Crispy sticky chicken with squashed potatoes and tomatoes

I've had this recipe bookmarked for a while now - we were given the Jamie Olivers - Jamie at Home for Christmas and I immediately fell in love with this dish, even more so after seeing it being made on Jamie's show. Then seeing Peter from Kalofagas make this dish back in March made me want to try it even more!!!!! So this is my entry to my Bookmarked Recipes event for this Monday.

This is a wonderful dish, it takes a little longer than most weeknight meals to prepare but it is totally worth it. I halved the recipe that Jamie gives but it was a really tasty dish that I should have made more of because we had no leftovers and wanted more when we were done.



Here's Jamie's recipe, but with some of the steps reordered to help save a little time in the preparation of this meal:

Crispy sticky chicken with squashed potatoes and tomatoes

Serves 4

Ingredients
800g new potatoes, scrubbed
See salt
Freshly ground black pepper
12 boned chicken thighs
Olive oil (I used my new bottle of Oleifera)
600g cherry tomatoes (I halved the number of tomatoes because I knew Rob wouldn't be having any)
Fresh oregano (I couldn't find any in the several supermarkets and green grocers I checked out so ended up using dried oregano)
Extra virgin olive oil (Again I used the Oleifera)
Red wine vinegar

Recipe
1. Cut each chicken thigh into strips and place in a bowl. Add a little olive oil and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Toss the chicken to coat.
2. Put the potatoes into a large saucepan of salted boiling water, and leave to boil until cooked.
3. Prick the skins if the tomatoes with a sharp knife and place then into a bowl. Cover with boiling water and leave for a couple of minutes. Drain and leave to cool slightly, then peel off the skins and place them into an oven proof dish.
4. In a large frying pan/skillet, cook the chicken for about 10 minutes then remove to the oven proof dish.
5. Preheat oven to 200˚C.
6. By now the potatoes should be boiled. Drain off the water. Crush each potato slightly with a spoon and mix in gently with the potatoes and tomatoes.
7. Bash up a bunch of oregano with some salt, 4 tbsp EVOO, a good splash of red wine and a little pepper. Pour over everything in the oven dish.
8. Cook in the oven for 40 minutes until golden.

Mini blogger meet up

Well last night was fun! Craig McGill who was my contact for going to Enjoy the Taste of Scotland a couple of weeks ago, emailed last week asking would I like to meet up for drinks because he'd be in NI for a day or so. He asked if I could email a few other food blogger type folk from the NI area and ask them to join in to hear more about plans for a possible NI event. Most of the replies were a 'no' due to work/family commitments, for some a weeknight just didn't suit and living a little too far from Belfast for some factored in to the decision making. However there was a couple of yeses and so plans were made to meet in the Kitchen Bar which had to be changed seeing as they were having some live entertainment so we ended up changing plans on Wednesday to meeting in Brownes on Boucher Road which was a great spot, not too noisy and we ended up having some really tasty food (battered squid, chicken goujons, cheesy garlic bread and chips for nibbles followed by chocolate fudge cake and strawberry cheesecake).



There ended up only being 3 of us due to some last minute changes of plans of other folk which was a shame but still a good meet up. There was myself, Craig and the well known and loved Grannymar. I'd never had a meet up with other bloggers so it was quite exciting for me. We spent some time chatting about local food and tastes, about some of the places to visit for foodie treats in Belfast and also a lot about blogging, which was inevitable really! But we also spent some time talking about the Scottish food event Craig was involved in organising and about the idea of a Northern Irish event. I'll be excited to see the outcome - it would be great to have an event like the Enjoy the Taste of Scotland because we can often take for granted the products that we have on our shelves. However like I said in my review of ETOS I hope that some of the food producers do some cookery demos with their food for new creative ideas of what to make with them as well as allowing people to sample them as they are (unless it's meat or something else that should really be cooked!!!!).

I'll keep you all updated with any.... erm.... updates (:-S Yes I do need to work on my sentences!) Watch this space!

