Chicken tonight? Accidental joy!

Finals looming.  The fridge half empty - pessimistic, I know. And a rather rumbly stomach.  These are the ingredients necessary, it would seem, to provide the inspiration required to create a better version of a household regular - the chicken tonight sauce.  I have to say that I happened upon this very much by accident, and in an effort to produce a healthy, carb loading, protein stacked dinner (for pre/post exercise purposes).  However it turned out to be not only healthy (ish) especially when accompanied by good old brown rice, but also a soothing supper for a revision wrought mind and body.  Here's how I made it...

My Chicken Today Revision Remedy (serves 1 extremely hungry individual, or 2 normal people)

2 chicken breasts, diced

1/2 aubergine, 1cm diced 

1/2 pepper (Colour of your choice) 1cm diced

1 large field mushroom, 1cm diced

1 Leek, sliced to about the thickness of a £1 coin

200ml vegetable stock

1 level tbsp plain flour, to thicken

A sprinkle of dried thyme

1 beef tomato, sliced in half (or 2 regular tomatoes)
40g Feta cheese, cut into cubes

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

A lug of olive oil for cooking

1) Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the chicken on a medium-high heat for 5-10 minutes until it is starting to pick up colour round the edges.  Then add the vegetables (except the tomato) and fry off for a further 5-7minutes, until it starts to soften.  Then add the thyme and the flour and stir it through until all traces of flour disappear.  

2) Add the vegetable stock, stir and place the tomato halves skin side down in the pan as well. Then cover and leave to simmer for 15-20 mins until the liquid begins to reduce and thicken a little, and the tomato has softened and can be broken up.

3) At this stage everything should be cooked so it's just a case of bringing the dish together.  Fish out the tomato skin, which should easily come away from the flesh, and also remove the tough core of the tomato.  Break up the remaining flesh and stir through the sauce.  Then crumble in the feta cheese and stir it through.  Now turn up the heat and watch the cheese transform the saucy, making it silky and rich.  Taste it and add the black pepper. Once all the cheese has melted and the sauce is rich and creamy in texture it's ready to serve.

Serve it with some brown rice like I did or with potato wedges or whatever carby accompaniment you fancy. I reckon it rivals a jarred sauce pretty steeply.  Yay for chicken and cheese!

Banoffee Joy - Even if you think you don't like it!

Tucking in with a little ice cream to
complete such decadence!

Puddings are not really my forte.  I eat them.  But unlike my close friends who flourish in the kitchen with flour and eggs and produce masterpieces of sugary heaven, I usually find the whole experience hyper-stressful... at least unless accompanied by excited compadres.  So it was with an optimistic outlook I decided to attempt to put together a dessert for a best friend's birthday.  A highly prized favourite, banoffee pie seemed the obvious and only choice to make, and having consulted a handful of slightly conflicting recipes, I plumped for a method which combined what I thought to be the best bits of all of them.  Fortunately the gamble paid off.  Now I have learned two valuable lessons from this sweet experience.  Firstly that cleaning a saucepan that is covered in caramel is as good a work out as a visit to the resistance machines at the gym that you pay £25 a month to use - sugar and condensed milk is definitely cheaper!  But secondly and most importantly, I really like banoffee pie and therefore am now  a humbly disproved sceptic.  The pie was constructed from a few BBC food/GoodFood recipes and I added a few dashes of ground cinnamon to the cream for a spicy twist.  After all toffee, banana and cinnamon - can't go far wrong there!  Furthermore the aforemetioned friendling loved it too - win!

The Pie chilling in the fridge... It improves after about 12 hours
so  this is definitely a pudding you can make in advance.