Week 50: Crock Pot Chicken Indonesian

The Recipe
500g chicken breast, sliced in half
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, pressed
½ tsp ginger
1 tsp sesame oil
a dash of chili
1/4 cup peanut butter (NO! Far too much! 1tbsp at most!)

Mix together soy sauce, garlic, ginger, sesame oil and chili. Place chicken in the crock-pot and pour sauce on top. Cover and cook on LOW for 6-7 hours. Add peanut butter and stir until melted.

Serve with rice and a nice salad.

The Verdict
This smelled absolutely AMAZING while it was cooking, so I was already inclined to like it even before tasting it :-D Unfortunately, as mentioned, the sauce-to-peanut butter ratio was way off, and there was no way all the peanut butter would be incorporated in the sauce. You should either put it in way earlier or stick to just 1 tbsp. (Also, I think there was too little sauce in general. Would probably be fine to go with 50%-100% extra of the other things).

That said, it tasted as good as it had smelled while cooking. We finished everything, and I could definitely see myself making this again another time!

Week 38: Sweet Chili Chicken Salad

The Recipe
Sweet Chili Dressing
1 dl sweet chili sauce
1/2 dl coconut milk
2 tbsp soy sauce
juice of 1 lime
1 tbsp peanut butter
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp ginger

Salad
350g chicken, sliced
4 cups lettuce, sliced
2 cups bean sprouts
1 bell pepper, sliced thinly
3-4 carrots, sliced thinly
1/2 cucumber, sliced
basil to taste, torn (optional)
peanuts

For the dressing - mix all ingredients together in a pot over medium heat until the peanut butter is melted completely and the sauce has come to a very slight simmer. Take off the heat and pour half into a separate container and put in the fridge for at least half an hour.

Pour the rest of the dressing into a bowl and marinade the chicken for at least half an hour.

Once the time's up, cook the chicken in a pan over medium-high heat until it shreds easily. Toss chicken with the rest of the ingredients of the salad. Serve with the chilled dressing.

The Verdict
I only had iceberg lettuce which was strangely bland. It used to be my go-to, but I've recently branched out and have obviously gotten spoiled ;)

But despite the mediocre lettuce I still LOVED this salad! The salad was pretty standard, but the sweet chili dressing turned it into this really delicious dish. I'll definitely have to make that again for other things as well... actually, it might work well for chicken satay... will have to experiment with that.

Week 37: Chicken Parmesan

The Recipe
450g chicken breast cut into quarters
1dl bread crumbs
1/2dl shredded parmesan cheese
1/2tsp each of basil, thyme, oregano, paprika, salt and pepper
1 egg
oil
1 jar (~400g) pasta sauce
200g mozzarella cheese

In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, parmesan cheese and all spises.
In a separate bowl, whip the egg with a fork.
Dip the chicken into egg and then bread crumb mixture, making sure to coat thoroughly.

Spread some oil into the bottom of the crockpot. Place chicken in crockpot and put slices of mozzarella cheese on top. Cover with the jar of pasta sauce.

Cover and cook on LOW for 6-7 hours or HIGH for 3-4.

Serve with penne pasta and a nice salad.

The Verdict
Quite good. The chicken was nice and moist and the seasoning worked nicely. It definitely lacked some vegetables though, but when mixed with the salad it turned out really nice, so probably something I'll make again.

Week 33: Chicken Fajita Nachos

The Recipe
450gr boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced thinly
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1.5 tsp chili powder (too much - next time probably only ½-1)
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp cumin
3 tbsp oil - divided
1 onion, halved and sliced
4 cloves garlic, sliced
3 bell peppers, sliced
Juice of 1 lime
1 bag of tortilla chips
3 cups cheese

Optional Toppings:
Sour cream
Salsa
Guacamole

Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a bowl, mix salt, pepper, chili powder, garlic powder and cumin. Add chicken and mix until evenly coated. Heat half the oil in a pan and cook chicken until brown. Cook the chicken in batches to avoid boiling it instead. Transfer to a bowl and add lime juice. Heat the rest of the old and cook onion for a few minutes. Add garlic and peppers and cool until the peppers have softened slightly. In a (deep!) oven-proof dish add half the chips, half the chicken, half the onion and pepper mix and half the cheese. Repeat with the remaining ingredients.

Bake for about 15 minutes, until the cheese has melted.

Serve with a nice salad.

The Verdict
The chicken ended up being a tad too spicy - I probably should have used only ½-1tsp chili instead of 1.5. And as it doesn't have many vegetables in itself, it tasted a lot better when I added the salad. I liked it well enough, but it wasn't an instant favourite.

Week 32: Baked Chicken Fries

The Recipe
(serves 2)

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 450g)
1 cup bread crumbs
1 cup flour
1-2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp each of garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, basil, oregano, pepper

Preheat the oven to 190C.
Slice the chicken breast in half length-wise, and cut in thin stripes about 5-10mm in thickness.
Season bread crumbs with salt and spices.
Dredge chicken through first flour, then egg, then bread crumbs.
Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 20 minutes, turning them half-way.

Serve with dippings of your choice, french fries and a nice salad.

The Verdict
I served this with french fries and a salad. Really yummy :-) The chicken wasn't dry at all, and the seasoning tasted great. For dips we used ketchup, french fry sauce, chili mayo and sweet chili sauce. The chili mayo and french fry sauce worked the best.

Definitely something I'll make again. Even DH approved.

Week 31: Beef Thick Flank (DK: Okse Cuvette)

I can never figure out how to cook a roast properly, so I'm going to add those recipes here as well, so I can work on improving the results. Apologies for weird wordings - this was harder to translate than most recipes.

The Recipe
~750g thick flank
Thyme, salt, pepper
5 cloves of garlic
1/2 onion

Preheat the oven to 250C.

