Chicken in "Oriental" Marinade (Overnight)

Another in the procession of "Chinese" meals.
For 3:
3 Chicken Breasts
4 Small Onions
3 Peppers
2 Spring Onions
6 Tablespoons Coconut (or Olive) Oil
4 Tablespoons Apple Juice
2 Garlic Cloves
Ginger
Wok
Food container (for marinating)
Mug
Bowl


The night or morning before:
1. Put the coconut oil in a mug, then put the mug in a bowl that is shallower than the mug, then fill the bowl with boiling water to melt the coconut oil. No need to do this with olive oil.
2. Chop the spring onions. Chop the chicken into bite-size chunks.
3. Mix the spring onions, coconut oil, apple juice, garlic cloves and ginger in the mug.
4. Put the chicken in the container and pour the marinade over the chicken. Put the container in the fridge overnight.
The night of eating:
5. Chop the onions and peppers.
6. Heat the wok, throw in the onions and peppers and the chicken in the marinade and stir fry the lot.

Volumise: "I'm not gonna be very inventive here - spinach, pak choi, cabbage, bean sprouts; like last time." - Me, previous recipe.
Add carbs: Mix sugar into the sauce, add more apple juice or apple sauce to the marinade, or perhaps some apple to the stir-fry at the end.
Add fat: Add more coconut oil to the marinade.
Add protein: Mix an egg into the sauce, serve on/with an omelette, mix some peanut butter into the marinade to make a satay-style marinade.

Bonus Fun Fact: The difference between fats and oils is simply whether they are solid or liquid at room temperature. The coconut OIL sat in my room is a solid. Where coconuts are grown, coconut oil is an oil, but in England it's a fat due to the cold temperature here (similar to what happens when olive oil goes cloudy in shops in Winter because it is stored at outdoors temperature). A friend of mine who recently got back from Spain tells me that she had a problem figuring out the difference between the Spanish words for fat, grease and oil, as the examples they gave were in different states in England and Spain.

Beef in Chilli Sauce

Getting a bit of a "Chinese" theme for a little while. This is going to sound pretentious as hell, but the one person I know who's been to China says Chinese restaurants are propagating a lie; I don't care, they still make great food.
For 3:
300 g "Sirloin steak" (it was in the 3 for £10 in Tesco, so we're not talking quality here, any sort of frying steak).
4 Small Onions
2 (Red) Peppers
2 Spring Onions
1 Tablespoon Ground Ginger (or fresh, whichever)
1 Chilli (or 1 Tablespoon Hot Chilli Powder)
50 ml Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Almond Flour (AKA Ground Almonds)
3-4 Tablespoons Apple Juice
Wok

1. Peel and chop the onions. Chop the spring onions, chilli and peppers. Chop the chicken into bite-size pieces.
2. Mix the ground ginger, chilli, vinegar, almond flour and apple juice. Again, I mixed it with a fork in a mug, because I'm very well equipped.
3. Throw the veg into the pan, followed by the beef, then the sauce (obviously, the chilli is chopped, so make sure you throw the sauce into the pan so the chilli gets into the pan).
4. Stir-fry the lot.

Volumise: I'm not gonna be very inventive here - spinach, pak choi, lettuce, bean sprouts; like last time.
Add carbs: Again, add some sugar to the sauce. Use less vinegar and more apple juice or some kind of apple sauce into the sauce.
Add fat: I added some coconut oil to the sauce, but as it's solid it wasn't easy to mix in.
Add protein: Again, add some egg to the sauce. Perhaps serve on an omelette base.
Add pretentiousness: Point out that I went to a local "foreign" (of the "Indian" variety) to get the chillis for this and the okra for the updated Texan Chicken. I also went to an independent supermarket to get the almond flour and coconut oil.

Sweet and Sour-ish Chicken

It was tasty and kept well; it was not very sweet or sour.
For 3:
3 Chicken Breasts
4 Small Onions
3 Peppers
1 Garlic Clove
2 Tablespoon Tomato Puree
4 Tablespoons Apple Juice (or Apple and Blackcurrant Squash)
2 Tablespoons Almond Flour
1 Lemon, Juice of
4 Tablespoons Vinegar
Wok

1. Peel and chop the onions. Chop the peppers. Chop the chicken into bite-size pieces.
2. Crush or finely slice the garlic.
3. Mix the garlic, tomato puree, apple juice, lemon juice, vinegar and almond flour (with a fork in a mug, if you're me).
4. Throw the onions and peppers into the pan, followed by the chicken then the sauce. Stir-fry the lot.

Volumise: Add some spinach, pak choi, lettuce and/or bean sprouts.
Add carbs: Mix some sugar into the sauce (this was in the original recipe). Add more peppers.
Add fat: Add more almond flour to the sauce. Add more oil to the stir-fry.
Add protein: Add more chicken. I have not tried this, but add some egg to the sauce. This should also help to thicken the sauce.
Bore anyone reading this blog: Add an inane story at the end of every single post.

