Orange Chicken and Mango Salad

It's the end of August, but summer is only just around the corner. That's what the Brits keep saying to themselves anyway. Another rainy bank holiday weekend, followed by a late surge of sunshine for a week or so in September (sometimes even October).

So yes, I'm remaining hopeful. And in denial, by not yet giving into winter comfort foods.

This is an easy, speedy salad, but one that will pep you up with brightness, with its colour and freshness. The chicken is mixed in orange marmalade and sticky honey, and given a zingy grilling. This is then sat atop a fresh mango salad, which is peppered with dried cranberries and sesame seeds for a bit of extra flavour and texture. Mmm.

Soon it will suddenly get to that stage where you need to switch on the light in the mornings – a sure sign of the winter approaching (unless of course you have to get up in a crazy hour of the morning anyway).

But NO. Don't you dare flip that switch on and give into it just yet, there is sunshine still to come!

Orange Chicken and Mango Salad

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Serves 2:

2 chicken fillets
1 tsp orange marmalade
1 tsp honey
Two large handfuls of salad leaves
1 large mango, sliced into sticks
2 tbsp dried cranberries
2 tsp sesame seeds

1. Mix the marmalade and honey together in a bowl and spoon over the fillets.
2. Grill the fillets for about 4 minutes on each side. Take off the heat and allow to sit for a couple minutes.
3. Meanwhile, divide the salad leaves onto two plates. Arrange the mango sticks on top.
4. Slice the cooked chicken and place atop your salad. Sprinkle over the cranberries and sesame seeds.

Other chickeny recipes you might enjoy.

Other salad recipes you might enjoy. Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day: Lemon-crusted Chocolate Tarts

Here are some wee chocolate tarts that will just call out to you for a pie hug.

I made these for a good friend who is moving away (wah!), so wanted to make them extra special.

So this is a basic chocolate tart, but with a kick of lemon in both the crust and the chocolate mixture to give it that extra something.

You want nicely fresh unwaxed lemons for this, so that you can get a decent amount of bright zest to add extra colour to the top.

And instead of throwing away those pastry scraps you tend to get when stamping out individual rounds and such - make use of them by cutting out little decorative hearts and place lovingly atop each pie :-)

Lemon-crusted Chocolate Tarts

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Makes 12:

250g plain flour
1 / 2 tbsp lemon zest
1 tbsp sugar
100g cold butter, diced
2 tbsp lemon juice
Some ice cold water
OR 375g sweet shortcrust pastry

(but it won't be Lemon-crusted now, will it?)

150g dark chocolate, broken into chunks
150ml double cream
Juice and zest of 1 lemon

If using premade pastry, go straight to step 3

1. Mix the flour, 1 /2 tbsp lemon zest and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Rub in the butter to a breadcrumb mixture.
2. Add the 2 tbsp lemon juice, then gradually add a tablespoon of water at a time to knead the mixture into a dough. Cut in half, then wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
3. Roll out one of the pastry halves into a large thin circle. Use a 3.5” round cutter to stamp out 6 circles. Lightly press them into a non-stick cupcake tray and prick the base with a fork. Repeat with the remaining pastry half.
4. Use any pastry remains to cut out little decorative heart shapes if desired. Cover the whole tray with foil, then add in some baking beads into each hole. Chill for half an hour (or freeze for 15 mins).
5. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Blind-bake the pastry shells (and hearts!) for 10-12 minutes until lightly golden. Allow to cool completely.
6. Put a pan on the lowest heat, then gently melt the chocolate through. Take off the heat and carefully stir in the lemon juice and cream.
7. Spoon the chocolate mixture into the cooled pastry cases, then sprinkle a little lemon zest onto the top of each (with a pastry heart on top if desired). Chill for at least 4 hours to set, before serving.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures. Continue reading this post..

Hungry Jenny Faux Pas: Flapjack Crumble

Those from the other side of the pond may understandably have been confused by this title. But let me clarify right now that this isn't about messing up a pancake. No, I'm talking flapjack in the oat bar sense.

