Looking out of the window earlier this morning, the garden seemed like it had been dusted with a sprinkling of finely powdered icing sugar, as a layer of frost had settled all over. Fresh, frosty mornings are always a good excuse to snuggle under the duvet for an extra five minutes (especially as it’s so cold at 5.00am)
, but every Wintry frost-filled day is another one closer to Spring. Evenings are beginning to stay lighter, plus we’ve had bright yellow sunshine & crisp blue skies, bringing a little hope that Winter is on the wane (although it’s been snowing up the road from here & I’m not shedding the thermals just yet).
Here we are speeding through January, the sugar-free month of sparseness & salads, wine denial & working out, when fast food becomes forbidden. Whether you’re worn out or just going without, it’s bound to make people a bit tetchy to say the least! At times like these, you need food that’s quick, easy & satisfying – when you’re not feeling up to much, the last thing you want to be doing is faffing around in the kitchen. Meals can become a bit boring if you’re not careful too. It’s far too easy to open a packet of something or do the dial-a-dinner thing, but they don’t tend to hit the spot very often or for very long (usually resulting in ransacking the cupboards for something else afterwards). This is where a little planning & preparation can help you have dinners done & dusted.
As you probably know by now, I’m a fan of being prepared & getting meals portioned up in pots, frozen for fast fixes of our favourite foods. Bread is blitzed into breadcrumbs, chucked in bags & frozen, ready for these occasions. At the weekends, I like to get a couple of chickens in & fillet them, freezing the legs in pairs (these are great for simply defrosting & chucking in the oven with some olive oil, lemon, fresh Rosemary & garlic) & the carcasses are turned into stock for risottos, soups & gravy (nothing gets wasted!). The chicken breast can be turned into a variety of dishes – my Friday Night Fakeaway or Aisha’s Kick Ass Curry spring to mind, but another favourite of ours is my baked crispy breaded chicken. This tasty panéed chicken dish is quite possibly the easiest 
meal to prepare, satisfying those cravings for fried fast food without actually being fried. Leftovers can be frozen for future lazy suppers, lunchtime wraps with salad or even sliced & tossed in pasta with a little homemade tomato sauce & a few roasted peppers. To pané means to coat in a little flour, egg & breadcrumbs (in my last blog, I did this with arancini to make crispy risotto balls). The only tip I will give is you need to keep one hand for the dry ingredients & one for the wet, otherwise you’ll end up with panéed fingers!
These beautiful breadcrumbed chicken pieces can be baked in the oven & dished up faster than a takeaway can be ordered & delivered (yes, really – plus they’re much cheaper & so much healthier, with no hidden ingredients). If you’re filleting a chicken, a medium sized one makes enough to feed four people generously, just add sides & a salad! Ready to try making your own? Hands washed, aprons on & here we go!
What you need:
2 large Chicken Breasts (you can get 8-10 pieces from this)
2 Eggs, beaten in a shallow dish with a tiny pinch of salt
8 slices of Bread (any bread you like)
2oz Plain Flour, in a shallow dish
Zest of a Lemon (wash it well in soapy water first!)
Quarter teaspoon Sea Salt
Quarter teaspoon freshly ground Black Pepper
Quarter teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
1 teaspoon fresh Thyme or Oregano (optional)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (about 2-3 tablespoons, but keep the bottle handy as you may need a bit more)
What to do:
Pre-heat the oven to 210*C & drizzle half the olive oil around the bottom of a roasting tin. Set aside for later.
Blitz the slices of bread, a few at a time, in a food processor until fine breadcrumbs.
Add the salt, pepper, herbs & lemon zest to the breadcrumbs, then give it a good mix. Set aside for now.
Prepare your chicken breasts. Using a sharp knife, slice them through the middle as if you were butterflying them – lay them flat on the board & slice across from left to right. Remove the small piece from underneath that looks like a mini-fillet. Taking a pair of kitchen scissors, cut out the white piece of thin tendon that will be sticking out (it won’t cook out, it will just make your chicken curl up & taste like chewy elastic).
