Chicken casserole

I have been eating a lot of chicken lately - I am not exactly sure why...but I'm on chicken dish number 3 for the week and I'm not actually bored. I am pushing myself to find the versatility in this little bird and so far I'm succeeding (thankfully), BUT it's not exactly difficult...Chicken is the epitome of...well...versatility. It's a blank canvas, you can't really go wrong, just pick a style (Italian, Asian, French etc) or flavour combinations that you know work well and just roll with it...

Lemon, thyme and green olive chicken casserole

Ingrdients: (serves 4)

• 8 chicken pieces (skin on, bone in)
• olive oil for frying
• 1/2 cup chicken stock (you can dissolve 1/2 a stock cube in hot water if you like)
• 2 lemons
• 1 packet green olives (drained, about 20)
• a few sprigs thyme (about 5)
• salt and pepper
• 3 tbs sour cream/creme fraiche 
• couscous/polenta to serve

Method:

Preheat oven to 180*C
Pour a little olive oil into a non-stick frying pan and place it on med-high heat. Season the chicken with a little salt before browning in the pan on all sides (about 8 min).
Remove from the pan and place into a medium-sized casserole dish, pour over stock, scatter over the olives, squeeze over juice from 2 lemons and drop the lemons into the dish, sprinkle over thyme and add a dash of pepper.
Cover with foil/lid and bake for 45 min, remove foil/lid and bake for a further 15 minutes.
Remove from the oven and stir through the creme fraiche/sour cream.
Serve with couscous/polenta.

Smoked salmon and cucumber canapes

A recipe and a funny story to help you get through your fist day back at work: 

Everyone I know had a great holiday. Everyone I know drank and ate a lot and was very happy doing so. And now everyone is finally back in Joburg and miserable as all hell...

Seriously, I went to a shopping centre this morning and all the food stores were rammed with people with sour faces buying their usual fill-the-trolley-to-the-brim weekly shop, with their snotty children screaming for chocolate bars (schools here open tomorrow and I know deep down most of those mothers can't wait to bid a fast farewell to their precious little bundles) and the queues were as long as they were on Christamas eve - only now there were no jingle bells or cascades of laughter because everyone was filled with the dread of having to wait for another year until they'll once again have a bloody holiday. It's depressing. I would avoid it at all cost if I were you.

But then I decided to go to the gym. Now I think most of you out there would agree with me when I say that the gym is a place of interesting and amusing characters at best of times but the comedy  tragedy tragicomedy today was just over the top. I signed up to a new gym and got a free personal-training session (I was dreading it); I sat at the waiting desk and asked around for Eddie and, true as Bob, Eddie was the biggest, meanest looking personal trainer I have ever seen. He told me I needed to 'pump more iron'. I held back the laughter because, despite the continual Arny references, he was a good guy and he meant well. He then weighed me...I've put on 3 kilograms...in 3 weeks...it happens. Eddie helped me pump iron and pointed out my fat bits (because I obviously didn't know they were there) and told me I should burn fat not weight and eat protein - lots and lots of protein - and protein shakes and bars and tablets that make you lose fat and not weight. I nodded and smiled. On my way out of the gym there was a queue of women at the scale, yes a queue, all waiting to weigh themselves (I felt their pain) and 99% of whom I am willing to bet had put on (in their minds) colossal amounts. They all looked seriously depressed and I wanted to buy them all an ice cream.

From the gym I took my fat bits and went to do my banking and get the car washed. The bank was carnage (naturally) and the car wash took an hour and a half and not 45 minutes - as advertised. It was hell. I finally left after sighing loudly for half an hour while 2 guys did their best to finish cleaning my car and ignore my loud sighing...only to be called by the bank to say that they forgot to ask me to sign something and they needed me to come back. I went back and I smiled and I signed and I left.

I didn't scream once today. It was hard at times but I stopped myself. I observed; I saw all the dear people feeling exactly how I felt and it made it all better. We're all in the same boat. No one wants to go back to work, everyone wishes they hadn't spent so much money, no one likes going grocery shopping and there is not a single person I know who had a good holiday and, on returning, doesn't have fat bits. C'est la vie. In a few weeks you'll have lost the fat, been payed again, not care about your car being dirty and still hate grocery shopping.