With that in mind, you could say that this is not a bad effort. An oaty bar that crumbles a little when you bite into it, right?

Well, I'm not exactly showing you the whole picture here.

Um, yeah.

This shows the oaty remains after cutting a traybake's worth of flapjack into bars. Hm.

Clearly, there was not enough liquid in this to hold it altogether, which in this case was some beaten egg and olive oil. I did think that it looked a little bit dry when mixing it altogether, but I ignored my gut instinct to pour more olive oil in. (It's not great when you don't trust your own judgement is it!)

Somehow though, I managed to get 18 decent (well a couple did break) bars out of this.

The rest? Well, after staring at the sorry mess in disbelief for a while, I've scooped it all into a tub and think I will freeze to use as some sort of crumble topping for something else. There is just too much there to waste! Always a silver lining, eh?

More successful cake and cookie recipes.

Fancy a laugh at my other Hungry-Jenny-Faux-Pas? Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day: Jammy Blob Tarts

You know when you have a vision of something in your mind, but in reality, it doesn't quite look the same?

Yep, this was definitely one of those moments.

In my head, these were going to be dainty little 'Jammy Swirl Tarts' – cream based pie bites, with strawberry jam swirled in delicately.
Well, these are cream based pies, with strawberry jam. But not delicate-looking at all.

Now this is not going to be a very good excuse at all I know, but the jam was not being very co-operative. Ok, ok, it was all my wrongdoing really. I won't blame the jam, that's very unfair. I just didn't think it through properly.

I forgot that jam is actually quite blobby, and you can only create swirls with it in something like cake batter. But whipped cream? No. Just no.

So, Jammy Blob Tarts, I suppose!

Jammy Blob Tarts

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Makes 12:

250g plain flour
2 tsp sugar
100g cold butter, diced
Some cold water
OR
375g sweet shortcrust pastry

150ml double cream
150g strawberry jam, at room temperature

If using premade pastry, go straight to step 3

1. Mix the flour and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Rub in the butter to a breadcrumb mixture.
2. Gradually add a tablespoon of water at a time to knead the mixture into a dough. Cut in half, then wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
3. Roll out one of the pastry halves into a large thin circle. Use a 3.5” round cutter to stamp out 6 circles. Lightly press them into a non-stick cupcake tray and prick the base with a fork. Repeat with the remaining pastry half. Cover with a large piece of tin foil and push in some baking beads into each hole. Chill for half an hour (or freeze for 15 mins).
4. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C, then blind bake for 15 minutes until just brown. Allow to cool completely.
5. Spread a little jam onto the base of each pastry base. In a bowl, whip the double cream to stiff peaks. Add the jam, and use a fork or whisk to gently swirl the jam in.
6. Spoon the jammy swirl cream into each pastry shell, then chill for at least 4 hours to set.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures. Continue reading this post..

You won't believe these cakes don't have butter! (Or sugar for that matter)

Ever since I started baking cakes for the Hungry Aikido guys, I've been conscious of how much fat and sugar normally goes into them (the cakes, not the boys).

You might have picked up by now that I tend to bake without butter and sometimes sugar as well. This doesn't always necessarily lead to a 'healthy' cake, but it is usually healthier in some way. (That's what I keep telling myself anyway).

It's funny though because I still get the same apprehensive expression when I tell them that a cake I've made had no butter in. They then munch on the cake, and still look a little confused, yet surprised at the same time (in a good way usually!).

There have been very few occasions where cake has been left (unless they are just all extremely polite boys), which suggests that these 'healthier' cakes aren't so bad.

So I thought I'd share with you a few favourite butter and sugar free baking recipes. Yes, it can be a little scary to try these experimental ones out, but trust me, the look on people's faces when you tell them what's not in them is always rather satisfying :-)

Apple Cake (butter and sugar free)

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This apple cake is filled with dried mixed fruit, which is what gives this cake its sweetness. The fruit is gently boiled in water to allow them to 'swell', but also to ensure that they won't dry out too much whilst being baked into the cake.

