Cooking Eating Storytelling
Chicken & Mushroom Wonton Soup can be either a deliciously light starter to a meal or a hearty meal itself, it will come down to the size of your bowl and the amount of wontons you eat.
Wonton soup meals are deliciously luxurious with their silky sheets of egg wontons swimming in a hot bath of tasty, soothing broth. Throw in any vegetables and greens you like as once the stock is at simmer you can cook anything in it.
Happy slurping! Blondie 🙂
Lemon & Garlic Chicken w/ Chat Potatoes is a zesty full flavoured casserole that is super quick to whip up.
It is Bastille Day today, and even though I have no known French ancestry, well not in my immediate family tree, it’s always fun to work with a theme. This isn’t a traditional french dish but with it’s simplicity and flavours of lemon, garlic and thyme it certainly could be.
When most people think of french food they think it would entail the use of lots of ingredients, be loaded with cream or butter or be very labour intensive when it actually can be quite the opposite… fresh quality meats and seasonal vegetables with accents of herbs and other flavourings are what make the ease of french cooking into some of the most memorable meals you could make.
This one is no exception. Start with fresh, ‘happy’ chicken; keep the skin on and the bone in if you can as it adds a lot to the flavour. Don’t fuss around with too much prepping as the time it spends in the oven does all the work for you.
Jouir! Blondie 🙂
Chicken w/ Lap Cheong & Spinach is a deliciously juicy Chinese dish that can adapt to having whatever vegetables you want to use in it.
This is an adaption from a new cookbook I picked up from the library, Sweet Mandarin Cookbook by Helen & Lisa Tse. “Classic and contemporary Chinese recipes with gluten and dairy-free variations.” This is a book I will be adding to my collection, without doubt – so many great recipes and very simple.
I say adaption because I used a whole chicken broken down instead of the skinless chicken breast and English spinach instead of the Chinese cabbage, oh and sherry (which I personally prefer) instead of the Shaoxing rice wine. I didn’t need to thicken the sauce with cornflour but if you choose to use the chicken breast you may want to. Just add 2 tablespoons of cornflour or potato flour to 1 tablespoon of water, mix it well then pour in near the end and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring continually.
So delicious… Blondie 🙂
Crispy Thai Chicken Nuggets are so amazingly moreish you could quite possibly fall into a food coma if you made enough of them – hubby almost did!
With the last of my thai paste sitting idle in the freezer – there wasn’t quite enough left to make a family pot of thai curry, the next dream recipe that popped into my mind was deep fried chicken nuggets, and what an amazing lightbulb of a meal idea it was! These nuggets are so moist, so tender, full of amazing flavours and with the indulgent use of deep frying, deliciously naughty as well.
Balance out the meal with some steamed vegetables such as garlic beans and a stir fried zucchini noodle dish and you won’t feel so bad indulging in these bite size morsels of flavoursome chicken nuggets.
Tip: Don’t be tempted to make this dish a little ‘healthier’ by using chicken breast, as you need the fuller flavour of the chicken thighs as well as the moist meat that the thigh fillets have to successfully make these nuggets.
Make, indulge and enjoy… Blondie 🙂
Coq Au Vin aka Chicken in Wine Casserole… This is a classic french dish that is so full of flavour and character, and although it may appear to have lots of steps they kind of all fall onto each other so the actual process is really quite fast and uncomplicated.
It requires a 12 hour marinating time to fully marry the flavours with the chicken but if you were really pressed for time I’m sure you could get away with just a couple.
If it’s been a while since you have enjoyed this beautiful casserole then maybe it’s time to bring it back… or try the lighter version of Coq au Chardonnay.
Blondie
Sticky Chicken Wings w/ Spinach and Almond Rice is a delicious soft meat with a sweet, sticky, sauce that caramelises in a hot oven and, dare I say it, is lip smacking, finger licking good!
This marinade originally started as one I used to cook a whole chook in a wok with but with the volume of marinade left over, once cooked I used it for these extra sticky chicken wings – One of my biggest kitchen rules is, never throw out leftover sauces or juices from roasts. Freeze them and then you have on hand an amazing starter base for your next marinade, gravy or jus. As this marinade had been cooked once before it has a richness and depth that is equal to a slow cooked meal.
Freezing rules:
Raw (uncooked) and then defrosted foods or liquids, whatever it may be, CANNOT be frozen again WITHOUT being cooked prior.
Previously cooked food or marinades that have been frozen after cooking and then defrosted CANNOT be frozen again.
The Spinach and Almond Rice is the perfect accompaniment to the wings and the delicious sauce… you have to have something to mop up the juices.
Enjoy! Blondie
Coq au Chardonnay… Autumn is officially here and with the change of season comes a change in cooking. Long, slow, labour intensive meals start rolling around in your mind. Maybe a moussaka with it’s silky bechamel sauce, seasoned lamb mince and salted and grilled eggplant slices or wild mushroom arancini with a well rounded risotto base using homemade stock, letting it cool and lovingly forming balls to fry up the next day… ahhh, the joy of cooking.
As opposed to the above paragraph this Coq au Chardonnay is a relatively quick dish because you are using chicken (you can’t let it cook too long or you loose all the texture of the meat) but enjoy the process of chopping your vegetables, browning the chicken pieces and letting all the flavours develop together.
Coq Au Chardonnay is not unlike the French coq au vin, which is traditionally done with a red wine, but this version is a little lighter, maybe a little more autumn than the heavier red wine dish that has it’s place on my winter table.
Enjoy the cook 🙂
Blondie