(2024) Week 10: White Chicken Chili

The Recipe
100g bacon
Butter
1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, diced (optional)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1tsp cumin
½dl flour
1l chicken broth
1 340g jar of salsa
450g chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 large potatoes, cubed
2,5dl cream
100g shredded cheddar cheese
1 small can of corn (or the equivalent frozen)
Salt, pepper

Cook the bacon in a pot. Set aside, reserving the bacon grease.

Turn down the heat, add butter to the grease if necessary and cook onion, bell pepper and jalapeno for 5-10 minutes. Add garlic and cumin and cook for about a minute. Sprinkle in the flour, mix and cook for a minute.

Add broth, salsa, chicken and potatoes. Bring to a boil and leave to simmer until the potatoes and chicken is done - about 20 minutes, adding the corn about half-way through.

Add the cream and cheese and let it melt. Return the bacon to the pot and season with salt and pepper.

The Verdict
The original recipe had 2 entire cups of corn which ended up being FAR too much! I'll try to make it with just one can next time instead of two - or I might go ahead and replace the second up with beans instead, to turn it into more of a chili.

But apart from that, I loved it! The chili I had found was on weak enough for my DH to be handle the heat, and I just added chili flakes to my bowl when serving it instead. I'd wondered if the chicken would suffer from just being boiled, instead of being browned on the pan first, but that wasn't the case at all, and it ended up being really juicy and tender. Definitely worth a repeat.

(2024) Week 9: Crockpot Honey Garlic Chicken

The Recipe
450g chicken
3 garlic cloves, minced
3tbsp honey
4tbsp ketchup
4 tbsp soy sauce
oregano

In a bowl, mix together last 5 ingredients.
Place chicken in the crockpot, pour sauce on top and cook on LOW for 4-5 hours (HIGH for 3-4 hours).
Cut the chicken into thick slices and return to the crockpot for ~15 minutes to soak up the sauce.

Serve with rice and some veggies.

The Verdict
This is my favourite type of recipe - super easy to make and REALLY yummy! What's not to like?! :-D I cooked mine for 4.5 hours (including the 15 minutes after carving) and the chicken turned out PERFECT! Not dry at all. Definitely a keeper.

I served it with the air fryer carrot fries found elsewhere on this blog.

(2024) Week 3: Air Fried Chinese Duck

The Recipe
(Serves 2)
2 duck breasts
2tbsp soy sauce
2tbsp honey (divided)
1tsp five spice powder (divided) (I didn't have this, but google told me I could use garam marsala instead...)

Prepare ahead of time Mix together the soy sauce, half the honey and haft the five spice powder in a bowl with a flat bottom. Pat dry the skin of the duck and put into the bowl skin-side up, making sure the skin isn't covered by the marinade - dump some out of you have to. Cover, but leave a few holes for air to circulate and leave in the fridge overnight.

Place the duck in the air fryer, skin side up and pat the skin dry one last time. Cook at 165C for 15 minutes.

Mix together 2tbsp warm water, the rest of the honey and the rest of the five spice powder. Coat the skin of the duck with the honey mixture and cook at 200C for another 10 minutes.

The Verdict
Smelled sort of weird while cooking, so I was a bit hesitant, but OH my goodness! It tasted AMAZING! I had added potatoes to the air fryer and cooked the duck on top of them, which worked really well, but honestly, you can serve this duck with just about anything that doesn't require a sauce of some sort. Would be delicious in a salad as well.

Next time I also want to try to add 1tbsp oyster sauce and 1tbsp minced garlic to the marinade as I didn't have oyster sauce and forgot(!!) the garlic this time around.

Really delicious, so I will definitely be making this again!

(2024) Week 2: Raspberry Lemonade

When tidying up the freezer, I discovered I had a TON of raspberries from my garden, so I figured it was time to actually do something about them. All measurements are VERY approximate as I didn't actually measure anything, but just went with what looked/felt right...

The Recipe('ish)
1.5kg raspberries
Enough water to just cover them
~300g sugar
~1dl lime juice

Add raspberries and water to a large pot and bring to a slow boil. Once the water is almost boiling (medium-sized bubbles, not violent bubbles - or when the water is 90C if you have a meat themometer), mash the berries up against the side of the pot.
Cover a colander with a dishcloth that you don't mind staining purple and pour the raspberries through the dishcloth into another pot. Leave to drain for awhile until it's stopped dripping, even when you move the mess around a bit (I had to do this in batches, as my colander could only fit about half at a time.). Discard the contents of the dishcloth.

Bring the lemonade to a boil again, adding sugar and the lime juice. Once it's almost boiling, taste and add more sugar or lime juice as desired. Transfer to bottles and put in the fridge to cool.

I found that this ended up being quite concentrated, so mix it up with water / sparkling water before drinking it, but it all depends on how much water you added when mashing the raspberries in the first step.

The Verdict
Yummy! Lots of work, but worth it! This would taste really awesome mixed in a drink as well.

(2024) Week 1: Crockpot BBQ Tenderloin

The Recipe
(Serves 2)
500g tenderloin
1 cup BBQ sauce
1 tbsp mustard
Salt
Paprika, oregano and cumin to taste

Combine BBQ sauce, mustard and spices in a crockpot. Add tenderloin and scoop the sauce over the meat to coat it.

Cook on HIGH for ~1.5hrs or LOW for ~3 hours until the meat reaches 65*C.

Remove from the slow cooker and let it rest for 10 minutes. Slice and return to the sauce. Serve with potatoes.

The Verdict
The original recipe said to cook it on high for 2hrs - that was FAR too long, as the meat had reached 72C and was rather dry. I think 1-1.5hrs will fit better (I've adjusted the cooking times on low accordingly). For that reason, I wasn't too impressed by it. DH loved it though, and is eager for me to make it again :-P