Ginger and Nutmeg Cake (butter and sugar free)

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Ok, I admit, this is not the prettiest cake to look at. But it's packed out with fruit (as well as ginger and nutmeg of course), which makes this particular cake really flavoursome. So just close your eyes when you bite into it and you'll be fine.

Carrot Cake (butter and sugar free)

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From what I remember, I created this on the back of the Ginger and Nutmeg cake above actually (or the other way around!), using the same ratio of ingredients. This is how I tend to create new recipes, and in this case it worked out particularly well. This has also got dried fruit in, and pumpkin seeds also, which you could easily substitute to something else of your choice, to shake things up.

Jammy Oat Rolls (butter and sugar free)

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Ssh, and last but not least, this is the naughtiest of this batch, because it's got a fat load of double cream in it. Remember I said these experimental ones aren't always healthier versions ;-)

Other butter free baking recipes that might take your fancy.

Other sugar free baking recipes that might take your fancy. Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day: A Lesson Learned from the Puff Paprika Pie

'Puff' Paprika Pie?

Yeh, I know, mine did not puff.

This week's pie is a bit silly to be honest, because I was just thinking about pie ideas in general, and suddenly the name just popped into my head. Ah, alliteration is great, isn't it? I thought, so I figured I'd try and create a pie of that name.

I happened to have some leftover homemade puff pastry in the freezer, so whipped that out to defrost. The idea was to keep the filling quite simple, but with a marvellous puff pastry hat.

As you can see though, this clearly did not happen.

What I had forgotten was that I hadn't frozen the pastry properly. If you've got leftover scraps of puff pastry dough, you can't just roll it altogether and stick it in the freezer like that. Puff pastry is folded in a certain way to create layers in the dough which is what makes it puff. So when leftover dough, you need to roll it out and fold it the puff pastry way before freezing.

I don't think I need to spell out to you what I did.

In any case, the pie was not ruined, thank goodness. The ratio of butter to flour in puff pastry is a bit higher than in shortcrust pastry, so it just ended up like an extra buttery shortcrust pastry top! Perfectly salvageable.

Puff Paprika Pie (v)

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Serves 4 (using 350ml pie dishes):

250g puff pastry (try making your own with my Quick Puff Pastry recipe)
2 tbsp paprika
200g greek yogurt
8 tomatoes, diced
75g frozen peas
50g sweetcorn
2 tbsp lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Roll out the pastry onto a lightly floured surface and cut into 4 oval or round shapes to the size of the top of your pie dishes.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the paprika and yogurt. Add in the tomatoes, peas, sweetcorn and lemon juice, gently mixing together. Divide the mixture evenly into the 4 pie dishes.
3. Line the top of each dish with a puff pastry top, and use a knife to cut off the excess overhand, then use a fork to crimp around the edges.
4. Bake in the oven for about 25-30 minutes until the pastry is puffed and golden.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures. Continue reading this post..

The Rekindled Love of Lemon and Rosemary

Some things are just meant to be together. Like Lemon and Rosemary – long-term marriage that is. Do you reckon they ever get bored of each other being in the same dishes? Lemon and rosemary chicken...lemon and rosemary cakes...lemon and rosemary pies...

Can you see where this is going?

Yes, it's time for these guys to reignite their love.

Now I always have an unlimited supply of lemons in my fridge which I never fail to use up – a squeeze of juice here, a scrape of zest there – rarely is there a forlorn lemon in my house.

Herbs on the other hand, are a different story. Now I absolutely love using fresh herbs – but I admit I usually buy those fresh packets at the supermarket. The ones where you get a small bunch in clear plastic. (You see, I have tried the potted sort, but they always seem to die on me within a few days. And that's just no good.)

Anyway. To come off this massive tangent, I always struggle to get through a whole packet and usually end up throwing the last few dying sprigs away. This time, I had a few sprigs of rosemary left, but I was determined not to let them get to their yellowing state - hence the inevitable pairing of the Lemon with the Rosemary.

