Gizzi's Chicken, courgette and lemon pasta bake recipe (with a few adaptions)

Serves 4
Preparation time 10 minutes
Cooking time 35 minutes

Nutritional breakdown

Per serving
18.1g of fat
596 calories

Ingredients

• 4 large Portabella mushrooms (or regular mushrooms)
• 350g dried linguine (or spaghetti or any other pasta you fancy)
• 300g courgette, grated
• 300ml low fat crème fraiche
• 200ml low fat Greek yoghurt
• 1 large free-range egg yolk (hen or duck)
• 35g Parmesan cheese
• Zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 250g cold roast chicken, shredded (I used left over homemade chicken kiev here and it worked fine - just broke it up into strips with my fingers)
• A small bunch of fresh chives, snipped (or any other appropriate fresh herbs you have to hand) or rocket

Method
 
1. Put a large pan of water on to boil for the pasta
2. Fry off your chicken in a small separate frying pan and cook until golden as below (add a little garlic + salt + pepper for extra flavour too if you like) - obviously this is only if you need to cook the chicken from raw not if you're using left over chicken

2.Heat a pan and spritz in a few spritzes of olive oil. Fry the mushrooms then remove from the pan and set aside. Fry the grated courgette for a couple of minutes.

3. Meanwhile mix together the crème fraiche, yoghurt, egg yolk, Parmesan, lemon zest, salt and pepper.

4. Drain the cooked pasta, leaving a few tablespoons of water in the bottom of the pan. Return the pan to a low heat and pour in the sauce.
5. Toss the pasta in the sauce, then add the roast chicken and chives, giving it all a good mix round until it’s evenly incorporated.

In the pan:

(used rocket instead of chives this time and it worked as a really good alternative)
On the plate:

(original link, including video version of recipe)

Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes (for the lucky ladies at my new work)

I got this recipe from the gorgeous cookbook which I got from Adam's sisters at Christmas; Best Ever Recipes: Cupcakes. 

 A book which I thought would be widely available online but having just had a quick look, the only link I can find to it is from this Australian website . It doesn't seem to be available on Amazon from what I can see which is odd.

Here's the recipe:

 

 

 along with their illustration of the result.

Here's my ingredients:

And here's my result:

 

They certainly went down very well at work. x

 

Nigella's HOME MADE INSTANT PANCAKE MIX (with a couple of adaptions)

This is another one of my favourites from Nigella's Express Cookbook. I have added a couple of ingredients to the original recipe, the juice and zest of one lemon and a handful of raisins but the rest is all Nigella (aka Domestic Goddess).

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE PANCAKE MIX
600g flour
3 x 15ml tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
40g vanilla or caster sugar
TO MAKE THE BATTER AND THE PANCAKES
For each 150g pancake mix, add and whisk together:
1 egg
250ml semi-skimmed or full-fat milk
1 x 15ml tablespoon melted butter

Juice and zest of one lemon  

Handful of raisins

Serving Size : Makes 15 pancakes, each about 8cm in diameter 

METHOD

1.	For the Pancake mix: Mix all the ingredients together and store in a jar.
2.	When ready to make the pancakes, proceed as follows: Heat a flat griddle or pan with no oil.
3.	Spoon drops of 1 1/2–2 tablespoons of batter onto the hot griddle or into the pan and, when bubbles appear on the surface of the little pancakes, flip them over to make them golden brown on both sides. A minute or so a side should do it.   Serve with jam and butter! Yum! Weekend treat breakfast! Another great thing about these pancakes is that they are freezable, just put them in a tuppawear box, similar to the one below and freeze. As you want to use them simply reheat in the toaster. Perfect!

Rachel's Chicken Kiev with Sauté Garlic Rosemary Potatoes

I thought it was about time that I cooked a chicken kiev from scratch. It was a childhood favourite of mine and a favourite of Adam's too. We had the shop bought one last week - it was okish, but I knew it would be so much nicer if I knew I cooked it from scratch myself.

My lovely friend Katie bought me this recipe book for my birthday or Christmas and I have been meaning to cook something from it ever since:

My Ingredients:

I halved everything in the original recipe as I was just cooking for the two of us and I used Matzo Meal instead of breadcrumbs as it was what I had in and it worked a treat!

Recipe:

Final Dish:

This recipe does take time, but I do definately think its worth the effort. Wasn't massively keen on the potatoes, to be honest but I think I might try the oven alternative next time. I loved the kiev and definately would recommend trying it to anyone. I also think it would be nice with a side of summer salad. Enjoy!

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Update : April 2010

Just tried this dish again but this time I did the potatoes in the oven, as suggested on the second page of the original recipe. This really worked much better - and is how I will do it from now on. Please find updated photo below: