Chicken and rosemary lentil traybake

I used the attached recipe as a base for the meal pictured below. 

The dish was enjoyable, but the recipe raised a few questions. Either the liquid volume or the timings seemed way out to me, but I'll make it again with adjustments. Despite giving everything extra time, the chicken skin was pale (which is fine, if you're not going to eat it, but I like it when it's crisp) and there was still a lot of liquid in the dish. This picture is of a re-heat, so the chicken looks a bit more the way I like it.

http://www.morrisonsmag.co.uk/march_2015/chicken_and_rosemary_lentil_traybake

Not having red onions, I cut 2 small leeks into 1in pieces, used dried rosemary, a yellow pepper, and pressed some garlic, as it gives a stronger flavour than sliced. It was accompanied by baby potatoes. (They were Charlottes, Lizzie. I know you like to know :)

8 chicken thighs

• 1 red onion, sliced into wedges
• 2 pointed red peppers, deseeded and sliced into rings
• 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 4 sprigs rosemary
• 200g green lentils
• 600ml chicken stock, made from cubes
  

1. Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/Gas 6. Make slashes in the skin of each chicken thigh, season and arrange in a large roasting dish. Roast for 10 minutes.
2. Scatter the red onion, peppers, garlic and rosemary around the chicken and toss well to mix the different elements together.
   
   Incidentally, I'm going to try using the leftover stock and lentils as the base for a soup. We'll see how that goes.
   

Kerala Prawn (Shrimp) Curry

For Valentine's Day dinner, we fancied a prawn curry.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1326/kerala-prawn-curry

• 2 red chillies split, cut into quarters lengthways and seeded
• 1 small red onion, chopped
• 2½ cm piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and chopped
• 1 tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil
• 1 tsp black mustard seed
• ½ tsp fenugreek seeds
• 14 curry leaves, fresh or dried
• ½ tsp turmeric
• ½ tsp cracked black peppercorns
• 250g jumbo prawns, leave some with their tails on if you like
• 150ml reduced-fat coconut milk

To serve

• a squeeze of lime
• chopped fresh coriander, plus a sprig or two
• freshly boiled basmati rice

We were very excited to find an Indian grocery store in the area that carried curry leaves. This was one of the ingredients and apparently there's no subbing on this so we went for fun to include them. Not to worry, though, it would be fine without it because it's not the flavor of curry that it brings but just a smokiness. We added a tomato to the food processor, just because there was an over-ripe one lying around.

We really enjoyed it. You'll have to ask Amy or Alistair what they thought since we brought them leftovers when we visited the next day.

Very Unrefined Chicken Soup

Here's a version of a soup which I put together fairly regularly. As Liz said, when I roast chicken, I keep the pan juices to "beef"-up the stock.  I Scotland I'd use "neep" (rutabaga) instead of sweet potato, and maybe a small leek, or cabbage, or any other vegetable that was to hand, but the onion and carrots are constants for me.
The soup in the photo was made this week, and it has Savoy cabbage in it. You could add any small pieces of leftover chicken.

Very Unrefined Chicken Soup

1 carton chicken broth
1 medium onion, diced
2 cups diced carrots
1 1/2 cups diced sweet potato
2 cups kale, finely chopped
1 or 2 garlic cloves, pressed
1/2 tsp dried thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

Bring chicken broth to a simmer, adding all ingredients as you do. Simmer for 45mins to 1hr..............ummm.....

that's it.

Mediterranean Cod

I saw a glimpse of this dish in a TV ad for Sainsbury's supermarket, and I thought I'd have a look at it. Fish and seafood would probably be my first choice from any menu, but I don't cook it as often as I'd like.

Onyhoo, here's the original recipe.
https://www.homemadebyyou.co.uk/recipes/main-courses/mediterranean-cod

The fish I used was fresh hake, but any firm white fish would do fine.
 Sainsbury's were promoting their frozen produce, but whether the ingredients are or aren't frozen is neither here nor there.
Not having any of the frozen stuff, I managed to chop an onion and a pepper, mince three cloves of garlic, and open a can of chopped tomatoes. I didn't have any black olives either (Liz says a few chopped Kalamata would do the job) but to lift the sauce a wee bit, I added a small, chopped birds-eye chilli.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 100g frozen chopped onion
• 1 tbsp frozen chopped garlic
• 230g tin Italian chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• 200g frozen mixed peppers
• 400g pack frozen responsibly sourced skinless and boneless cod fillets
• 50g pitted black olives
• 1 tbsp frozen chopped parsley
• 800g pack frozen microwaveable white rice