Now, I was in no mood to bake a lemon and rosemary chicken, cake or pie though (you can probably tell from the longwindedness of this story that it was getting late in the evening for my dinner), so I decided to whip up a kind of, er, rice salad instead.

I wasn't sure how the Lemon and Rosemary would take to this idea. I mean, sure, you'll find that they've been together in it before, but not that much I guess. Certainly not something I've tried before. But they worked together beautifully.

Ahh, nothing will stop them being together :-)

(No, not even the random boiled eggs)

Lemon and Rosemary Rice Salad (v)

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Serves 2:

150g uncooked white rice
250ml hot veggie stock
Juice and zest of 1 small lemon
100g celery, chopped
50g mushrooms, sliced
2 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
4 hard boiled eggs, sliced

1. Put the rice in a pan with the hot stock and gently bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and carefully mix in the lemon juice and zest. Cover for 10 minutes.
2. At the 10 minute mark, chuck in the celery and mushrooms.
3. After 5 more minutes, stir in the rosemary. Turn off the heat, then add the hard boiled eggs on top to warm through.
4. When serving, remove the eggs first and dish up the rest of the rice salad, before placing the egg slices on top.

Other veggie recipes you might enjoy.
Continue reading this post..

Double Chocolate Cake Bars (butter free)

If one were to die and go to chocolate heaven, this is what you'd find on the way...

Hmm, chocolate steps to chocolate heaven.

These are soft cakey bars that give you various chocolate shots through their chocolate sponginess, chocolate chip interior and then, to finish you off, more melted chocolate on top.

As I fed them to my friends over the weekend (I mean that in a very unforceful way of course), I noticed the inclination for these bars to be eaten in pairs. So, either one slice clearly isn't big enough, or they clearly leave you wanting more. I guess one and the same, huh?

Make a batch and have a go at just eating one piece without going for another. Go on, I dare you...

Double Chocolate Cake Bars (butter free)

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For an 8" square tin (18 bars):

2 tbsp cocoa powder
200g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
75g white sugar
75g dark chocolate chips
1 egg, lightly beaten
4 tbsp olive oil
200g greek yogurt
1 under ripe banana, mashed
50g dark chocolate, broken into rough chunks

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
2. In a large mixing bowl, sift in the cocoa powder, self raising flour and bicarb. Mix in the sugar, then fold in the chocolate chips.
3. In a smaller bowl, gently whisk the egg with the oil and yogurt. Mash in the banana. Add to the flour mixture, folding carefully until just mixed.
4. Pour the mixture into a lined 8" square tin, using a knife to smooth it over. Bake for about 25-30 minutes until springy to the touch.
5. Put the cake on a cooling rack. In the meantime, put a pan on the lowest heat, and gently melt the dark chocolate chunks.
6. Take the pan off the heat, then use a spoon to drizzle the melted chocolate onto the cake. Allow to cool before slicing into 18 bars.

Other glorious chocolate recipes you might like.

More Hungry Jenny cakes! Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day: How to Blind Bake Pastry...

...the Hungry Jenny way!

Blind-baking pastry – it might be easy to assume that you just close your eyes and hope for the best. Well, in some cases, this could be your safest bet.
But of course, unlike the hokey-pokey, that's not all what it's about.

Baking pastry blind is when you bake the pastry ahead of the filling, rather than baking the whole thing together. Sound like a waste of time?

Well if you bake the pastry first, you can then allow it to cool before adding in a filling that could otherwise turn your pie crust into a soggy mess.

Think of quiche, custard tarts, flans, things like that. It's also just a necessity for sweet pies like chocolate tarts where you don't actually need to cook the filling.

So basically it's a method reserved for those pies where you need the filling to set. All you need is your pastry dough, a bit of foil and some baking beads, which are those little wooden balls you see above. You can also use uncooked rice or pulses instead (just don't eat them afterwards!)

