Roast Chicken With Creamy Lingonberry Sauce

Six ingredients make this a seriously tasty dish that’s as simple as combine, bake and baste.

If you don’t have lingonberry sauce, cranberry sauce works just as well!

You can mix the ingredients the day before you bake them if you want and this freezes well, just add a little more cream when you reheat it gently in the oven.

If you aren’t keen on chopping up a chicken, drumsticks, wings and thighs will work just as well.

Serves 6.

Ingredients

1.8kg whole chicken, cut into 10 pieces

4 tablespoons lingonberry sauce

2 tablespoons gluten free Worcestershire sauce

4 garlic cloves, crushed

250mls cream

Salt and pepper

 Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Centigrade.

In a roasting tin, combine all of the ingredients.

Cover tightly with foil and place in the oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes covered.

Remove the foil, baste with the sauce in the pan and return to the oven.

Bake for a further 30 minutes, basting regularly.

Once cooked and golden, remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Almond And Cherry Mini Cakes

With the start of cricket season here in Western Australia it is time to get back to baking for the shared morning teas when the boys play matches at their home ground.

These are lovely sweet treats that disappear quickly. Any leftovers freeze very well and are perfect for school lunch boxes.

Makes 48 mini cakes.

Ingredients

150g ground almonds, almond meal

140g gluten free plain flour

80g caster sugar

1 tablespoon gluten free baking powder

100g butter, melted

140g Greek yogurt

1 egg, beaten

125mls milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

140g cherry conserve

Method

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Centigrade. Line 2 x 24 hole mini muffin trays.

In a large bowl, combine the ground almonds, flour, sugar and baking powder. Give it a whisk to get rid of any lumps.

In another bowl combine the butter, yogurt, egg, milk and vanilla extract.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and begin to fold in, don’t over mix it.

Spoon the conserve into the batter in dollops and then fold in gently.

Spoon into the prepared cake tins.

Bake for 17-20minutes. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Spinach And Edamame Curry With Feta

Don’t you just love the colour of this curry?

It started of life with the plan to make a spinach and paneer curry, one of my favourites but in a bid to fill the boys up and get even more green into them I added the edamame, otherwise known as soy beans, you can find them in the freezer of your local Asian supermarket.

If you can’t find edamame frozen peas would work well too, just add them at the end so they don’t get over cooked.

Serves 6.

Ingredients

380g baby spinach leaves

Thumb sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced

2 large garlic cloves, peeled

1 onion, peeled and quartered

30ml oil

1 dried red chilli

1x5cm cinnamon stick

5 black peppercorns

400g shelled edamame/soy beans

200mls cream

200g feta, drained and cut into chunks

Salt to taste

Method

Boil a kettle full of water.

Place the spinach in a colander and slowly pour the entire kettle of just boiled water over.

Set aside to cool.

Once cool, squeeze the liquid out of the spinach by hand.

With a stick blender, whizz the ginger, garlic, onion, 100mls water and one third of the spinach to a paste.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat.

Once hot, add the chilli, cinnamon and peppercorns and fry for 1 minute.

Add the spinach and ginger paste and slowly simmer for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

Now whizz the remaining spinach with 175mls water and add this to the pan.

Simmer for 20 minutes.

Add the cream and edamame, simmer for 3 minutes and then add the feta, heat for around one minute and then serve.

Peanut And Lime Chicken Wings

In my house the boys go through real fads with what they will eat on their toast!

One of them went through a spell where lime marmalade was his spread of choice but it has gone out of favour so I wanted to use the leftovers up, coupled with peanut butter, garlic and soy sauce it makes a very tasty marinade!

Serves 6.

Ingredients

1.8kgs chicken wings, tips removed and jointed

120g peanut butter

80g lime marmalade 

50mls gluten free soy sauce

4 garlic cloves, crushed

Method

Combine all of the ingredients and leave to marinade for 2-8 hours.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Centigrade, line a baking sheet with baking parchment.

Tip the wings and marinade onto the sheet, turn them skin side up.

Bake for 45 minutes, marinating with the pan juices regularly.

Warm Cheese Dip

The magical combination of cheese and chilli in a dip.

This is one of those fab dips that you can make ahead of time and just pop it into the oven to warm up again. It freezes well and if you want to make it a bit more substantial add some cooked chopped meat, this one has some cooked chicken stirred through. Pulled pork, chorizo and slow cooked beef work well too.

