How to: homemade pesto (with wholewheat fusilli served with parma ham and sun dried tomato wrapped chicken breast)

So, another edition of my attempts of a 'how to' post , this isn't me trying to sound like an expert, just my tried and tested methods that I'd like to share. I've been wanting to make my own pesto for so long and it is a simple method and I'm sure people reading who have made it themselves would agree. Although saying that, for most people (myself include) grabbing a tin of pesto is much easier just making your own is more satisfying!

Ingredients

Makes enough for a pasta dish for 3 people.

100ml olive oil

1 packet pine nuts, roughly 50g

1 pack of fresh basil

80g Parmesan cheese, grated (basically a good handful)

Lemon juice, 1 tablespoon

1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed

The simplest way is to literally chuck everything into a food processor and whizz to desired consistency.

I did it in stages however, processing the drier ingredients first. So put the oil into the processor with the pine nuts and whizz.

Then add the basil leaves, parmesan, lemon juice and crushed garlic clove with a drizzle of olive oil over the top. Whizz up these ingredients and hey presto, you're done!






I served this with parma ham and sun dried tomato wrapped chicken breast. I'm slightly obsessed with sun dried tomatoes at the moment and how gorgeous they taste, all oily, bursting with flavour and it just reminds me of Italy!

If you want to try this as well, you will need the following ingredients:

Serves 3

A packet of mini chicken breast fillets
A jar of sun dried tomatoes (enough for the chicken and some to nibble on!)
A packet of parma ham

Olive oil

Lay a slice of parma ham on a chopping board. Place the mini chicken breast in the middle with one or two sun dried tomatoes on the top, then wrap up with the parma ham!



Arrange on a baking tray and pop in the oven at 200C for 35-40 minutes.

How to: herby parmesan breadcrumbed chicken

I attempted a breadcrumbed chicken meal the other day, which went surprisingly well! I thought it would be a cheaper and healthier alternative to shop or takeaway bought breadcrumbed chicken. It's not super crispy but I think this way makes the chicken taste very tender. You can also decide whatever ingredients you want in the breadcrumb mixture and make it more interesting and flavoursome. I wanted to go for a bit of an Italian theme with the meal, so I added basil and parmesan to the breadcrumb mixture and served with a creamy tomato tagliatelle and simple garlic infused roasted vegetables.

Serves 3

Ingredients (for the breadcrumbed mixture)

A packet of small chicken fillets (enough for 3-4)

2-3 slices of white/brown bread (minus the crusts)

1 tablespoon dried/fresh basil

50g parmesan (grated/shavings)

Olive oil

A few drops of lemon juice

Salt and Pepper

2 eggs

A good scattering of flour over a surface

Take the chicken fillets and lay on a chopping board and wrap in cling film, bash these out until they are nice and thin.

Prepare the breadcrumb mixture in a small food processor. Add the bread and the basil with a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice and give it a whizz. Add the parmesan and give a final whizz. Empty into a bowl.

Arrange your eggs in a bowl, the flour over a chopping/bread board and the breadcrumb mixture in a bowl.

Take turns dipping the chicken in the flour first, then in the egg mixture followed by the breadcrumb mixture, making sure it is coated well.

Get some olive oil going in a frying pan/griddle pan (I used a griddle pan which I prefer as it actually seems less greasy and you get the nice lines from the pan on the chicken!) then add the breadcrumbed chicken. It will cook pretty damn quickly as the chicken has been bashed to within an inch of its life so it is a lot thinner! Turn them over when they look sizzling and toasty on one side. It should literally take around 5-6 minutes to cook on both sides.

Then make sure your accompaniments are ready, and serve up! Yummy breadcrumbed chicken which is actually way healthier than what you'd buy AND you can actually make the coating more interesting. Enjoy!

How do you like your eggs in the morning?

Just a quick post, (I wanted to do a longer one but they do take me quite a while and I like to take my time) I realised I haven't covered breakfast on here yet which is by far my favourite meal of the day, I'm going through a bit of a weird phase at the moment where it seems too early to eat and can't seem to eat in the mornings anymore which annoys me because eating breakfast helps kickstart your metabolism into working! However, for those days that I do eat breakfast, I like to make quite a lot of effort and it usually involves eggs.

I prefer having poached eggs, it's so delicious when the yolk is lovely and runny! My poached eggs always look quite strange (just because of how they are done in the saucepan) but they do work!

My top tips are -

- use a saucepan full of boiling water - put a few drops of vinegar in (this helps the egg stay together) you can use white wine vinegar, malt vinegar or even balsamic vinegar. I quite like the taste of vinegar so I don't mind it when eating the egg but would recommend a couple of drops of malt vinegar if you're not a big fan!

- when the water is near bubbling pour the raw egg in, it may sort of spread out in the pan so gently using a wooden spoon push the egg so it's more together

- leave for around 3 minutes for a nice runny egg, the water may go crazy and bubble a lot so you will have to turn it down but by that time it is usually near done

- scoop the egg out of the saucepan using a slotted spoon so the water can drain through and you don't get soggy bread!

My breakfast of a sesame seed bagel with caramelised onion chutney, 2 poached eggs, pepper and a scattering of fresh thyme

(you will be able to see in the image what I mean about how the poached egg looks, but trust me, it's good and like a normal poached egg!)