Top 10 Food Pics Tag

Rosie from Rosie Bakes a Peace of Cake has tagged me for a really fun meme type thing -

Top 10 food pics......

This tag consists of me choosing 10 of my top food pics and in return tagging 5 people to choose 10 of their tops food pics.

This was difficult seeing as almost all my photos are taken on my phone which isn't really the best camera, but I'm hoping to get a better camera soon anyways. So here's my pick of the pics in no particular order.

Strawberry and Champagne Cupcakes


Sweet Pepper Pasta Sauce


Ulster Fry - Potato Bread and Soda Bread


Canary Pudding


BBQ Ribs


Roast Beef


Basic Chocolate Cake


Rhubarb from my Rhubarb Strudel


Swiss Roll


Perfect Party Cake




People being tagged for this are:
Deborah at Taste and Tell
Sarah at Homemade
Jaime at Good eats n sweet treats
That Girl at Paved with Good Intentions
Dell at Cooking and the City

Mum's Victoria Sponge

It's been a while since I've made something from my Mum's cook book and on Saturday I really wanted to bake something. So I got Mum's book out and opened at the recipe for victoria sandwich, had all the ingredients to hand and it looked like a quick cake to put together so I had to make it, right?

I made a few changes to Mum's recipe and added vanilla to the mix seeing as I have lots of vanilla pods to use up! And also baked the batter in one tin instead of 2, then sliced it in half, spread raspberry jam in the middle and sandwiched it together again. I also found halfway through baking that I needed to turn the temperature down in the oven as the outside was a lovely golden brown while the middle was still gooey. The resulting cake was quite dark on the top but nothing a little icing sugar won't hide ;-)

I took the cake to my youth group for testing and they loved it..... mind you they love pretty much anything edible!



Anyways enough of my ramblings, here's the recipe:

Mum's Victoria Sandwich

Serves 8

Ingredients
6 oz softened margarine
6 oz caster sugar
6 oz self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
Seeds from 1 vanilla pod (my addition to the recipe)
3 large eggs
2-3 tbsp raspberry jam
Icing sugar

Recipe
1. Preheat the oven to 190˚C (I had to reduce this to 165˚C to prevent the cake from being burnt). Grease a 6-7" cake tin and line the base with baking paper.
2. Combine the margarine, sugar, flour, baking powder and vanilla seeds and mix well with a hand mixer.
3. Mix in the eggs one at a time.
4. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.
5. Remove cake from oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes.
6. Remove cake from tin and leave to cool for 5 minutes.
7. Slice the cake across the middle to create 2 layers. Spread the jam on the bottom layer of the cake then replace the top of the cake. Dust with icing sugar then serve.



Nilmandra from Soy and Pepper tagged me a while ago for the 6-word meme which I had forgotten about until now! (Sorry Nilmandra) I've done this meme twice already here and here, but I'll give it another go, but I'll not nominate people for it.

Smart
Resourceful
Sensitive
Musical
Positive
Friendly

I've also been awarded a "You make my day" award from Dell of Cooking and the City which totally made my day. Last time I received this award I passed it on to 12 people and this time I'm awarding it to everyone to comes along to visit my little corner of the web because you really do make my day and make writing this blog even more worthwhile! Thank you!
Finally lovely sweet Maria of The Goddess's Kitchen has given me an "I love you this much" award. Thank you Maria! You made me blush!
So now I get the honour of passing it on to a few people too! I really truly love all the blog that I read but I wanted to mention a couple of people.

1. Sio at Cake Creations
2. Priscilla at Priscilla bakes
3. Pixie at You say tomahto I say tomayto
4. Miss.Sarah at Geeky pants

Bookmarked Recipes 4

Here's this week's round up of of Bookmarked Recipes and this week we have some more great recipes from some more great bloggers:



Neen and Do, who are based in Washington DC, from Post Collegiate Cooking a Deux made Pasta with Creamy Tomato Sauce based on a recipe from Cooks Illustrated Magazine. I love pasta, especially with creamy tomato sauces - I would love this dish myself!