Ingredients

50g butter

1 large onion, finely diced

4 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tablespoons smoked paprika

1 teaspoon chipotle chilli powder

1 tablespoon dried oregano

3 tablespoons gluten free plain flour

375mls milk

1x400g tin crushed tomatoes

200-300g cheddar cheese

Salt and pepper

Method

In a large pan, melt the butter, add the onion, cook until soft. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute.

Add the flour, smoked paprika, chipotle chilli and oregano to the pan and stir over medium heat for 1 minute.

Add the milk and tinned tomatoes and stir constantly until thickened.

Turn off the heat, add most of the grated cheese and stir until the cheese has melted.

Serve now or pour into oven proof dish, top with the remaining cheese and bake in a 200 degree oven until the cheese has melted and is golden.

Teriyaki Salmon

This is a nice quick dinner that my boys love. 

By scoring the fish the marinade goes deeper into the flesh and it reduces the cooking time, these fillets were 5+cm thick so if yours are thinner reduce the cooking time!

Serves 4.

Ingredients

2 x 300g salmon fillets, skin on

75mls gluten free soy sauce

2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon sake

1 teaspoon sesame seeds

Method

In a non reactive dish, combine the soy sauce, ginger, sesame oil, sugar and sake.

Take each fillet and lightly score with a knife, but not through to the skin.

Place the salmon, flesh side down, into the marinade and marinade for 20 minutes.

While the fish marinades preheat the oven to 220 degrees Centigrade or get you BBQ heated. If using the oven, line a baking sheet with baking parchment.

Gently remove the salmon from the marinade, place skin side down on the baking parchment, drizzle over a little more marinade and then sprinkle over the sesame seeds. If using a BBQ, I just pop the salmon skin side down onto the flat plate, sprinkle over the seeds and close the BBQ, it’s normally done within 5 minutes.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. Allow to rest for five minutes before serving.

Smoked Haddock with Spinach

I recently got my hands on some beautiful smoked Haddock from Scotland. Any firm fish, smoked or not, works really well here.

Serves 6.

Ingredients

800g baby potatoes, cooked and halved

400g baby spinach leaves

A little freshly grated nutmeg.

50g shallots, peeled and finely sliced

500g fresh of smoked fish

150ml cream

150mls mascarpone

40g fresh chives

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Centigrade.

Place the spinach in a large colander, pour over a kettle full of just boiled water, set aside.

Butter the inside of an oven proof dish.

Once the spinach is cool enough to handle, squeeze out the water and chop roughly.

Place the potatoes in the bottom of the prepared dish.

Sprinkle over the chopped spinach and grate over a little nutmeg.

Top the spinach with the shallots and then place the fish on top, I break it up a little.

In a jug, combine the cream, mascarpone and chives, pour this over the fish.

Sprinkle over a few more chives and then bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the sauce has thickened a little

Double Oregano Chicken

The oregano is growing like a weed in the garden just now so I am trying to come up with ways to use it up.

Serves 6-8.

Ingredients

8 large chicken thighs, bone in, skin on

15g fresh oregano leaves

6 garlic cloves

12 sun dried tomato halves

5g fresh parsley leaves

2 tablespoons dried oregano

45mls olive oil

Salt and pepper

Method

Whizz all of the ingredients, except the chicken, in a food processor to give you a thick paste.

Smear the paste all over the chicken and pop into the fridge to marinade for 4-8 hours.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Centigrade.

Place the chicken in a roasting tin, skin side up. Cover with foil and slide into the oven for thirty minutes.

After thirty minutes, remove the foil and baste the chicken with the pan juices, bake for a further 30-40 minutes, basting regularly, until the chicken is cooked through and well coloured.

Allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Breakfast Tacos With Harissa Potatoes And Corn

A seriously tasty breakfast taco, heaps of flavour and filling too!

Serves 2.

Ingredients

Oil

10 cooked baby potatoes, quartered

1/4 cup fresh corn

1 tablespoon Harissa paste

1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander

4 eggs

4 corn tortillas

Salt and pepper

Method

In a frying pan, heat the oil, add the quartered potatoes and fry for 5 minutes until they begin to colour a little.

Add the harrisa and corn to the pan and stir through with the potatoes, cook for 5 minutes.

Now, if you are using a big pan, move the potatoes and corn to the side and fry the eggs in the pan or oil another pan and fry the eggs.

Once the eggs are cooked, stir the coriander through the potato mixture, season well and divide between the tortillas, top with an egg and enjoy!