chicken

Dinner twist week 2

Posted on September 18, 2012September 18, 2012 by bekswhoknits

Was not quite as much of a success.

We had one meal following the recipe given to the letter, one meal which we used as guidelines and one which we didn’t make at all.

The curried chicken drumsticks with slaw weren’t all bad (although they left us with quite grubby fingers).
And you can’t go wrong with sausages and mash. However the ‘salad’ which was meant to accompany it I made only for myself, and didn’t eat half of it. The ingredients list was ok, (chick peas, olives, sundried tomatos, olive oil) but it was really bland.

So it’s back to preparing my own meal plans.
I think this would be something I would do if I had a week to myself.
But with ‘the gout list’ being followed a bit more stringently at the moment, it’s probably not the right timing.

~~~
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You don’t make friends with salad

Posted on March 20, 2012March 14, 2012 by bekswhoknits

This week instead of the fruit and vegetable ‘magic box’, I bought the salad box.
It came with another kilo of carrots (I’m bugs bunny), but some other yummy salad items.
So salad it was.

This is really my sort of meal. I love the refreshing-ness (not a word) of salad, particularly on a hot March day.

I cooked some chicken thighs to go with it, and a sauce that doubled as salad dressing.

I went out on a limb with the sauce. I borrowed this recipe from taste, but altered it.

the recipe
Melt butter in a pan.
Add garlic
Add chicken
Allow the chicken to brown. Add a tablespoon of Australian Mustard and try and coat the chicken with it.
Add 1/2 cup of white wine and 1/2 cup of chicken stock.
Once that has reduced a bit, add two tablespoons of philedelphia cream cheese and mix that through the sauce.

Serve with salad (i had lettuce, mushroom, capsicum, onion, cucumber, tomato, and cheese. )

You could use cream instead of cream cheese, but I used what I had in the fridge.

It didn’t get rave reviews from the Mister, but I didn’t expect it to. Next time I’ll make the same chicken and serve it with mashed potatoes. That might go down better.
But it hit the right spot for me.
You don’t win friends with salad.

a not boring packed lunch or how to use schnitzel as a verb, an adjective, and a noun

Posted on November 17, 2011November 16, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Who said a packed lunch has to be boring.

If you’re lucky enough to have a sandwich press in the office, you can have a lunch like this.
Chicken Schnitzel and salad.

It takes a little bit of effort to prepare. It really helps if you have a craving for chicken parma the night before and are schnitzeling chicken anyway.

So how to schnitzel a chicken.

In one bowl beat an egg.
In another pour in breadcrumbs.

Cover your rolling pin in glad wrap (so all the nasty raw chicken doesn’t seep into your wooden rolling pin – I don’t know if this is actually a thing but it helps me sleep at night), and take all your frustrations out on an unsuspecting chicken thigh.

Dip the beaten chicken thigh into the egg, then into the breadcrumbs (both sides), then into the sandwich press.

You now have two options.
You can put the schnitzeled chicken into a pan and cover with tinned tomatoes and cheese before plonking it in the oven.
OR
You can put the schnitzeled chicken into a plastic container for eating at work.

I chose both.

So here’s the chicken parma and here’s my work lunch.
I like to heat up my pre-cooked schnitzel in the sandwich press, but I suppose you could eat it cold or pop it in the microwave.

Dinner, a show, & a parking fine

Posted on November 2, 2011November 3, 2011 by bekswhoknits

It’s cricket season. Yay! I love cricket. For those un-aussies among us cricket is like baseball except over 5 days. 5 days of sport is glorious.

So the Sheffield Shield is our local competition, and free entry means we can catch a couple of hours after work.
After the games play (we’re kinda losing on day two) we starting heading back home but it was peak hour and annoying, so we stopped in East Perth for dinner.

It was close and it had started raining so we stopped at local Italian place Antico Caffe. Tempted by the sign ‘free beer with pizza’.

The waitress was adorable, and very attentive.

The food took a little while to come out (exactly the time it took for me to drink a glass of wine), but when it came out it was pretty delicious.

I had a pizza with chickem, potato, and bacon which went down a treat.
But I should have ordered what the Mister had, chicken stuffed with prawns in a white wine sauce with potatos.