Next up is.... Ann from Redacted Recipes in NYC made Asparagus Gruyere Tart that was bookmarked from The Perfect Pantry. I think you'll agree that this tart look delicious!



Marija from Palachinka based in Serbia made some really beautiful Okara Waffles - a recipe she found on Toontz' blog Okara Mountain. These look fantastic - i love the drops of jam and chocolate in each of the dimples!



Nilmandra from Soy and Pepper has joined in again and served up tray baked salmon with green beans from Jamie Oliver's book: Jamie's Dinners. What a great meal to set in front of anyone! Looks fantastic!



Deeba in North India from Passionate about baking... & beyond made some beautiful molten toblerone hearts for Mother's Day based on Dhanggit's recipe found on her blog . They look so pretty and sound so tasty... really anything with Toblerone has to be good!!!!



Dell of Cooking and the city joins us again from the land "Down Under" with some fab Butterfly Cakes from Taste.com/au. These are fit for any birthday party.



This week I made some Blackened Chicken from a recipe I found on Erin's Eats who in turn found it on Allrecipes. It was a great meal which I'm sure I'll be adding into my list of regular dinners.




Thanks everyone for your submissions!!! It get's better all the time!

That's it for this week. Remember if you want to take part here's all you have to do....
1. Pick a recipe from a book/magazine/blog/website/tv show and make it. (Note you can only submit 1 recipe per week)
2. Blog about it
- include where you got the recipe in your blog post (including a link to their website if possible)
- include a link to this post or this blog in your blog post
- include the logo (see above) for Bookmarked Recipes in your blog post
- include a photo of your recreation on your blog post
3. Email bookmarkedrecipes[AT]gmail[DOT]com with the following information:
- Your name and where you're from
- The name of your blog
- The permalink for your entry
- A photo of your entry
- A note of where you got your recipe from

Every Monday I will post a round up of all the entries here on my blog for everyone to see, share and maybe even try for themselves!

Foodie packages

On Wednesday this week I came home to a few packages that had been delivered and I was very excited! Generally I'm quite excited about any package - like a kid at Christmas or something.

The first was a package from Oleifera who I had met at Enjoy the Taste of Scotland a few weeks ago. I was so excited, I had given them my address to have a sample bottle sent out to me and I was surprised that they had sent it and also that they'd sent such a large bottle!!!!



It's rapeseed oil that has half the saturated fat that olive oil has, can help to lower cholesterol, has your essential omega 3 and omega 6, and even has a high smoke point. I'm really looking forward to getting to use this in a few recipes - and then blog about it ;-)

The second package was something I had ordered on Ebay after seeing Megan from Megan's Cookin had ordered some herself. I ordered 60 vanilla pods for £12 with free P&P! Bargain seeing as it's £2.50 for 2 at my supermarket!



Stewie couldn't resist sneaking into photos again.... silly pup.



Anyways I can't wait to get using all this now!!! I'll have to come up with some exciting recipes for these ingredients!

iFoods Food Blog Database

Niall at iFoods just posted about how he and his team have completed a huge search of the interweb and created a database of what should be EVERY food blog in the world!!!!! How cool is that?

However they fear a few may be missing (like mine is at the minute) so have a look and see if yours is there and also spread the word about this great resource!

Blackened Chicken

I've been saying for the past few weeks that my next bookmarked recipe submission would not be from my Easy Food Magazine and this week it isn't!!!! Rob was having a steak tonight so I planned to do one of my bookmarked chicken recipes for myself. I had a quick look through the links I've had saved and decided on blackened chicken by Erin at Erin's Eats that she had found on Allrecipes. It was fantastically easy and quick to throw together and leave to bake allowing me to get on with some other quick chores before serving dinner. It was also really tasty, I'm sure I'll be making this again.

Had a minor catastrophe though - I had started to sauté the mushrooms to go with this in some butter and oil while Rob started frying his steak, then he turned up the heat on what he thought was his steak but turned out to be my mushrooms so they've turned out blacker than the chicken.