In the meantime I am putting together 3 recipes that are all about salmon and health and hapiness. The first is a no-carb canape/starter that I dedicate to Eddie; It's low in fat and high in protein and one of the few canapes I've thought of that isn't wrapped in pastry or deep fried. So here's to saying goodbye to the fat bits and hello to a superb 2013:

Smoked salmon and cucumber canapes

Makes 8-12
Ingredients:

• 1 large cucumber
• 3 large gherkins (cut into quarters length-ways)
• 100-125g smoked salmon
• 250g danish feta
• dill (12 sprigs)
• black pepper
• olive oil and lemon wedges to serve

Method:

• Using a peeler, make long strips of cucumber by running down one side of the cucumber lengthways until you have peeled through the entire thing.
• Cut the salmon into 8-12 even strips, equal in length to the gherkin and do the same with the feta.

• Lay the strips of cucumber out on a flat surface and place the slices of salmon at the edge of each strip. Place the gherkin quarters, feta and sprigs of dill on top of that and grind over a little pepper.

• Roll up the cucumber to encase the salmon etc until you have a sealed sausage shape and repeat.
• To serve, sprinkle with a little olive oil and lemon wedges.

Salmon Fish Cakes

This is a great recipe if you had potatoes last night and have some left over, it's also a great recipe if you didn't. It's a great little dish.

Fish cakes, fish cakes, fish cakes. Say no more

Salmon Fish Cakes

Ingredients: (Makes 10)

• Handful coriander
• Handful dill
• 1 small red onion
• 400g cooked new potatoes
• 420g canned salmon/ 350g cooked, fresh salmon (if using the canned variety, remove excess bones and skin)
• 1 tbs sesame oil
• juice of 1/2 large/1 small lemon
• 1 tbs soya sauce
• 1 large, mild red chilli (chopped and deseeded)
• 1 egg

• oil for frying
• Lemon wedges/sweet chilli sauce and salad for serving 

Method:

• Pop the coriander, dill and red onion into a food processor and blitz, add the potatoes and blitz a few more times to give you a chunky mash (If you don't have a processor simply chop everything finely and mix together)
• Transfer to a mixing bowl, flake in salmon and add the remaining ingredients, mix well, cover and pop in the fridge for 1/2 an hour.
• Shape into 10 medium-sized fish cakes.
• Pour a good glug of oil into a non-stick frying pan and place on med-high heat. Fry the fish cakes in batches, turning 2-3 times until browned and crisp on the outside, about 10 mins.
• Serve with salad.

Pears in mulled red wine

This is a fool-proof dessert. Literally. Anyone with a bottle of plonk and half a brain can make it and yet, I so seldom see it done. It's one of those glorious-looking, can't stuff it up, serve it hot or cold or even the next day wonders.

I was in Kenton visiting my mother for the weekend and my uncle had flown out from England to surprise us so it was a full-on family do. The weekend was a menagerie of laughter, food and wine, all culminating in a big Sunday lunch on my last day. He loves desserts, so when planning the spread I had to bear this in mind. Cooking desserts away from your own kitchen is a bore; there's always something vital missing in the pantry, the oven never works in the way you want it to and something inevitably flops, but that's where this dessert comes in handy; pears, wine, sugar, cinnamon, you can get these four ingredients anywhere in the world, no oven, no worries and every time I've made it, it has the 'wow' factor.

Avoid family arguments, keeping everyone happy. Make this.

Pears in mulled red wine

Ingredients: (serves 4-6)

• 4-6 pears
• 1 bottle red wine
• 1 tsp cinnamon/2 sticks cinnamon 
• 1/2 cup sugar
• Ice cream/ mascarpone cream to serve

 Method:

• Put pears in a deep saucepan, pour in sugar, wine, cinnamon
• Cover and simmer for 20 min, turning pears occasionally to ensure even colouring, until pears are just soft, remove pears and boil syrup for a further 15 minutes until reduced and thickened.
• Serve warm or cold with ice cream or mascarpone cream.

Mascapone cream:
whip 250ml cream until stiff and, in a separate bowl, whip 1 tub of mascapone to loosen it, then add the seeds of 1 vanilla pod or some vanilla paste, fold the mascarpone into the cream and refrigerate until needed.