Which was “like his three favourite meals combined to make one super meal”.
The free beer (an italian beer we’d never heard of) wasn’t too bad to begin with, but the end verdict was we’ll pay for beer next time.

We had probably the best seats in the house, as we were looking outside to the intersection and all the people who were stuck in the rain. Including a pizza delivery guy who was supremely lost.
We watched as he crossed the street three times, asked a random stranger where he was, and took at least 18 minutes between us noticing him and him driving away again.

I can never eat a full pizza so I’m always happy when I can doggy bag it (it made a great lunch).
So we left on a bit of a high until we realised that we had a parking fine.
Silly me was trying to escape the rain and didn’t put enough money in the machine.

So it ended up being an expensive dinner, but it wasn’t as bad as all the other reviews on Urbanspoon have made it out to be.

The menu definitely had enough things to try that we wouldn’t mind going back.

Tuesday chicken tacos

Posted on November 1, 2011 by bekswhoknits

I actually marinated the chicken in the bag, but all it did was make it more difficult to know it had cooked.

Dressings were cheese, lettuce, tomato, tzatsiki, and sweet chili sauce.

Soundtrack courtesy of Dave Graney.

Chicken Casserole, courtesy of Not All Tea & Scones

Posted on October 24, 2011October 24, 2011 by bekswhoknits

A recipe from the cookbook of the lovely not all tea and scones. As well as having some gorgeous photos on instagram, she’s working her way through the CWA cookbook.

My Great-nan (as well as being an inspirational woman) was a member of the CWA. She worked on a farm all her life, and these recipes remind me of visits to the farm.

So I’ve been wanting to try one of these recipes for a while. So when the bestie had to come over for dinner (because she’s just moved into the area and her fridge is being delivered tomorrow but she doesn’t have a tv yet and needed some company – yay for bestie being within walking distance) I didn’t want pasta, and I didn’t want salad, but I did want a casserole.

So this fit the bill.

Some minor alterations included the use of hp sauce ( just because), the tinned tomatoes being flavored with garlic and herbs (I love shortcuts), and not using two whole chickens (because I too was not feeding a football team).

The end result? Very delicious. With some vegies on the side, and some rice to soak up the juices, it had rave reviews.

Thank you CWA.

Chicken Parma and Stuffed Spuds

Posted on October 11, 2011October 11, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Or alternatively, overcooked chicken with tomato, bacon, and cheese, and undercooked potato with tomato, bacon, and cheese.

Not the greatest success. But it was a meal.

Chicken pot pies

Posted on September 19, 2011October 24, 2011 by bekswhoknits

I used this recipe to use up a cooked chook that I had bought last week.

Little ramekins of goodness.

I modified the recipe somewhat, as it called for chicken thighs and I had half a cooked chook.

So cooked some onion, bacon, and frozen peas.
Then some tinned mushrooms in butter sauce for the sole reason that, that’s what I had in the cupboard.
The rest of the recipe I followed, mixing flour and water together before adding that and chicken stock and milk to the chicken already in the pan.

That went into ramekins, then covered in puff pastry and into a 200 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Then a glass of wine, a hundred from Hughes in the cricket, and some delicious chicken pot pies were ready to be devoured.

Chicken tastes better when it’s drunk.

Posted on September 2, 2011September 1, 2011 by bekswhoknits

Or smothered in white wine as the case may be.

Using up the lasagne sheets I had used for the lamb pasta, and some chicken that I had in the fridge, comes this favourite.

Chicken and bacon cooked, then covered in white wine, then chicken stock and cream to bubble away and reduce.
At the very last minute snow peas and spinach leaves for some green and crunch.

Just the ticket.

thursday night tacos

Posted on August 26, 2011 by bekswhoknits

This is becoming a thing.

This week is was Chicken tacos.
I put a little less effort into presentation, mostly because I was avoiding the washing up.
The chicken breast was diced and friend in a pan with some Old El Paso chicken seasoning stuff and some chopped onion. I added a little water when it started sticking to the bottom.

Next time I wouldn’t add so much of the seasoning.

But that’s the cooking done. Serve and Eat!

This is totally a thing now…