Blackened Chicken

Serves 2

Ingredients
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (pounded thin)
Salt, to taste
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (I used chili powder because I had no cayenne)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon onion powder (I left this out because I had none)

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 170˚C. Line a small baking dish with aluminum foil and coat with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Rinse the chicken breasts under cool water and pat dry with a paper towel. Season both sides with salt.
3. Combine the remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Once combined, rub the spice mixture on both sides of the chicken. Place the chicken in the prepared baking dish and bake for 20-30 mins, or until no longer pink and the juices run clear.

Minty crispy treats

I was given some Maltesers and Terry's Twilight chocolates for my birthday this week and my first thoughts were to make tasty treats from them.... I've gone past the point of just enjoying them as they are to wanting to morph them into other things. Well we did end up just eating the maltesers as they were and very yummy they were indeed!



The Terry's Twilight however were used in a traybake recipe today and here's what I did:



Minty crispy treats

Makes 16 traybakes

Ingredients
300g milk chocolate
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 cups crunched rice krispies
1 box of terry's twilights (about 24-26 individual sweets)
50g white chocolate

Recipe
1. Put some water on to boil in a saucepan and place a glass bowl on top.
2. Add your chocolate and golden syrup to the bowl and melt.
3. Stir in the rice krispies, then spread the mixture into a 6"x6" tin and press down using a metal spoon.



4. Clean your glass bowl and place on top of the saucepan again.
5. Add your twilight chocolates and allow to melt. Spread over the top of the pressed down krispie chocolate mix.
6. Clean the bowl again and place on top of the saucepan again.
7. Add the white chocolate to the bowl and allow to melt then drizzle over the top of the minty chocolate layer.
8. Leave to set in the fridge for 1-2 hours, then remove and slice into 16 portions.




I'm so glad I had one before I took them to my youth group because they were gone before I got a chance to have another one!

For people who don't have the privilege of having twilights I suggest just buying some minty flavoured chocolate and giving this a go anyways!

Bookmarked Recipes 3

Here's this week's round up of of Bookmarked Recipes and this week we have some more great recipes from some more great bloggers:



Sarah, from Homemade in Arizona, made some Thunder cupcakes. She decided to celebrate Mexican Children's Day with the children in her class and made a recipe from one of their story books! What lucky kids! I love the look of these!



Kathy from Tazmania of The Ramblings of a Student Wife made some Fresh Strawberry Scones from a cookbook called Bread and Muffin Perfection. I love having strawberries with scones but never thought to put them in the scones. I'll be bookmarking this one myself!!!



Dell of Cooking and the city in Melbourne Australia joins us again with Penne alla vodka from Nigella Lawson's book: Feast. I've had penne alla vodka bookmarked for quite some time myself, I really should try it!



Psychgrad from Canada of Equal Opportunities Kitchen has made a recipe I remember reading recently: French Onion Bread Soup which was bookmarked from Deborah's blog Taste and Tell. I really loved the look of this soup the first time, seeing it again is making me love it more!



Finally my submission for this week is Chocolate melting moments from Easy Food Magazine.



Thanks everyone for your submissions!!! It get's better all the time!

That's it for this week. Remember if you want to take part here's all you have to do....
1. Pick a recipe from a book/magazine/blog/website/tv show and make it. (Note you can only submit 1 recipe per week)
2. Blog about it
- include where you got the recipe in your blog post (including a link to their website if possible)
- include a link to this post or this blog in your blog post
- include the logo (see above) for Bookmarked Recipes in your blog post
- include a photo of your recreation on your blog post
3. Email bookmarkedrecipes[AT]gmail[DOT]com with the following information:
- Your name and where you're from
- The name of your blog
- The permalink for your entry
- A photo of your entry
- A note of where you got your recipe from

Every Monday I will post a round up of all the entries here on my blog for everyone to see, share and maybe even try for themselves!