover them. Put to one side to soak for a few minutes.

Heat a saucepan big enough to hold all the ingredients, and pour in a splash of olive oil. Season the chichen with salt and pepper and brown them gently in the oil.

Strain the porcini, reserving the soaking water, and add them to the pan with the garlic and fresh mushrooms.

Add the wine, with the strained porcini soaking water, and turn the heat down. Simmer gently until the chicken is cooked through and the wine has reduced a little.

Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in plenty of boiling salted water.

 

 

 

Add the cream to the pan of chicken, then bring to the boil and turn the heat off. Season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Add the drained spaghetti to the creamy chicken sauce and toss well.

Add three-quarters of the Parmesan and all of the basil and stir well. Transfer to an ovenproof baking dish, sprinkle with half the remaining pasmesan and bake in the oven until the cheese is golden brown.

So there you go!

Καλἠ ὀρεξη!!!

week 8

Broccoli soup with blue cheese & aubergine, thyme and feta tart

Oh my god.... This was... soooo good....!!! It requires a bit of multitasking, but the end result makes it worth it!

Healthy and yummy.. is there anything better...?

Ingredients:

soup - 1 onion, 300gr broccoli, 1 potato, 1L vegetable stock, blue cheese

tart - 3 aubergines, puff pastry, 1 egg, 2 cloves garlic, thyme springs, 200gr feta, olive oil, a little milk

All ingredients used, for the tart (left) and for the soup (right).

So let's start with the soup:
 

Chop the onion and then the potato.

Cook the onion in a little olive oil in a large pan until soft (about 5 minutes). Add the potato and stock and simmer until the potato is tender (about 10 minutes). Add the broccoli and cook for 3-4 minutes until just tender but still bright green. Add half the cheese and blend to a smooth soup in a blender.

Season with salt and pepper then serve with the rest of the cheese crumbled over.

 And now for the tart...

Pre-heat oven to 180'C, using a knife make 4 think cuts along the one aubergine and place in over till 40 minutes or till soft. Remove form the oven (and turn it up to 200'C), peel the skin and crush he rest with a fork or with a mini blender until creamed. For the pastry, roll the pastry into a 27cm x 37cm rectangle.. or something that looks like a big blob in my case..! Make a line with a knife 3cm from the edges all around. Brush the outside with egg and milk.

Bake for 15 minutes until gold. Remove from the oven and push the central part down with a large spoon so as to leave a risen border all around.

Moving onto it's topping, fry the garlic and place into the creamed aubergine. Lightly season with salt an pepper.

Now, slice the other aubergine into thin think slices and fry in some olive oil. Whilst frying season with salt, pepper and thyme.

Cook both sides until golden.

Add the creamed aubergine with garlic to the center of the puff pastry. Then add the feta cheese.

Next add the aubergine slices.

And cook for a further 15 minutes... Yum!

Καλἠ ὀρεξη!!!!

week 7

Curried Leek and Carrot Soup

So this is one of those soups I make when I don't know what else to make with leeks and carrots.. and when I want something really healthy.

I found the recipe here: http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/6450/curried-leek-and-carrot-soup.aspx

I recommend this soup to anyone who wants something healthy, and has leeks and carrots they don't know what to do with!

• 500g leeks
• 500g carrots
• a couple sticks of celery
• little olive oil
• 1 potato (normal or sweet)
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1L chicken stock
• salt and pepper

All the ingredients used.

Wash the carrots, leeks and celery, and peel the carrots.

Chop them all up.

Saute them now in olive oil until the leeks are tender. Add the chopped up potato and curry powder; cook and stir for 2 minutes.

Pour in stock, salt and pepper, and bring to the boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until the vegetables are very tender. Finally, using a hand-held immersion blender, blend the soup in the saucepan until smooth.

And enjoy with some bread and cheese :-)

Καλἠ ὀρεξη!!!