Week 45: Chicken with Apple BBQ Sauce

The Recipe
(Serves 4)
4 chicken breasts
1 package of bacon (~8 slices)
1 cup BBQ sauce
2 apples, peeled and cut into pieces
2 onions, sliced
4tbsp lemon juice
Honey
Fresh herbs - e.g. thyme or oregano
Parmesan cheese

Wrap each chicken breast in 2 pieces of bacon and place them in a slow-cooker. Cover with BBQ sace, apples, onions and lemon juice. Stir to mix it all up.
Add honey, paermesan cheese and fresh herbs.

Cook on LOW for 4-6 hours.

Remove the fresh herbs and serve with baked potatoes.

The Verdict
I cooked mine for 5 hours and it was perfect. Wonderfully moist and not dry at all! Excellent!

I liked it, but didn't love it... felt like it was missing something, without being able to say exactly what. DH suggested some herbs like basil or oregano, so I might try that again next time. And perhaps some chili flakes.

Even so, it was still good - I just had the sense that it could've been better.
Edit: I made this again and tried the modifications marked with italics. It improved it a lot! So I'll definitely use that going forward.

Week 43: Chicken w. Mushrooms and White Wine

The Recipe
(Serves 4-6)
1.4kg chicken pieces w. bone and skin
1tbsp butter
1tbsp olive oil
2tbsp flour
500g mushrooms, sliced
2 onions, diced finely
4 garlic cloves, chopped finely
3dl white wine
2.5dl chicken or vegetable stock
Thyme
2-3 Bay leaves
2.5dl cream
Corn starch
Salt and pepper

Rub the chicken pieces with salt and pepper. Melt butter and oil in a pot over medium-high heat and brown the chicken on all sides. Remove from pot, sift flour over skin and set aside for later. Cook the mushrooms until brown. Turn down the heat a bit, add onions and garlic and cook until translucent and fragrant.

Return chicken to pot and add white wine, stock, thyme and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat and leave to simmer for about an hour.

Mix cream with a bit of corn starch and add to the pot. Let it thicken a bit.

Serve with mashed potatoes.

The Verdict
The original recipe said to serve this with rice, so that's what I did the first day, and just... no. It was definitely missing something, yet I couldn't figure out what. And it just felt weird to serve a dish like this with rice. So when I made up the left-overs, I served them over mashed potatoes instead. SO much better! Still not a firm favourite (especially as DH isn't too fond of chicken cooked on the bone), but definite comfort food for me.

Week 42: Almond Chicken

The Recipe
3 tbsp flour
Salt, pepper & basil to taste
350-450g chicken breast - halved
Butter
1 tbsp lemon juice
2tbsp almonds, chopped or sliced
1 minced garlic
1/2 small onion, chopped
2tbsp white wine

In a freezer bag, mix together flour, salt, pepper and basil. Add chicken and shake to coat thoroughly.

Heat a bit of butter in a skillet/pot with a lid. Add chicken and brown on both sides for a couple of minutes. Add lemon juice, reduce heat, cover and leave to cook until done - about 10-15 minutes. Remove chicken from skillet and keep warm.

Add a bit more butter to the skillet and cook the almonds for a few minutes - stirring frequently, so they don't burn. Add garlic and onion and cook until fragrant. Add wine and return chicken to the pan. Heath through and serve immediately.

Serve with potatoes and a salad.

The Verdict
REALLY good!!! The flour coating kept the chicken nice and moist, and the various flavours mixed together really well. I loved the crunch of the almonds and the tartness of the lemon juice / white wine. Definitely a keeper!

Week 41: Italian Stew

The Recipe
600g neck filet or neck chop (pork chop with more fat throughout the meat - it needs the fat to keep it from getting too dry)
1 large onion, diced
2 bell pepper, sliced
2.5dl stock (any will do - we used vegetable)
100g sundried tomatoes, chopped (use scissors! So much easier)
2 tsp paprika
3 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce / English sauce
2 tsp thyme
2 stalks of sellery, sliced
Salt and pepper

Cut up the meat into smaller pieces (about the size of 1/3 neck chop). Remove any bones.

Heat olive oil in a pan and brown the meat on both sides. Add onion and cook for about a minute.

Transfer to a pot together with bell pepper, stock, sundried tomatoes, paprika, Worcestershire Sauce and thyme. Cover and leave to simmer for 1.5 hours - adding the sellery the past 10 minutes.

Remove the meat and keep warm. Bring the sauce to a boil and let it reduce a bit.

Serve with baked potatoes or mashed potatoes.

The Verdict
So, so, SO good!!! One of my friends had found this recipe, and we all immediately loved it! It's super easy to make too, and great for company, as it's easy to scale up. We forgot the last set of instructions (bringing the sauce to a boil and reducing), but it really didn't matter. It was SO good either way!

Week 39 - Lime-chili chicken

The Recipe
450g chicken
2 tbsp lime juice
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp Tabasco sauce
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp honey

In a small bowl or cup, combine lime juice, oil, Tabasco sauce and salt. Place chicken in a plastic bag; add 2tbsp of marinade (reserve remainder), seal bag and marinate at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Stir honey into reserved marinade until dissolved. Cook chicken for 6-10 minutes or until just cooked through. Brush both sides of chicken with some of the reserved marinade and continue to cook until lightly browned.

The Verdict
VERY lime-y! I couldn't taste the chili at all, but the lime was almost overpowering. Possibly because I used concentrated lime juice instead of juice from an actual lime? Apart from that, it tasted fine. Nothing special though, and I have other chicken recipes I prefer, so probably not likely to remake this one.

Week 38 - Potato Chip Cookies

The credit for this recipe must go 100% to B. Dylan Hollis of tiktok fame. I saw him making these, and HAD to try them.

The Recipe
(Makes about 16 cookies)
115g butter (room temp)
125g sugar
1 egg
140g flour
1tsp vanilla powder
1.5 tsp baking powder
120g potato chips - crumbled and divided.
80g choc chips

Mix together butter and sugar until it makes a fairly smooth blend. Add egg and vanilla powder and whisk. Fold in flour and baking powder. Mix in half of the potato chips and the chocolate chips.

Cover and put in the fridge for 2-3 hours (or overnight).

Scoop into ~1tbsp balls and roll in the rest of the crushed potato chips. Put on a baking sheet with plenty of space between. Cook at 175C for ~15 minutes.

The Verdict
See why I had to try this? I love mixing salt and sweet, and this sounded both really easy and really delicious. Fortunately I was right in both regards, and I could DEFINITELY see myself making these again. They're not quite as good as my M&M cookies, but they come very close.

Week 32 - Asparagus Stuffed Chicken

The Recipe
1 lb chicken breasts, butterflied
50g cheese, sliced or shredded
1/2 cup sundried tomatoes, cut into thin strips (use scissors! so much easier!)
~12 stalks asparagus
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp oregano
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 200C.

Lay the butterflied chicken down with the cut side up, add cheese, sundried tomatoes and asparagus. Fold one side back over and close with toothpicks.

In a small bowl, mix all the seasonings (paprika through salt and pepper) and season the outside of the chicken with the spices.

Heat oil in a large pan, add chicken and brown for 2-3 minutes on each side. Transfer to an oven-proof dish and cook for ~20 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.

Serve with potatoes.

The Verdict
Really good! I think next time I'll flatten the chicken breasts a bit after butterflying them, to make the chicken-to-filling ratio work better. But it tasted great the way it was, and hadn't gotten dry at all.