Honey mustard chicken, lime and mint cous cous, chilli roasted vegetables and halloumi

A Mediterranean feast! This is a dish I've made many times, adding and taking away different components of it every time I make it, to try something new and get a different taste from the dish! I would recommend that all the ingredients that need to be chopped are done right at the start so they are to hand when you need them!

For 4 people

Ingredients

For the chicken (these are roughly the measurements I used, although I sort of just use what I think, so feel free to change or add different ingredients!)

8 chicken thighs (2 per person)

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper

1 teaspoon of dried thyme

2-3 bay leaves (chopped, not including the stalk in the middle of the leaf!)

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard

2 tablespoons honey

For the cous cous -

250g cous cous (or follow the directions given on the packet)

500ml boiling water with vegetable stock (Around 1 tablespoon/2 cubes)

Lime juice (and zest of 1 lime if possible)

Handful of fresh mint, chopped

For the roasted vegetables -

1 large sweet potato, peeled and roughly chopped

1-2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped

1 large red onion, roughly chopped

1 red pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped

1 courgette, thickly sliced

10 broccoli florets

1 block of halloumi, sliced

Large handful of flaked almonds (to garnish)

You will notice that this recipe is a lot about timing, it's a pretty simple recipe as long as everything is prepared before starting, then it's all about just shoving everything in the oven at the right time and preparing the cous cous pretty much right before serving!

Preheat the oven to 200C

First start off by chopping up all the vegetables, then put to one side.

Then marinate the chicken with all of the ingredients (except for the honey!) and arrange on a baking tray and pop into the oven for 40-45 minutes.

Arrange the chopped sweet potato and chilli on a baking tray and drizzle with oil, pop into the oven.

After about 10 minutes, take the sweet potato tray out of the oven and add the rest of the vegetables and mix around in the chilli oil. Pop back into the oven for a further 30 minutes.

Around 20 minutes later, take the chicken tray out of the oven and drizzle around 2 tablespoons of honey over the thighs, this will make them lovely and sweet and the skin crispy. Pop back into the oven for 10 more minutes.

Whilst the chicken and vegetables are on their last 10 minutes, get a non stick frying pan on a hot heat with a tiny drizzle of (garlic) oil. Then add the sliced halloumi and gently fry until lovely and brown. I usually just shake the frying pan rather than move the halloumi around with a wooden spoon, then quickly turn them over when each side is done. Once cooked, turn the heat off the pan.

Boil the kettle and pour around 500ml of water into a plastic jug, and add 1 tablespoon of vegetable stock. Pour over the cous cous and leave for a couple of minutes to soak up the water.

In the meantime, take the vegetables and chicken out of the oven and plate these both up.

Then mix the cous cous with a fork, until fluffy. Drizzle over the lime juice and scatter on the chopped mint leaves, mix and then plate up with the chicken and veg. Add a few pieces of halloumi on the side then scatter over a garnish of flaked almonds.

Starter - Crostini with minted courgettes (Two Greedy Italians)

I made this as a starter to a three course meal that I cooked for my family, I made the starter and main course and my mum made a beautiful bread and butter pudding for dessert. I thought I would show the starter and main course separately, as it would mean two posts that are more concise than just long!

This is from the Two Greedy Italians by Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo, a cookbook that I got for my birthday. There are so many meals I want to make from this; pretty much every recipe, but I ended up picking the first recipe of the book! It's a simple starter that requires little effort but can still appear impressive and is definitely tasty!

For 4 people.

Ingredients

1 large courgette, thinly sliced (or you could use a peeler to get wafer thin slices)

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

1 garlic clove, very finely chopped

10 mint leaves, chopped. Plus extra for garnish

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

1/2 ciabatta loaf, sliced (you may need to use more if you're cooking for more people!)

a handful of cherry tomatoes, sliced

Preheat the oven to 200C

Peel/slice the courgette and arrange on a baking tray, sprinkle with a little salt and drizzle with oil. Cook for 10 minutes until golden.

While the courgettes are cooking, you can make the dressing. Mix the olive oil, garlic, mint leaves, vinegar and a sprinkling of black pepper in a bowl.

When the courgettes are nicely browned, add to the dressing and mix. Leave to marinate for 10 minutes or so.

While it is marinating, pop the sliced ciabatta under the grill until toasty and golden.

When the ciabatta is cooked, arrange a couple of slices on a plate and top with the courgettes, a drizzle of dressing, a few cherry tomatoes and finish with a garnish of mint leaves! I also roasted some portobello mushrooms to have with it, and just roasted them with a bit of garlic oil and had on the side of the crostini.

exciting salads

So this caught my eye in Jamie's America a few days ago and I couldn't believe I hadn't taken notice of it before. It's a real, fresh summery salad with some of my favourite foods in it. Watermelon, lime, seeds, spinach (which was my addition to it), goats cheese and mint. The flavours tasted amazing together, the crunchiness of the seeds with the soft cheese and crunchy, watery melon. It's so easy as well and just makes salad that bit more exciting!

courgette, chickpea and mint soup à la Rosie

I haven't updated for quite a while, exams and revision! But I have still been busy in the kitchen and taking photos of meals, with a definite means to be putting them up sometime on the blog, just exactly when is another matter!

I made this soup a week or so back for me and my housemate, we had lovely crunchy toasted bread on the side and I think we were both avoiding some kind of revision!

This is a really gorgeous flavoursome soup from the one and only Rosie Lovell, I still love dipping in and out of Spooning with Rosie and reading her blog. Lots of inspiration and ideas!

I kind of modified the recipe slightly, in that I used less courgettes, but it was still lovely!

Ingredients

2 courgettes

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 garlic cloves (roughly chopped)

1 litre vegetable stock

1 x 400g tin of chickpeas (drained and rinsed)

a handful of fresh mint leaves (I used dried but still gave a lovely refreshing taste)

black pepper

1/2 lemon

Trim the courgettes, slice them lengthways in half then chop them into chunks. Heat the oil in large saucepan and drop the pieces in, frying and sweating them for a few minutes. Add the roughly chopped garlic cloves and fry for a few more minutes. Then pour over the vegetable stock and leave to simmer. Add the chickpeas and a sprinkling of dried mint/handful of mint leaves. Simmer for half an hour. Remove from the heat to cool slightly and then blend, but blend gently so that you leave chunks of courgette and the soup is not of a watery consistency. Season with black pepper and squeeze in the lemon juice.

Serve with toasted, buttery crusty bread, preferably sitting outside in a sunshine filled garden!

Love FF x