Sunday, 14 October 2018

Craving chicken - yeah really!


14th October 2018
What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.  It also depends on what sort of person you are.  


I slept till gone 7 and that was without Night Nurse, I’d run out of it!  I still sound ridiculous but hopefully it’ll get better over the weekend, I’m going to rest up, the only thing I have to do is walk Alfie.  I am considering buying a chicken this morning though and having a chicken dinner, I haven’t eaten chicken in over a week and I am truly craving it, plus a dinner is gonna be better for me than a KFC bucket which is the other option.  It’ll feed Alfie too as the fridge is bare of everything but a few cheese squares, milk and a tiny amount of spread, it’s time to get a few things in there I think, I’ve noticed my sister has bought milk a couple of times this week, there are a couple of cartons in the cupboard but I think she’s missed them.

Looking in my freezer last night, I’m working through it, had a Young’s fish crumble from it last night for 8SP, it’s the kind of meal mom would enjoy but I wouldn’t buy them for me again.  Anyway I counted the whoopsie salmon, there’s 15 packets, if I have fish 2 or 3 times a week they’re going to keep me going for over a month, I will empty that freezer.  No big shop until it is empty, minimal essentials only. 

Oooo we need a coaching card, hold on…

If your life were a book or a film, which one would it be?

That’s a toughie, mmm I don’t know, anyone got any suggestions.  I’m reading that as if it’s a film that already exists, but I’d rather have a book based on my family, all of our lives and the normality of us but in reality, we all have our stories, nothing more interesting and unbelievable than real life, my brother Terry can tell you more tales than most I know, I’ve had my share of drama and adventure.  Mom, well her story is something else, 7 children, 2 died and that’s just the facts, yeah our family would make for great viewing especially the dementia years!

What would we call it?  Simple – The Longsdens.

 I finished my latest crochet project yesterday, it’s my most favourite yet but I can’t show it you until I’ve passed it on, only taken me a week too, I’m thinking I might be doing more like it, but first I have some chenille to do a big v pattern blanket in pink and grey that I think I’ll raffle for charity, we’ll see.  I like to complete them then decide what to do with them, that way if I get bored half way through, I don’t have to finish it.  I pulled a project back the other day, I wasn’t enjoying it and at 48 life is too short to do anything you don’t have to, if you’re not enjoying it.

WELL speaking of being 48, it’s official, I’ve hit that age and I’m not ashamed to say it, this week, I have been coughing a lot and I realised I needed to join the Tena lady gang, yep better safe than sorry!  And you know what, I love that about me too, I am lucky enough to have got to the age of 48, so many don’t and if one of the prices to pay is a weak bladder – I’ll take that, along with the wrinkles and the fact that when I look in the mirror these days, I see my big sister ;)

I’ve not got a soup recipe today but I did catch a Nigella recipe on the tv yesterday that looked incredible, it’s from her latest book “At my table”, I’m a huge Nigella cook book fan, might need to treat myself, I’ll think about it first.  I have too many books I never open and there are so many recipes in the new WW Comfort Cookbook has for me to try first.  You can find a video of her making it on this website


Nigella Lawson’s Chicken and Pea Traybake
Author Notes: Nigella Lawson—domestic goddess and champion of home cooks—has for years been a supporter of the laziest form of sheet pan dinner, or traybake. The most influential ingredient here is frozen peas—quite a lot of them, still completely frozen. As she explains, “The steam they produce as they bake makes the chicken beautifully tender, its skin crackly and crisp on top.” Adapted slightly from At My Table (Flatiron Books, 2018).
Serves: 4 Prep time: 30 min Cook time: 1 hrs 30 min
Ingredients
  • 7 cups frozen petit pois (about 2 pounds)
  • 5 medium to large leeks (about 14 ounces trimmed weight), cut into 1-inch slices (note: if the light green part of the leek looks dirty in between the outer rings, remove the outermost layers and rinse them well)
  • 2 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
  • 1/4 cup dry white vermouth
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling
  • 2 teaspoons sea salt flakes or kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling
  • 1 small bunch dill, torn into pieces
  • 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
  • To serve: steamed or boiled baby potatoes, mashed potatoes, or rice or other grains (optional)
Directions
  1. Heat the oven to 400° F and clatter the frozen peas into a large roasting pan (Nigella says not to go smaller—measuring inside from inside rim to inside rim—than about 15 by 11 inches, and a little larger is fine), followed by the leeks, garlic, vermouth, 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, 2 teaspoons of salt, and most of the dill. Turn everything together in the pan—breaking up any large clumps of the frozen peas—until well mixed. I advise you to wear CSI gloves for this, just to stop you from getting frostbite, though you still will feel the cold.
  2. Arrange the chicken thighs, skin-side up, on top, then drizzle them with a little olive oil and give them a good sprinkling of salt, before roasting in the oven for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven, give the peas a small stir or tamp down, so that the few that are sitting on the surface and drying out a little are submerged in the liquid. Don’t so the same to the leeks, however, as the bits that are peeking out will become desirably caramelized in the heat. Put back in the oven for a further 30 minutes, by which time the peas and leeks will be soft, and the chicken tender and cooked through, its skin golden and crisp.
  3. Tear off the remaining dill fronds, and scatter over the top on serving, perhaps with some simply steamed baby potatoes to soak up the pea and chicken juices.


You can make this recipe lower in Smart Points by changing the thighs for breasts, use less oil.  The choice is yours.  It does look incredible as a treat though!

Right I’m going to go get moms papers, it’s raining so I’m actually going to get in the car, feel too yakky to get wet!

Enjoy your day, whatever you’re up too, I’m mostly going to chill.  


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