Sesame seed tossed chicken on spinach and potato

Toasted sesame seed, honey and mustard chicken.

Posted on September 20, 2014 by sheila kiely

Toasted sesame seed, honey and mustard chicken.

You are going to love me for this one. It’s healthy, it’s tasty, it’s quick, it’s easy and it uses store cupboard ingredients. Well maybe you don’t have a big bag of sesame seeds in your cupboard but that’s easily rectified and when you do they’ll be sitting there looking at you going ‘hey, you only used a handful of us in the last 6 months, what’s happening?’ It’s the same with poppy seeds you buy them specifically for one recipe, you get thousands in the bag and only use a little in a cake or something and the rest just wait and wait uselessly taking up cupboard space. I think poppy seeds would work really well with this recipe too. You do need to like the texture thing though, that bitey nutty crunch that the seeds will bring. My kids chased the extra sesame seeds with the baby potatoes so it got the thumbs up in my house anyway.

I did mention already that this is quick too – it takes 20 minutes which I think is amazing and it looks fantastic served up on a big help-yourself platter.
I’m giving you two recipes here, one for the chicken and one for the baby potatoes which cook in the same time so get the potatoes on to boil while you work away on the chicken and it will all come together in the twenty minutes. When you mix the mayo and vinegar it goes quite watery but don’t worry it’s perfect when poured over the hot potatoes and spinach and combines to give a lovely dressing, watch out though when the vinegar hits the heat the vapour may blow your head off – it tastes great though!
Baby potatoes with mayo wilted baby spinach
You will need:
1 small bag baby potatoes
1 small bag baby spinach
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
Method:
Put the baby potatoes on to boil until tender (approx. 15 minutes)
Drain the potatoes and add to a large bowl with the baby spinach leaves.
Mix the mayonnaise and white wine vinegar together and stir this through the hot potatoes and wilting leaves.
Serve.

Toasted sesame seed, honey and mustard chicken.
You will need:
1 tbsp toasted seasame oil
1 tbsp runny honey
1 tbsp whole grain mustard
4 chicken breasts
4 tbsp sesame seeds
Method:
Pre-heat the fan oven to 200C
Mix the sesame oil, honey and wholegrain mustard together in a small bowl
Place the chicken breasts on a baking tray and brush all over with all of the sesame oil mixture
Cook in the oven for 10 minutes then remove tray from oven, turn chicken over and use a spoon to cover all over with the escaping marinade. Return tray to oven and cook chicken for a further 10 minutes.
Meanwhile dry-fry the sesame seeds in a small frying pan over a high heat continually tossing the seeds until they start to turn a nutty brown. Remove from heat and place in a large bowl.
Once chicken is cooked toss in the bowl of toasted sesame seeds.
Serve immediately. Great served on bed of wilted baby spinach and baby potatoes.

Enjoy.
‘Til next time, Sheila

Baking Day, Recipes

Banana and Peanut Butter Bread (well it’s cake really)

Posted on September 11, 2014 by sheila kiely

Banana and Peanut Butter Bread.

Yes, well you are really kidding yourself here if you think you are tucking into a healthy slice of bread. This is an indulgent cake. That’s not to say it isn’t healthy but if you eat the whole thing it will make you fat, as will eating an entire loaf of bread. So just have the one slice. If you can. Because this is one delicious cake and you’ll have to pray that the rest of your household will save you from yourself and nibble away at it too.

My sister in Melbourne tells me that banana bread is everywhere and she passed on this fabulous Donna Hay recipe (come home soon Aileen). Donna Hay’s recipes and photographs make me cry they are so beautiful. Go on have a look and bring a hankie.

Banana and Peanut Butter Bread (from Donna Hay – slight adaptions quantities & cooking time etc.)

You will need:
125g butter
175g brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 over-ripe bananas
3 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
225g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
80ml maple syrup or golden syrup
Method:
Pre-heat a fan oven 10 160oC
Line a loaf tin by greasing it with a little butter and laying a long sheet of baking paper along the bottom and up both ends (no need for paper on all sides as it will lift out if sufficiently greased)
Cream the butter and sugar together with electric mixer and add the vanilla extract.
Beat in the eggs.
Add all remaining ingredients, folding them in with a spatuala or wooden spoon rather than using the mixer as you want to gently combine everything without completely pulverising your banana and peanut butter.
Pour the mixture into a baking tin and bake for 60-70 minutes (testing with a skewer)
Cool in the tin for 20 minutes or so and then remove from tin and allow to cool on wire rack.
Enjoy!
‘Til next time, Sheila.

Food & Health

Clonakilty Gluten Free Cuisine

Posted on August 29, 2014 by sheila kiely

A handful of times a year I get to walk through the doors of Scally’s SuperValu in Clonakilty and each time my reaction is the same – WOW! You know the type of gasps that you would emit if your were ever front-row at Paris Fashion Week , well it’s like that, only it’s not a fashion emporium it’s a food emporium. I consider Scally’s SuperValu Clonakilty to be a bit of a mecca for the food lover, akin to a visit to the food hall at Harrod’s in London. The deli and display counters are immense and it’s a pleasure to shop there when I get the opportunity.
The latest exciting venture at Scally’s SuperValu in Clonakilty is the development of their ‘Clonakilty Gluten Free Cuisine’ range, designed to meet the demands of the coeliac customer whose condition requires adhering to a gluten-free diet for life.

