Home Made Chicken Nuggets - Oliver's Favourite !

Some of you may know that I originally started this blog as an online diary / photo album for far away friends and family. For this reason, I make absolutely no apologies for the fact that many of the posts are full of stories and photos of my little boy Oliver - he's basically what started it all.

The last two years, my mum has made us a hard back recipe book of this blog. It's fantastic as it's an album of family recipes and memories. I've got it on ebook version on my iphone and ipad too !

Anyway ....

My dear little Oliver. This recipe is just for you. My gran (Nanny Johnsons mummy) used to make the most wonderful fish and chips. As children, Uncle Simon and I used to get so excited when she made her battered fish for us as a treat.

This is the basic batter recipe I make for your favourite homemade chicken nuggets. Despite not even being quite 4 yo, you helped chop up those potatoes with a great big knife for the wedges. Mummy had to watch your didn't chop off her fingers !

Funnily enough, one of tonight's chicken nuggets looked very much like a tiny oven-ready chicken !

There isn't much too this recipe and no weights etc. I just make it up in volume to suit what I need. You could use this batter for fish too. You are growing up so fast already ! One day you'll be a big boy and off to college / uni or having left home and want to make these yourself.....

About a cup of plain flour

some very cold, sparkling water

pinch of Maldon sea salt
1/4 tsp or so of tumeric

a pinch of garlic granules

Sometimes I add a few chopped fresh herbs. I also add a good sprinkling of cayenne pepper or chilli powder to the batter for daddy and I after I've made yours. The tumeric isn't spicy - 

Add some of the cold, sparking water to the flour and whisk until there are no lumps. It wants to be a little more liquid than a dropping consistency cake mix.

Slice your chicken breasts - each into about 8 pieces. Dip in the batter and then fry in hot sunflower oil for about 5 mins until golden and crispy. If you have a digital thermometer, I normally make sure the oil is about 135 deg C + before I drop them in.

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For the wedges, simply chop the unpeeled potatoes into wedges and pop into a self seal / ziploc type bag. Add some seasoning (cajun spices, garlic granules etc are good too) and a drizzle of olive oil. Close the bag and give it a good shake. Tip on to a baking tray - and bake at about 210deg C until golden and crispy - about 25 mins.

All my love, Mummy xx

Marinated Chicken Thighs & Potato Wedges

There is nothing to this. It's hardly worth blogging !

However, I've had loads of emails recently asking if I cook fancy evening meals. The answer is - only rarely. Generally it's something quick and easy .... unless it's a special occasion or one of us fancies something rather out of the ordinary.

I use my halogen cooker a lot. It's generally used at least an average of 5 days a week. Oliver loves fish fingers and I can cook those in 6 > 7 minutes with a few chips (no preheat) - so my halogen oven is fab for things like that. I can also do fish on the baking tray with steamer plate over the top to diffuse in a similar amount of time. Saves tons of energy and I don't feel guilty about putting the normal oven on to cook just two fish fingers for a toddler and then later again for our evening meal.

For example, tonight I marinated some chicken thighs with garlic and lemon juice and tiny bit of olive oil. I cooked those in the halogen oven at 200deg C for about 15 mins until cooked through. I then decided to make some potato wedges with cracked black pepper and a sprinkle of paprika and popped those in on the top rack for about 10mins. Everything was beautifully browned.

 I could have cooked everything together on the baking tray on the bottom rack. However, if you use a tray on the top rack, the low rack then cooks by convection as it does not get the direct infra-red glow to "speed cook" and takes a good bit longer. I could also have cooked faster if I'd put the wedges on the bottom and chicken on the top rack (letting juices drip onto the wedges - yum yum) as the fan blows the hot air round everything that way.

Truth is, I'd a toddler to bath and get ready for bed and wanted to know our dinner was on the way without rushing bathtime ! That's the thing with the halogen oven - it cooks a lot faster than a normal oven and often faster than I expect. It's also far more energy efficient. The normal oven is 4500W at maximum, whilst the halogen oven is 1400W at maximum. BIG difference - especially with drastically reduced cooking times too. It's much faster cooking for the majority of things and easy to wash up.

Our halogen ovens are arriving back into stock on Friday. I think there are about 800 arriving ! Unlike most retailers, we importantly also stock replacement halogen bulbs for our ovens. Surprisingly few stockists do and a halogen oven with no bulb is pretty useless...

You'll find some recipes on the website here . I promise to try and get round to doing some more - it's just that I forget when I'm using it on such a regular basis !