Trim the roast and cut the fatty layer on top in a diamond pattern. Place the roast with the fatty side downwards and rub with salt, pepper and thyme. Put the roast into an oven proof dish with the fatty side up and rub with salt pepper and thyme again. Cut the garlic into halves and the onion into larger chunks and place around the roast. Add a bit of water - just enough to cover the bottom of the dish.

Cook for 15 minutes, then turn down the heat to 160C and cook for another 30 minutes or until it has a core temperature of ~56C. Remove the roast from the oven proof dish and place it on a cutting board. Cover loosely with some foil and let it rest for 15 minutes before carving.

The Verdict
The roast was at 56C after 25 minutes and had gone up to 59C by the half-hour mark. It was still pink when cutting, but very quickly turned grey before we had time to eat it. It wasn't a dry grey though, and still had good taste, so I think I'll consider this a success :-) Next time I'll probably adhere more to the 56C than the 30 minutes though.

Week 30: Beef Meatballs with tomato-salad and mushrooms

The Recipe
400g minced beef
a handful of fresh basil leaves
65gr almonds
32g pine nuts

Salad
200g plum or cherry tomatoes
1/4 onion (or one small)
100g feta cheese
1 avocado
12 olives
1-2tsp olive oil

Mushrooms
250g white mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic
a bit of butter

Meatballs: Chop the basil leaves, the almonds and the pine nuts coarsely. Mix thoroughly with the beef. Form to small meatballs (makes about 20) and cook in butter for about 3-5 minutes on each side.

Salad: Cut the tomatoes and olives into halves, chop the onion, cut the avocado into bite-sized pieces. Mix everything together and drizzle with a bit of olive oil.

Mushrooms: Rinse the mushrooms and cut them into quarters. chop the garlic. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat and cook the garlic for a few minutes - just until it turns fragrant. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently, until they're brown in colour and have given off most of their moisture.

The Verdict
I served this with garlic bread. The meat-balls were a tad dry, but I loved the taste the nuts gave them. Will have to try to experiment with making them more moist... perhaps it's as simple as just not cooking them for as long. Both the mushrooms and the salad were awesome and we could easily have eaten more! We had left-overs of the meatballs (6 of them), but nothing else.

Week 29: Bacon-Chicken with Salsa

The Recipe
(Serves two)
450gr chicken breast fillets cut into halves (~4 halves total)
8 slices of bacon
250gr fresh pasta of your choice.

Salsa
200gr tomatoes
1 bell pepper
1/4 onion (or one really small one)
2 cloves of garlic
1 chili, deseeded and de-cored.
A handful of fresh basil leaves
2tsp apple vinegar or apple cider vinegar
2tsp olive oil.

Cut the tomatoes in halves, remove the seeds and cut the rest into small pieces. Chop the bell pepper and onion into similar sized bits, chop the chili and garlic finely (make sure you get rid of all the seeds and center core of the chili, or it'll get too spicy!) and mix it all together. Chop the basil leaves and mix it with vinegar and oil. Pour over the tomato mixture and leave to marinate while cooking the chicken.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Wrap each piece with 2 slices of bacon.

Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the package. Drain and drizzle with olive oil.

Cook at medium high heat for 10-15 minutes on each side or until done (depends a lot on the thickness of the chicken).

The Verdict
Really, really good! I'd been afraid the chili would make the salsa too spicy for DH, but that wasn't the case at all. The flavours had melded nicely during the time it took to cook the chicken. Chicken and bacon is always good, and the salsa served nicely as coating for the pasta. Definitely something I'd make again!

Week 23: Garlic-Parmesan Stuffed Mushrooms

The Recipe
200-250g mushrooms
oil
3-4 cloves chopped garlic
salt
pepper
100g cream cheese
1/4dl breadcrumbs
1/2dl parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Cut the stems off of each of the mushrooms (I found it easier to break them off) and chop them finely. Set aside the caps for later.

Heat the oil in a pan over high heat. Cook the chopped stems and garlic for about 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid the garlic burning. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to a bowl. Combine with cream cheese, breadcrumbs and parmesan, mixing until evenly combined.

Put the mushroom caps on a baking sheet. Spoon a generous amount of the cream cheese mixture into the hole left by the stem. Bake for 20 minutes.

The Verdict
Unfortunately not nearly as good as I'd expected. I think perhaps the mushrooms I got were too big so the filling/mushroom ratio was off? Whatever the case, they couldn't live up to my expectations and were too much work for me to bother with again.

Week 9: Croissant Rolls

The Recipe
2 cans refrigerated croissant rolls (the ones that make 6 rolls each)
1 bell pepper in slices
8-12 slices cheese (depending on the size)
150g mixed deli meats (I used a tapas mix with salami, dried ham and various other types)

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Unroll both cans of dough and separate into 6 rectangles. On a pie pan or pizza pan, arrange rectangles in ring so short sides of rectangles form a circle in center. (Dough will overlap)
Spread bell peppers toward center of ring on bottom halves of rectangles. Top with half of the cheese. Layer mixed meat over cheese. Cover with remaining half of cheese.

Bring top halves of rectangles over the filling and tuck the dough under bottom layer to secure it. If there's too much dough so the inner layer becomes too thick, rip some of it off and use to cover any wholes (some filling might still show - that's fine). Sprinkle with black pepper.

Bake 18 to 22 minutes or until dough is golden brown and thoroughly baked. Cool 5 to 10 minutes before cutting into serving slices. Serve with sweet chili sauce or salsa.

The Verdict
I missed out the "make sure the inner layer of dough doesn't become too thick" part the first time around, so some of it ended up a bit chewey. It's definitely more of a snack food than a meal, but I liked it and it was easy enough to make. Definitely might give it another shot for a tapas evening or similar.