Baked skinless chicken thigh fillets with all the trimmings............



............it's still cold enough for winter fare.  I was asked at about 4.30pm what I was cooking for dinner and I didn't actually know which is pretty common for me.  All I knew was Dear Husband had taken some chicken thighs out of the freezer and we had a big cauliflower that needed to be utilised.  I have 4 cookbooks out here and not much cooking equipment.  Anyway I set to work and this is what I came up with, it was a pretty good meal in the end!


I peeled 4 medium potatoes and fried them cut side down in olive oil in a frying pan with 2 roughly chopped cloves of garlic and red onion until potatoes were golden on one side and the onion and garlic softened.


Into an ovenproof dish with the uncooked sides of the potatoes down, sprinkle with some fresh thyme sprigs.  


Wrap each chicken thigh with ham/prosciutto slices and tie with kitchen string.  Pan fry in olive oil until browned on all surfaces.  Chop cauliflower and broccoli in florets and boil only for a short time as they will cook further in the oven, nothing worse than boiled up mushy broccoli and cauliflower.


Place the wrapped chicken on top of potatoes carefully and add one cup of chicken stock to dish. Bake in a moderate oven until potatoes and chicken are cooked, about 40 minutes I think!


Place cauliflower and broccoli into an ovenproof dish and top with your best homemade cheese sauce, mine was made with butter, plain flower, lite milk, pepper and mozzarella cheese.  Pour over the veges and grate some fresh Parmesan cheese over the top and some more cracked pepper and pop this in the oven to brown and cook for about 20 minutes.

I don't have an plated photos as Dear Husband was starving and he did the dishing up and it wasn't pretty but we enjoyed a very tasty meal.

What did you eat last night?  What can you whip up with a few strange ingredients?  Not having many cookbooks or equipment is constantly challenging my cooking skills but one bonus is we don't have any fussy kids at our house anymore!  Nothing worse than spending your time cooking for those who can't and won't appreciate your efforts.

Surfer Boy and Darling Daughter loved Mexican food and for years they referred to it as yellow box food because the leading supermarket brand of Mexican meal kits in Australia is predominantly yellow.  Over the years I came to loathe "yellow box" food because it was on a high rotation in our kitchen in their teenage years, but lately I'm starting to enjoy a few dishes once again.  Yesterday I found myself slightly envious of a fellow blogger Corrie aka Retromummy heading out to a Mexican cooking class last night.  Maybe I'll investigate some Mexican cooking all by myself out her in the Boondocks!  Dear Husband will have to suffer being the guinea pig, lucky he loves hot and spicy food!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Last night was lobster rolls and caprese salad. The lobster was warm-water lobster and I had never had it before. It was quite good and a lot less expensive than cold water lobster.

The caprese salad was made with my own basil, tomatoes and small balls of fresh mozzarella. Then I topped it off with a balsamic reduction that was reduced a little more than I had planned.

Lemon Bars from Taste of Home magazine for dessert.

Steve was a happy man. LOL

Most of my new recipes come off the internet. I've given away most of my cookbooks.