Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Beautiful Banana Bread....


The smell of fresh baking banana bread warms the soul. The aroma which fills the room gets the taste buds dancing long before it is ready to eat. (The only downside to waiting for the bread to bake is the constant pleading of ‘is it ready yet?’) A nice sized chunk of banana bread and a cup of tea is a lovely way to warm the blood on one of these chilly afternoons we have been experiencing. There is nothing to difficult about making your own delicious batch of banana bread. Start by melting some butter then whisking it into 2 cups of sugar, then one at a time blend in an egg or two. Once that is well combined mix in about 300ml of butter milk and set it to the side. In another bowl throw in 40g of baking powder, 15g of cinnamon and 375g of sifted plain flour, and now in a third bowl mash 8 really ripe bananas (the riper the better if they almost mash themselves there perfect). Now simply add the first wet mixture into the second flour mixture and combine with a hand blender, when all the flour is mixed in add the mashed bananas. Grease up a large bread tin (with a bit of canola spray will do the job nicely), line it with baking paper, pour in your mixture and throw it into a preheated oven for about 75 minutes at 180c. Check if it is ready by sticking a knife into the loaf and if it comes out clean your ready to go, throw it on a cooling rack and stand guard against any passerby that can’t seem to resist the urge to pick. Once it has cooled down enough quickly cut yourself a slice add a little butter if so desired and enjoy because it won’t last long (trust me)...
Everything you will need:
8 ripe bananas
125g butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
300ml butter milk
40g baking powder
15g cinnamon
375g plain flour

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Succulent Stuffed Chicken Roll............




Trying new things is the spice of life. I was trying to find yet another excuse to use Persian fetta and when I couldn’t find something new to use it in I thought I would try something myself. Loving the combination of pine nuts and fetta I set out to find something to accompany it. After roughly chopping some Italian parsley and some fresh fragrant thyme, I combined the herbs with the fetta, pine nuts, juicy little currants and seasoned it with a little salt and pepper. Taking a chicken breast and butterflying it (cut almost all the way through the breast and fold it out so it is twice the size you started with) I then piled some of the mix along the middle of the breast, then rolled it up and pinned it together with a few tooth picks. Now to cook it, put a fry pan on to a medium to high heat and brown off each side and throw it into the oven on about 200c and leave it to cook for about 12 mins.
Then of course what to serve it with? I decided on a warm smashed potato salad, which is quite simply boiled baby potatoes which you just crush in your hand, Chopped chives, some crispy bacon bits (cut some bacon into little cubes and throw it in the oven on 200c till crispy) and some mascarpone add a little salt and pepper and mix together gently (don’t go over board and turn into mash as much as the other half might will it).
So you have the chicken and the salad sorted we had to think about saucing it to add a little more flavour and give it the wow factor which takes it from just dinner to something to impress someone special. A nice red wine jus i found was the perfect companion to this delicious main course. Add about 200ml of dry red wine to a pan and bring to the boil, then turn it down to a simmer once it starts to reduce add most of a beef stock cube (you should really use a beef jus but that takes a good two or three days to make properly so this a little bit of a way to cheat) and about two tablespoons of white sugar and give it a good whisk to combine the sugar and stock cube into the wine. Leave it to reduce to a nice thin gravy consistency. Put a nice little mound of the potato salad in the centre of the plate, cut the stuffed chicken rolls on a diagonal and place them on top and generously sauce and serve.


Satisfying Two:


For the chicken:
2 chicken breasts
100g Persian fetta
75g pine nuts
25g currants
Half a bunch of Italian parsley
5 sprigs of thyme
Salt and pepper
For the warm potato salad:
10- 12 baby potatoes
Bunch of chives
3 rashes of middle bacon
150g Mascarpone
Salt and pepper