Sweet and sticky chicken

I made this recipe last week for us, and it tasted amazing! I'm not a huge fan of drumsticks so I used chicken breasts and cut them into strips before marinating. Yum! Even Jamie, who can be really fussy at mealtimes loved it. I served ours with mini corn on the cob.

Pasta with tomato sauce

This dish is one of our week-night staples. It's warming, filling, and delicious! All it requires is cooking the pasta, adding tomato sauce (I always keep a ready made jar in the cupboard!) and we add whatever vegetables we have in - chopped cherry tomatoes always go down well. What are your favourite recipes for this time of year?

Pinterest favourites

Some Pinterest favourites this week: a huge striped bag; Neon-tipped nails; An oh-so-yummy creamed onion gratin recipe; and gorgeous, wavy, tousled hair.

What have you been pinning this week?  Have you any recommendations of people I should be following?  Please share :)

Dream breakfast in bed

Speaking of trays, I got thinking about using them to serve breakfast in bed, and what my ideal long, lazy breakfast would involve :) First, a cappuccino (love the heart!) Next on my list would be pastries and chocolate, a pile of magazines, and a huge, cosy throw to cuddle up with. What would your ideal breakfast be?

(Image 1 unknown 2 / 3 / 4)

Parmesan baked tomatoes

Whilst we were on holiday earlier this year we ate so many delicious foods, and one of my favourites were the vegetables that were either stuffed (like peppers, and aubergines), or the baked or roasted vegetables like this that were so tasty.

This recipe simply needs you to slice the tomatoes, pop them on a baking sheet, and top with Parmesan, oregano, salt and pepper.  Drizzle with some olive oil and bake until tomatoes are tender and the cheese is melted, for about 10-15 minutes.  Easy!

(From My Kitchen Affair)

Pizza with barbecue sauce

For dinner yesterday evening we ate pizza made with barbecue sauce instead of the usual tomato sauce, and it was so tasty! I found this recipe for making your own barbecue sauce which looks delicious - and I would love to try some other recipes with it.

(From Simply Scratch)

Baked chicken with lemon, potato + olives

This meal, taken from Bill Granger's Feed me Now book is so easy to prepare and tastes delicious. His recipe suggests using a whole chicken jointed but I cheat here and just buy chicken breasts and and maybe chicken thighs too (anything to make things a bit simpler :)  I also find that you can swap or add in other ingredients easily, such as here where I threw in some mushrooms as I wanted to use them up.

Serves 4

1kg roasting potatoes
1 red onion, cut into wedges
75g green olives
1 lemon, sliced
50 pancetta, cut into strips
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
120ml chicken stock
4 chicken breasts (and/or thighs!)
1 tablespoon olive oil

Method

Preheat the oven to 180c.  Cut the potatoes into chunks and place in a roasting tin or ovenproof dish.  Scatter over the onion, olives, lemon, pancetta and bay leaves.  Stir the tomato paste and balsamic vinegar into the stock, then pour over the potatoes, place the chicken pieces on top, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Roast for 50 minutes or until golden.

Once cooked, transfer the chicken to a plate and cover with foil, then return the roasting tin to the oven and increase to 220c.  Roast for a further 10 minutes until the potatoes, onion and lemon slices are well coloured.

Place the chicken back on top of the potatoes, and serve, in the roasting tin.

Artichoke Lemon pesto

My favourite kind of food is the kind where you can take little bits of one thing, dip something in another; just easy, simple and tasty food. This pesto looks delicious and you can use it as a dip, spread or stuffing.

Have a cosy weekend.

Happy weekend! What are your plans? I imagine our weekend will be filled with lots of baking and drinking lots of hot tea (or lemon + water!) to keep nice and warm.

Have a good one!

(Image My Union Jack)
 

Caramelised onion, Butternut + Goat cheese pizza

One word: yum.

(from Natural Noshing)

Chocolate cookies

After pinning these cookies on Pinterest I knew I was going to have to try them. On Sunday morning we made them and they are absolutely delicious (and not at all difficult to make, as I thought they might be!) As you can see, I had my little helper to 'test' the cookies after they came out of the oven, complete with rockstar hairstyle :)

Making pizza dough

This is the pizza dough recipe we use to make our pizza bases with - the recipe actually makes 8 - 10 bases so after the dough is made, we roll it out and put whatever we don't use in the freezer (placed between layers of tin foil). I love doing this as it means the next time we are making pizzas we simply need to take the frozen bases out and let them defrost.

When I make this, I cheat a little and put all the ingredients in the Kitchen Aid and mix it that way; it works just as well and rises perfectly (as you can see in the bottom photo!)  After the dough had formed we took it out and had a go at kneading it ourselves - the boys loved this (and they loved the fact they got flour all over themselves too!)

For the ingredients and method, read on:

Hot chocolate + chocolate biscotti

One Christmas Neil made biscotti for us which we loved (and so did any guests who happened to pop round!) They looked so lovely in the jar too, so I've been looking for another recipe, and found this version, which uses chocolate - I think these will taste delicious. I also came across this hot chocolate recipe, which, as it gets a little colder, will be perfect for drinking with the biscotti. 

Homemade Granola

This granola from Nigella Lawson's Feast is delicious and never lasts long in our house! It's very simple to make (the list of ingredients may seem long, but don't let that put you off making this), and I've found that even if I miss an ingredient out it still tastes just as good.  Read on for the ingredients and recipe:

Pancakes!

The other week we made pancakes for breakfast as a treat, and they were delicious! I'm not sure why we don't make them more often :) For me, the classic combination of lemon juice and sugar will always be the perfect topping, but for Jamie and Alfie, it's chocolate all the way!

Lasagne

I love this time of year, when it starts to get a little chillier and we can start making warming soups and meals. Lasagne is one of those go-to meals that's always comforting, and this one looks delicious - there's also extra vegetables (carrot and courgette) in there too. Yum!

(from Pass The Sushi)

Bacon jam

I would LOVE to try this - apparently it's sticky, sweet, and smoky (I think this is exactly how I would eat it too - spread thickly onto slices of crusty bread). The recipe is here, and looks quite easy. You can also buy it here if you aren't in the mood for cooking!

Smoked salmon + goat's cheese tart

This recipe from Fay's Family Food is one of the tastiest and quickest dinners I make - and it's so simple. It looks impressive too so would be perfect to serve when guests are around. Ingredients:
375g pack ready rolled puff pastry
Tomatoes (I used cherry tomatoes here)
100g Goat's cheese
300g smoked salmon
 
Simply roll out the pastry onto a roasting tray lined with baking paper (this helps to slide the tart off when cooked), then scatter the tomatoes, followed by the cheese, then finally the smoked salmon. You then need to pop it in a 180c (fan) / 200c oven for approximately 25-30 mins. That's really all there is to it!

We slice this up for the Jamie and Alfie and serve with a salad for us.  Delicious!

Cookbooks: The Flavour Thesaurus

This book is on Neil's list of cookbooks to get - it's a guide to pairing different flavours and tastes, for example chocolate and bacon (yum!) It's also full of interesting facts and looks like one of those books you can curl up with and read, which I love. It would also look beautiful on the bookshelf too!

Olives

Even though it hasn't been that long since I started liking olives, we always have a jar in the house now and it isn't just me who eats them! When Alfie first tried them, he was a bit unsure but nowadays he will get a spoon from the drawer then ask me to get the olives out so he can have a few! He loves them that much that last week we had a little indoor picnic and that's all he ate :)

(Top image Margaret Stepien)