Dip a piece of chicken in the flour & shake off the excess, then lay gently into the beaten egg.
Using your other hand (so you don’t pané your fingers), move the chicken about to coat in the egg, then shake to remove the excess.
Place the wet chicken piece into the breadcrumb mixture & coat well on both sides, patting it on to ensure even coverage.
Lay it in the roasting tin & repeat the process with all the other pieces of chicken, until all are breaded. Wash your hands thoroughly.
Drizzle the remainder of the oil generously over the chicken portions & place the tin in the centre of the oven for about 20 minutes. Halfway through cooking, give it a good shake to loosen them from the tin & flip them over. Because it’s thin, the chicken will cook faster & the crumb coating will stop it drying out.
When cooked, the breadcrumbs will be golden & crispy. Test one by cutting in half – the meat should be white inside. Transfer to a warm plate & serve immediately with homemade chunky chips & a crisp green salad or corn on the cob & minted petit pois. That’s it!
These crispy, crunchy chicken portions have a slightly spicy kick, so I like to serve them with a bowl of my chilled homemade tomato sauce (it’s not just reserved for pasta) or a cooling Greek Yoghurt dip to soothe the tongue. Blue cheese dip, salsa & pesto all go well with these too, so it’s up to you how you dress them up!
These breaded beauties are perfect for supper on the sofa, snuggled up with your other half & a glass of chilled wine or fizz. If there are any extra pieces, pop them in the freezer & defrost when you need them. Just reheat at 180*C in the oven for 10-12 minutes (poke with a 
sharp knife to check they are piping hot before eating), or simply layer them cold in a sandwich, wrap or salad for lunch the next day. Try adding a teaspoon of pesto to a tablespoon of Greek yoghurt, spread on seeded bread & pile up with pieces of crispy chicken & snipped up sundried tomatoes for a luscious lunch.
So when you’re craving crunchy crispy chicken, forget the dial-a-dinner & bake a batch of my beautiful breadcrumbed chicken instead! Stay hungry! A 😉 x
the end of November, I had already chopped, mashed & stashed an array of side dishes in readiness, cramming pots of fluffy potatoes, gorgeous gravy & cauliflower cheesiness into my freezer. Most of us work & don’t have the time to faff around in the kitchen, so a bit of prep now will make all the difference. It’s like giving yourself the gift of time! Because I’m covering a few things here, you will need some strong coffee to keep you going & a few Little Helpers to share the load (bribes at the ready if necessary!). This also works for Thanksgiving too.
exception. A week or two before, I make a mountain of mashed potatoes & a giant cauliflower cheese (sometimes with broccoli), then freeze them in two-person portions (for the recipe, click on this link to my blog: 
completely & I started making my own from scratch. It’s so simple, you can make it in advance & freeze it until you need it! If you prefer it inside the bird, just make your stuffing the day before, cover it & leave in the fridge. Depending on the size of your dinner party or the size of your bird, just increase quantities as required (I say “bird” because not everyone eats turkey, my family included, as we prefer chicken). Hands washed, aprons on & here goes!
1 large Onion, finely chopped
Sprinkle the Sage & Rosemary into the pan with a pinch of Thyme, add the breadcrumbs & stir well. The residual heat from the pan will bring everything together nicely, so just mix well. Season with a little sea salt & black pepper, stirring well again. If you’re adding the roasted chopped chestnuts or lemon zest, do this now.
If you’re making stuffing balls, get yourself an ice-cream scoop (spring-loaded will make your life easier & will also ensure they are all roughly the same size). Put some of the mixture into the ice-cream scoop (you don’t want to damage your pan by scraping it!) & press it in gently. Release the ball from the scoop, shape it into a nice sized ball in your hand & place on the greaseproof paper. Repeat until you’ve used the whole lot.
oven for about 15-20 minutes until golden brown on top, turning halfway. Once cooked, either serve immediately with your roast dinner, or place on a cooling rack (still on the greaseproof paper) & leave to cool completely. These can then be frozen & reheated on the day you want them. That’s the stuffing stuffed!
