Week 16: Lemon-Honey Chicken

The Recipe
(Serves 1)
A pinch of salt
A dash of pepper
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
Juice of half a lemon
1 tsp thyme
2 heaped tbsp honey
1 tbsp cornstarch
1dl water
4 chicken drumsticks or 2 chicken thighs (dark meat)
~1/2 small squash/zucchini, sliced

Place first 8 ingredients (salt through water) in a crockpot. Whisk sauce together. Add chicken and turn it over a few times to make sure it is thoroughly coated. Add squash slices on top.

Cook on LOW for ~8hours.

Serve with baked potatoes.


The Verdict
REALLY good! The sauce was a lot thinner than I had expected, despite the cornstarch, but it tasted great, and (probably thanks to the lemon) had penetrated through the chicken skin nicely. I also liked the taste it gave the squash. Definitely something I'll make again.

Week 14: Lasagna with Rocket Salad, Ham and Mushrooms

The Recipe
~25g rocket salad
200g ricotta or cottage cheese
1.75dl shredded cheddar
olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
200g thinly sliced ham
300g finely chopped mushrooms
1 (425g) can tomatoes
1 (140g) can tomato paste
1dl freshly chopped basil
shredded parmesan
lasagna pasta

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Chop up the rocket salad and mix it with the ricotta cheese and cheddar. Put aside.

In a large pot, add oil and cook onion and garlic until fragrant and slightly soft. Add ham and mushrooms and cook for a few minutes before adding the canned tomatoes and tomato paste. Bring the sauce to a boil, reduce heat and leave it to simmer for 5 minutes until it's thickened a bit. Add basil.

In an oven-proof dish layer pasta, cheese mixture, pasta, meat sauce, pasta etc. End with pasta and parmesan. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes

The Verdict
Tasted good but strangely bland. It was definitely in need of something - although I'm not quite sure what that something should be. I liked the idea of an alternative filling for a lasagna though, so might play around with that a bit more... but doubt I'll make this specific recipe again.

Week 13: Marinated Bell Pepper

The Recipe
4 bell peppers
1.25dl olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp freshly chopped basil
2 tbsp freshly chopped oregano

I had neither fresh basil nor fresh oregano, so used about 1tsp of each dried.

Cut the bell peppers into quarters, removing stem and seeds. Put on a baking sheet and grill until the skin bubbles up and starts to go black. Take them out of the oven and leave to rest under a moist towel for 5-10 minutes or until they're cool enough to handle. Peel off the skin (don't obsess with this - just get as much off as you can). Cut into thin stripes.

Mix together olive oil, lemon juice basil and oregano. Add the bell pepper and make sure it all gets coated in the marinade. Leave for at LEAST 2 hours - preferably overnight.

Serve as a side by itself or use in wraps or on sandwiches.

The Verdict
This is SO good! I didn't grill the bell peppers for long enough, so only got about half the skin off, but that didn't matter much - the marinade still penetrated nicely. I misread the recipe so I only had time to marinade it for about 1 hour before dinner. The leftovers I refrigerated and saved for sandwiches the next day - it definitely improved after such a long time marinading. It was good the first evening too, but especially the slices where I hadn't gotten all the skin off had gotten much softer the second day.

It's a lot of work for every day meals, but tastes really good, so worth while to do once in a blue moon.