Pesto Chicken Wrapped in Bacon

Once again I have been MIA for far too long, but I am back with a simple but very yummy meal!

Ingredients:

1 chicken Breast
3-4 Tablespoons Green pesto
1 clove Garlic
2-6 Rashers of Bacon (smoked or unsmoked - is up to you!)
Cheddar or Mozzarella cheese
Salt and Pepper

First, Preheat the oven to 200 Celsius. Then, make the chicken as flat as possible. You can do this using a meat mallet, or if like me and you don't have one, place the chicken breast underneath some cling-film and 'punch' with your hand (not too hard!) This is actually very fun :P

When the chicken is flattened (It should be about double its' original width) rub with salt and pepper to taste. Crush some garlic or finely chop, and rub into the chicken.

Place the pesto down the centre of the chicken breast - the amount will depend on how big the chicken breast is but I used about 3 tablespoons. Wrap the chicken as tightly as possible, layering bacon around it - once again the amount of rashers you will need depends on the length of the chicken breast, but I used 4.

It may also help to stick some toothpicks into the 'chicken roll' to make sure it keeps its shape, but it is not always necessary.

Wrap the chicken in some tinfoil and place in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, unwrap the tinfoil and add the grated cheese on top of the chicken. Return to the oven for about 5-10 minutes - make sure the chicken is cooked by making an incision down the middle. Don't be fooled by the pink of the Bacon!

Serve Immediately!

Thai Green Prawn Curry

I really enjoyed making (and eating!) this amazing thai curry. I got the original recipe from "Jamie Oliver's Ministry of food", and as I was cooking made a few changes to make it my own. I reduced then amount of coconut milk used - I found about 200ml was plenty! Of course feel free to add more - that's the beauty of cooking, you can mess around with ingredients until the taste is perfect for you :) I also added parsley, as I think it gives the dish a wonderful fresh flavour!

Serves two, or one very greedy person!


Ingredients

300-400g prawns

Small bunch of Asparagus
1 small red chilli
1 tbsp groundnut oil
200ml coconut milk
handful of mangetout
1 lime

2 stalks of lemongrass
4 spring onions
3 fresh green chillis
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp of powdered ginger OR
1 thumb sized piece of fresh ginger
small bunch Coriander leaves
Fresh Parsley
1 tsp Coriander seeds
3 tbps soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce

The first thing to do is to peel your prawns if you bought them whole. I was pretty grossed out by this at first; the eyes were staring at me, argh! To peel a prawn, grab hold of it's head, twist, and pull it off. Do the same with the tail. To remove the legs and shell, hold onto the legs and gently 'unwrap' the prawn. It;s easy once you get used to it (and in my case, once I got past the eyes!)

Trim the ends off the lemongrass, and peel of the outer layer. This is the 'woodiest' part, and should come away pretty easy. crush the stalks a few times by bashing them with a rolling pin - DONT do what I did and use the handle of a knife! (almost chopped off my fingers) De-seed and chop the green chilli's, and chop the spring onions, garlic, ginger, coriander and parsley. Chuck everything except the prawns into a blender and blend away!
Add the soy sauce and fish sauce to the mix. Blend again until the paste is smooth.

Snap off the bottom bits of the asparagus - these are known as the "woody" ends and should come away quite easily! Chop them in half lengthways. Place a large pan or wok onto a high heat, and add the groundnut oil. When it's really hot, drop in the prawns. Add the asparagus and the blended paste, and stir for about 30 seconds to a minute. Add the coconut milk and the mangetout - bring to the boil and stir for a bit. Chop the lime in half and squeeze into the sauce to taste - I used almost a whole one :)

Serve on top of rice! Finely chop the red chilli and sprinkle over the meal. Eat whilst it's hot!

Veggie Lasagne

I'm not a vegetarian but I love vegetarian food! I'm a bit of a lasagne lover (mostly because of the cheese!) and after becoming bored with the usual meat sauce, I thought, why not give it a veggie spin?! I decided to have a try at making my very own veggie lasagne. :) Aside from the cheese/white sauce, this recipe is completely my own creation, so it might not be perfect - but I thought it was yummy :) Add, remove, and experiment with ingredients to your hearts content; I hope you enjoy making this as much as I did!


Ingredients
- 1 pack of no cook lasagne (depending on the size/shape of tray you use, this varies; I used about 15)
- a splash of olive oil
- 1 large onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 courgettes
- 2 large aubergines
- a generous handful of mushrooms (or about 100g)
- a pinch oregano
- 1 bay leaf
- a pinch of basil
- 400g chopped tomatoes
- t tbsp tomato puree
- 1/2 glass of red wine
- 150g - 200g of spinnach
- Salt & pepper

For the white sauce;

- 50g butter
- 50g flour
- 1 pint milk
- 150g cheese, grated
- sprinkle of parmesan


Serves 4-6


Prepare the veg; peel and chop the aubergine into slices, chop the courgette, mushrooms and onion. Crush the garlic or chop finely.

In a pan, heat the olive oil and gently cook the garlic and onion until soft. Add the tinned tomatoes, the tomato puree, the wine, the mushrooms, and the courgettes. Add the oregano, the bay leaf, and the basil. Simmer for 10-20 minutes until the veg begins to soften. In a separate bowl, soak the sliced aubergine in a bowl of warm water and salt.

In a new pot, make the white roux sauce. melt the butter, and add the flour, stirring all of the time until a 'dough' ball is formed. Add the milk a little at a time, until a think sauce is formed. You can add more or less milk if you want a thicker or thinner sauce. Add about 3/4 of the cheddar cheese.

heat the oven to 180 Celsius, and add the spinach to the tomato sauce. (NOTE: if you are using frozen spinach, add this at the beginning).