Once you’ve got your sides sorted, Christmas Day becomes a doddle – just take them out of the freezer the night before, pop them into an ovenproof dish to defrost & that’s it, prep done! They can be reheated in the oven while the bird is resting & the veg are roasting. This is also handy when unexpected extras turn up for dinner, because you’ll have a spare pot you can defrost (making you look like the most organised person ever & score major Brownie points!).
quality one that you like, then pimp it up with a few little tweaks. Simply scoop the whole lot into a small saucepan & break up with a wooden spoon, heating very gently. Add a shot of Sherry or Port, stirring carefully into the cranberry sauce. Sprinkle a little orange or lemon zest into the pan, about half a teaspoon, & stir gently for a minute or two. Pour it into a small dish to cool, then cover & put in the fridge until you’re ready to serve!
a pint into a jug. To remove any fat from the stock (that’s the golden bubbles you can see here), get yourself a few sheets of kitchen paper & touch it gently on the top – the grease will attach itself to the paper, which you can then throw away (no faffing around trying to separate it).
Remove from the oven & tip them onto a cooling rack. Either pile them up onto a plate for your dinner guests or let them go cold, bag them up & pop them in the freezer. Then when you fancy a Yorkshire pud, put them on a tray in the oven for about 4-5 minutes to reheat & crisp up – I like to use the residual heat from the turned off oven after cooking dinner. They’re also rather nice with a spoonful of jam & a drizzle of single cream (or tinned evaporated milk).
also the time of year my Husband & I met, so we always celebrate our first date (it involved a large Harley Davidson Sportster, a couple of hundred bikers delivering Christmas presents & rather a lot of tinsel!). 
Christmas Day. Some of these multi-tasking munchies can even be used as a starter, so make a few extra (which is my mantra, as you probably know by now). One of my favourites (& apparently everyone else’s!) are baked cheesy biscuits – you can serve them simply on their own or with a dip, or even pipe some cream cheese on them & decorate with chopped chives. They are really easy to make & the recipe is in my blog called “Grate Expectations” – here’s the link for speed: 
Scoop spoonfuls of the breadcrumb mixture into each mushroom – be generous & keep going until every mushroom is crammed full, then sprinkle with a little more cheese. Any leftover breadcrumb mixture, chuck it in the fridge for later (someone always turns up late or you might fancy a midnight snack). Scatter a few pine nuts over the top (these are gorgeous & have a sort of popcorn taste to them).
If you’re preparing them in advance, cover in cling film now & pop them in the fridge until you need them (they keep until the next day at least). Otherwise, bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden & gorgeous. These are great hot or cold, either on their own or with dips, or just with a green salad as a starter.
prepped by one of your Helpers a few days before, then stashed in the fridge in airtight containers or bags, ready to be whipped out with a delicious dip anytime! If you fancy something different, try raw crunchy cauliflower florets (one of my faves), sliced peppers, sugarsnap peas & mangetout. Give them a good wash, trim the ends & stand them in a cup. One thing I don’t do at this time of year is make dips – I really cannot be bothered & what with all the other stuff to do, just buy some nice ones & store them in the fridge until needed. Simply scoop them into individual tea cups with saucers & dinky spoons (saving your table from splodges), rather than leaving them in a plastic tray – even if they do have one of those optimistic re-sealable tops, dips always disappear first!
Measure your spices into a cup & carefully mix together. (Sometimes, I only use half this mixture & sprinkle the rest over chunky raw potato slices, drizzled in olive oil, to make spicy wedges in the oven – bake at 220*C for 25 minutes & serve with a cooling dip, like Greek yoghurt mixed with a few chopped mint leaves).
Take a couple of pieces of chicken, coat them in the egg & shake off the excess. Chuck them in the breadcrumb mixture & pat this onto the chicken to ensure it’s coated well. Place them into the roasting tin & repeat until you have coated all the chicken. Drizzle more olive oil over the top (drizzle, not drown).
Spread them on a huge plate for people to help themselves – turn it into a starter with a salad, a couple of potato wedges & a yoghurt & mint dip, or leave them to cool before freezing them in a bag until needed. Job done!