Monday 4 June 2012

Italian chicken


Another favourite dinner of ours is Italian Chicken. I had ordered it when out for tea one evening with my cousin and Aunty and ever since, the 'pub grub' meal has worked its way into our diets. It has finally been adapted to fit into a more healthy eating pattern but if you're not particularly fussed, or you're in a rush, it can easily be made using pre-prepared chicken and sauce. Though for the extra bit of effort you get a delicious meal. The first time we made it in this incarnation it was actually Sandy that did the cooking and it was delicious!

I started off by blitzing some bread into crumbs in our food processor.  I like to add paprika and chilli to the mix to give it a bit of a kick and I use Weight Watchers {or a Nimble equivalent} bread to keep it low in calories. Next, dip a chicken breast in beaten egg until covered before rolling your chicken in the  breadcrumb mix until it has a thorough coating.

Pop that in the oven on around gas mark 5 or 6 for about 20 minutes or until cooked through {which will obviously depend on the size of the chicken pieces}.



For the sauce, I simply heated 2 tins of chopped tomatoes, a glug of olive oil, oregano, thyme, smoked paprika, garlic salt, pepper and basil over a gentle heat until it started to thicken. That probably takes the least amount of time so do that last.

{basil from our new window box. Oh hiya 'The Good Life'...}

At one point I got a bit carried away, trying to prepare tomorrow's dinner too and ended up nigh on melting in our kitchen. 20degree heat + 3 pans on the hob + the oven on was just too much to handle. Meanwhile, once the chicken has been in for about 15-20 minutes, you want to slice up some {low fat} mozarella and layer it on top to melt. Hungry yet?


We serve ours with a bed of puy lentils which add just about the right amount of carbs and starch to balance out the meal. If you want to do it that way, the lentils would be the first thing you'd need to cook as they take for-e-ver. Otherwise, this dish would go well with any fresh, steamed vegetables that still had a bit of crunch!


And then we rounded off dinner with a bowl of cherries and this. A Sharon fruit. Have you ever had one before? Apparantly they are a type of persimmon. I have to admit, I preferred the cherries. The Sharon fruit was far too sweet for my liking - really similar to a mango.

Love B
x

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