The range which consists of almost 30 gluten-free products certified for coeliacs will be available at Scally’s SuperValu Clonakilty and Scally’s SuperValu Blackrock in Cork city.
As with their shops the food is top quality and I’ve been sampling some of it over the last 10 days; delicious soups, moist cakes, scrumptious savoury dishes and superb sauces – we’ve been raving about the pepper sauce in my house & the wonderfully chunky chowder. Being a fan of Scally’s SuperValu I was delighted to review a selection of ‘Clonakilty Gluten Free Cuisine’ that they provided to me, the images were also provided.
For a speciality food range that requires stringent manufacturing conditions and thus large investment, Scally’s have managed to keep their price point competitive with a brown soda bread (450g) being 2 euro for example.

Wishing Scally’s SuperValu Clonakilty the very best with their exciting new range ‘Clonakilty Gluten Free Cuisine’.
‘Til next time, Sheila.

Recipes, What's for Dinner Mom?

Feta and Chickpea Salad

Posted on August 19, 2014 by sheila kiely

Feta and Chickpea Salad

One of my daughters is an avid salad lover like myself. It is my saving grace that I like to stuff my face with healthy salads and vegetables and don’t leave too much room on the plate for huge helpings of carbs. In a supermarket recently she presented me with an attractive looking tub of salad at an exhorbitant price and a single serving that would be wolfed in less than a minute but I declined the purchase and suggested instead we look at the ingredients and reproduce it in much vaster quantities at home for not much more than the price of the little tub. I’ve been making it at least once a week and it’s been going down great in BBQ season. So simple and tasty I hope you’ll give it a go.

Feta and Chickea Salad:
You will need:
Rocket leaves
Baby spinach leaves
Bunch spring onions
Handful flat-leaf parsley or coriander
Half a red chilli
2 cloves of garlic
Juice of one lemon
Olive oil
1 x 400g can of chickpeas
1 block of feta
Method:
Place the washed leaves in a large salad bowl.
Rinse and chop the spring onion and the parsley or coriander and add to the bowl of leaves.
Finely chop the chilli and mix with minced garlic and the lemon juice and pour this over the leaves with a good drizzling of olive oil.
Drain and rinse the chickpeas and stir these through the salad
Roughly cube / chop the feta and scatter it over the salad
Season with ground sea-salt and black pepper
Enjoy.
‘Til next time, Sheila.

Recipes, What's for Dinner Mom?

Pizzinis

Posted on July 29, 2014 by sheila kiely

Pizzinis
Necessity is the mother of invention and don’t I know it. Improvisation has been saving the day for me lately. I love cooking but not always. I love cooking when it is leisurely, when it is un-rushed and when it is for me. I do not love cooking under pressure and with almost 6 teenagers on my hands (the boys are 12 for a couple of more months) trying to keep them fed can be a bit of a timebomb. I am the timebomb and the fuse sizzles when they bang into the kitchen swing out of the fridge and emerging with a mouthful of whatever they garble ‘what’s for dinner mom?’

Yesterday I’d 7 ‘starving’ kids trailing in the door after 3 blissful hours at the beach. I warned them in the car that:
A) there was to be no mad scramble for the showers, they were to decide the order of showering before we reached home and showers were to be limited to 5 minutes
B) they were to stay out of the kitchen – if they were actually ‘starving’ they could beg outside the door for a slice of bread to tide them over but they were not going to ruin their appetites
C) they were to hang up their towels after their showers

Somehow and unexpectedly they organised themselves for the showers and that went off pretty well. There’s usually door banging and some screeching but it was orderly enough.
A few waifs dared to knock on the kitchen door for a crust of bread and to each one who did I told them they had delayed dinner.
Dinner was a creamy chicken, pesto, tomato and onion sauce over pasta, now that is generally filling but after three hours at the beach I knew their hunger would be at a dangerous level and this would have to be supplemented. The inventor in me flung on some chopped baby potatoes to roast in olive oil and salt before sprinkling on parmesan and they did the trick, perfectly shoring up any gaps left between the chicken and the pasta sauce, they left the table groaning.

However NOBODY hung up their towel…….

Pizzinis

Pizzinis
These came about a few weeks ago at home when one of the grouches true to form demanded ‘what’s for dinner?’ in that unpleasant semi-barked lieutenant-esque tone that teens have perfected. A reply of ‘loaded burgers’ was met with ‘what, no chips?’ and some eye-rolling, which I countered with a ‘get out of MY kitchen until dinner’s ready.’
After banging a few cupboard doors myself I spied the ever adaptable and long-life packet of soft tortilla that are so often my saviour.
Cut into wedges, smeared with oil, partly crisped then topped and returned to melt in the oven these served as gratefully devoured gap-fillers to accompany the burgers.

Pizzinis:
You will need:
2 large soft tortillas (wraps)
some oil
some pesto
some cheese
cherry tomatoes
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to high
Cut the soft tortillas into triangles and arrange on baking trays.
Brush over a little olive oil and heat in a hot oven for 5 minutes
Remove trays from oven, spoon some pesto on the tortillas. Grate over some cheese. Top with halved cherry tomatoes and return to oven until cheese has melted and outside edge of tortillas are browning up.
Enjoy!
‘Til next time, Sheila