Layer the aubergine into the tray. Pour over some of the tomato sauce(remember to remove the bay leaf!). Layer on sheets of lasagne until it fully covers the sauce. Pour on some of the white sauce, and then repeat, adding aubergine, tomato sauce, lasagne sheets and white sauce. Repeat until all of the mix is used up; this usually takes 2 layers of tomato sauce for me. Finish the final layer with the cheese sauce, the remaining cheese and some parmesan.

Cover the tray with tinfoil and pop into the oven for 30-40 minutes. Once the sheets have softened (test with a knife!) remove the tinfoil and let the top go lovely and crispy, for about 10-20 mins.

And you're done! Hope you enjoy :)

Chilled Strawberry Cheesecake with Choclate sprinkles

Cheesecakes; so fun to make and so tasty to eat!

This recipe is based on THIS one. For some reason it didn't quite set; perhaps reducing the amount of whipping cream might help? be aware though that I haven't tried this, so it would be an experiment! In the future I will try my hand at gelatin cheesecakes and baked cheesecakes - these are much more likely to set!

Ingredients;
- 100g digestive biscuits or cookies
- 50g castor sugar
- 50g butter
- 500g full-fat cream cheese (I used marscapone)
- 100g icing sugar
- 150g Strawberries
- Choccie sprinkles!



First comes the best part! in a freezer bag, smash the cookies/biscuits to smithereens. Using a rolling pin helps, but make sure not to smack your hand! In a pan, gently melt the butter, and then pour this into a mixing bowl along with the castor sugar and the biscuit crumbs. It should looks something like wet sand (appetising!)

Smooth this into a 20cm cake tin. Lining it with baking parchment means that you can lift it out of the cake tin and neatly serve it, so I'd advise doing this too. Press down until the mixture is even and chill until set.

In a mixing bowl, mix together the cream cheese and icing sugar until well mixed. In a separate mixing bowl, whip the whipping cream until it is light and stuff. You can test this by holding it upside down; it shouldn't fall out of the bowl! It's much quicker to use an electric whisk to do this (trust me, I speak from previous experience!) but you can do it by hand if you want. Just be aware that you may be there for sometime!

Fold this into the cream cheese mix, and then blend about 100g of the strawberries. Add this to the mixture.

Once well mixed, spoon this mixture over the chilled biscuit base. Decorate the top with choccie sprinkles and the remaining strawberries. Leave in the fridge to set for a couple of hours!


Hopefully yours will set better than mine! *sob* Let me know :)

Creamy salmon pasta

I was actually inspired to make this by a recipe on the back of the salmon packet! I decided to alter it a little and make it my own, by adding a few ingredients and removing others. This serves two and is really simple to make :)




Ingredients
150-200g of penne pasta, depending on how much you want.
200g smoked salmon, chopped
150g double cream
4 generous tablespoons of cream cheese (plus more for serving)
salt and pepper for seasoning


First, cook the pasta according to usual packet instructions. You can add a few drops of lemon juice if you like!
When this is almost done, gently warm the cream and half of the salmon. Don't let it boil, boiled cream is not nice!
Add four tablespoons of cream cheese and let it all melt together. Continue heating for about five minutes, then toss season with salt and pepper.
Toss the sauce into the pasta, and top with the remaining salmon and another dollop of cream cheese.

Enjoy!

Garlic and Anchovy Pasta

Wow, it's been a very long while since I updated here! I should hopefully be updating more regularly; I'm trying to be more organised!

I'm going 'bring it back' with one of my favourite recipes at the moment. I discovered it in "Sam Sterns' Student Cookbook" and adapted it a little to make it my own. It's most definitely not to everyone's tastes but I LOVE IT, and so thought I'd share as it;s so simple to make.

It serves two, (but I like to use the specified amount of sauce for one person...what can I say, I like strong flavours!)

Ingredients;
-200g dried spaghetti
-1 x 50g tin of anchovies
-4 cloves garlic
-1 tablespoon of olive oil (I use the stuff that comes with the anchovies)
-Squeeze of lemon
-1 chilli (optional)




Finely chop the garlic, anchovies, and chilli if using.
Boil a pot of water, and cook the pasta as according to instructions on the packet.
When the pasta is almost done, heat up some oil in a pan, and chuck in the garlic. Cook the garlic gently, making sure it doesn't go brown (This ruins the garlicky flavour!) and add the chilli and anchovies. Turn down the heat and mix until it's all goey and smelling yummy!
Drain the pasta, and mix in the garlicky sauce.
Serve!

Cupcakes!

Everyone loves to remember their childhood and this is the perfect way! Cupcakes, Fairy cakes, or buns; call them whatever you want, but they are fun to make and taste great!




Ingredients;

-150g self raising flour
-1 teaspoon baking powder
-110g soft butter
-2 eggs
-2/3 tablespoons cocoa powder
-A little vanilla extract
For the icing;
-275g icing sugar
-20g cocoa powder
-110g butter
-3/4 tablespoons water
-Sweets e.t.c. for decorating

Bun cases!

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6, and set out the bun cases (preferably onto bun trays, but a baking tray will do. Just be sure to double up the bun cases if you're using a baking tray, for a bit of extra strength).
Mix all the cake ingredients together in a bowl, and mix quickly with a wooden spoon until soft and creamy. Split the mix into two bowls, and in one bowl add some cocoa powder. Put about 1 teaspoon of each mixture into each bun case. They should look something like this:





Cook the buns in the oven for about 15 minutes or until browned. Now, they are ready to decorate!

To make the icing, gently melt the butter (mixed with the water) in a pot. Don't boil. Mix into the icing sugar, and like with the cake mix, split into two bowls and add cocoa powder to one of them. Decorate, and eat!