All you do then is line the tin with your pastry, cover with foil, then fill the pastry shell with the baking beads before baking for about 10-15 minutes. Simple, right?

Yes, usually so, but when it comes to creating individual tarts, it can be a bit of a faff. Or so I used to think. From time to time, I make cupcake or muffin sized tarts and I've always found the prep for blind baking to be a bit of a nightmare. Cutting small squares of foil to individually line every single cupcake/muffin hole in the tray was just too long.

Of course, it took me a couple of years of doing it this way before it clicked that there is a much simpler way of doing this. So simple, that I hang my head in shame as I say it. Just get one giant sheet of foil over the whole cupcake/muffin tray, and then push the baking beads into each hole.

I really am quite dim sometimes.

Blind baking pastry

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What you'll need:

Your uncooked pastry dough
A bit of flour
A rolling pin
Your tart/flan or cupcake/muffin tray
Some foil
Baking beads, or some uncooked rice/pulses
A lightly beaten egg (if creating a pie that will need the filling baked as well)

1. Roll out your pastry onto a lightly floured surface to the size required and transfer to line your tin as necessary. If you are creating a pie that will need the filling baked as well, prick the base with a fork.


2. Pull out a sheet of foil slightly larger than the surface area of your tin, and use it to cover the pastry. Fill the pastry shell/s with the baking beads and then put in the fridge to rest.



3. Preheat the oven according to your recipe. This is likely to be quite a high temperature, from 190 degrees C for normal-sized flan/tart tins, up to 220 degrees C for cupcake/muffin sized tarts.

4. Take the lined tin out the fridge, leaving on the foil and baking beads, then blind bake for 10-15 minutes, erring on the long side if making a recipe for a cold filling.

5. Remove from the oven, and allow to sit for a couple minutes before carefully removing the foil and baking bead. If making a pie where the filling needs to be baked also, brush some lightly beaten egg over the base, to close up the fork pricks made earlier.


6. Allow to cool, before adding your pie filling to complete the rest of your recipe!

You might want to use this print-friendly recipe for future reference.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures. Continue reading this post..

Super Sesame Chicken

This is not your average chicken. They are chicken thighs with super sesame power!

I'm not going off the rails here, honest.

It was an attempt to get across the fact that the flavour of these are, well, just really sesame-y. That's as far as I can describe it. Hm. I may be an editor by day, but it really hits bad when I run out of steam by the evening sometimes!

This is a crazy simple dish though that has a double dash of sesame goodness in the form of sesame oil and sesame seeds. Basic, right?
The chicken is marinaded first, then baked and served with rice and veg.

But the beauty with this is that if you're on good terms with your oven – and it doesn't just burn the sauce to the tray (which has er, never happened to me) – you'll have a lovely ooze of extra sauce that you can pour over the rice.

Voila, you got yourself some sesame rice to go with your Super Sesame Chicken!

Super Sesame Chicken

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Serves 2:

4 chicken thighs
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/2 tbsp olive oil
2 1/2 tbsp sesame seeds

150g uncooked white rice
250ml boiling water
1 tbsp veggie oil
250g cucumber, sliced lengthways
100g iceberg lettuce, roughly ripped
1 tbsp soy sauce

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Put the soy sauce, sesame oil, olive oil and sesame seeds in a large bowl. Add the chicken thighs and spoon over the sauce to coat well.
2. Transfer the thighs to a baking tray, leaving any leftover marinade aside. Bake for 30 minutes, turn over and coat with the remaining marinade. Return to the oven for another 10-15 minutes or until the juices run clear with you stick in a knife.
3. Meanwhile, put the rice in a pan with the boiling water. Bring to the boil, then cover and leave to simmer for 20 minutes. Take off the heat and set aside.
4. During the last 10 minutes of the chicken, heat up a wok and add the veggie oil. Quickly stir fry the cucumber and lettuce for about 5 minutes until piping hot. Add in some soy sauce and fry for another minute before taking off to serve with your rice and super sesame chicken!

Other chicken recipes you might like. Continue reading this post..