Cheese and Tomato Turkey Wraps

I was not expecting these to work as well as they did. Very handy for more than one meal.
For 3:
3 Turkey breast steaks
3 small blocks of cheese (I used cheddar, but mozzarella may work better)
Tomato puree or 3 sun-dried tomatoes
Basil
Roasting tray

Served with butternut squash mash.

1. Squeeze some tomato puree onto each block of cheese or put sun-dried tomato on cheese.
2. Cover turkey in basil.
3. Wrap cheese in a turkey steak and spear with cocktail stick (ensuring you go through the tomato if appropriate).
4. Roast in the oven at 200 C for around 20 mins.

Volumise: Wrap these parcels in lettuce once cooked.
Add carbs: Add more tomato puree or more tomatoes.
Add fat: Add more cheese or use a fattier cheese.
Add protein: Wrap the parcels in bacon prior to cooking.
Scald yourself: Squeeze the parcels just after getting them out of the oven so the cheese squeezes onto yourself.

Grilled Green Chicken

Very enjoyable, just be careful to remove as much marinade as possible before frying; I nearly destroyed a frying pan doing this.
For 4:
4 Chicken Thighs
2 Small Onions
1 Roughly chopped Green Chilli
4 Tablespoons Greek Yoghurt
Handful of Chopped Fresh Mint
Handful of Chopped Fresh Coriander
1 Tablespoon Garam Masala
1 Lemon

1. Mix mint, coriander, chilli, yoghurt, garam masala, lemon juice and a little salt/
2. Strip meat from thighs.
3. Marinate chicken and onions in above mixture overnight.
4. Wipe marinade off chicken.
5. a. Fry chicken in pan until golden brown.
b. Cook onions in saucepan.
6. Serve with coconut bread and a dollop of yoghurt.

Volumise: Add more onions and celery (I haven't tried the celery).
Add carbs: Mix some honey into the dollop of yoghurt. Add some honey to the marinade. Serve with mashed sweet potatoes.
Add fat: Add more yoghurt. Add some olive oil to the marinade.
Add protein: Serve with a side of crispy bacon. Mix some unflavoured whey to the marinade.
Destroy a frying pan: As I suggested earlier, don't scrape the marinade off the meat properly.

Lamb Tagine

Very enjoyable and filling (if a bit watery because I didn't have time to thicken the sauce).
For 5:
1 Rolled lamb shoulder
4 small onions
200g dried apricots
2 tins chopped tomatoes
Turmeric
Ground Ginger
Cumin
Coriander
2 Lamb Stock cubes (Knorr)
1 Slow-cooker or large pot

1. Chop the onions.
2. Add everything to the slow-cooker or pot and cook for 8-10 hours.

Volumise: Add more onions. Add celery.
Add carbs: Add more tomatoes or apricots.
Add fat: Mix in some almond flour at the start, should make the end product thicker too.
Add protein: Use more lamb. Mix some unflavoured whey (I haven't tried this, this may be a disaster).
Add a bad day: Let the container you have this in open into your bag and fill your laptop and lab-book with tagine.

Chicken with butternut squash and bacon

I did not come up with this. I've stolen it from my girlfriend, who has stolen it from elsewhere.
For 3:
3 Chicken breasts
125g bacon
1 Medium butternut squash
Rosemary
Thyme
1 chicken stock cube (OXO)
1 Large saucepan
1 Jug
1 Pair of scissors

1. Skin and cube butternut squash.
2. Heat oil in pan to high heat, then slice bacon with scissors into pan. Break up bacon by stirring it as it cooks.
3. Chop chicken into bite-size (whatever this means to you) pieces. Do not use your teeth to cut raw chicken into bite-size pieces, you can always cut it up later.
4. Add a little more oil to the pan and add the chicken. Cook with occassional stirring until chicken is brown.
5. Boil 200 ml water. Add chicken stock cube and stir to dissolve.
6. Add butternut squash to pan and cook for 2 minutes.
7. Add chicken stock to pan and lower heat (I used heat level three on a hob that goes to six). Put a lid onto the pan.
8. After 25 minutes, the butternut squash should be somewhat mushy, but not falling apart of its own accord. Add rosemary and thyme and stir into food. Cook for five minutes without the lid with frequent stirring.
9. The pan should be devoid of liquid, but the food should still be moist. Serve.

Volumise: Add more butternut squash.
Add carbs: Replace butternut squash with sweet potato (I have not tries this).
Add fat: Add more bacon. Add more oil.
Add protein: Add mroe chicken or bacon.
Add awesome: Have a hob that goes up to 11.

Chicken Curry

I looked through a few online recipes for this and synthesised it from those. It was very nice. One of my most successful experiments (which went much better than what I'm currently doing in the lab).
For 4:
1.8 kg chicken thighs
3 large onions
2 chillis
1 can coconut milk
1 can tomatoes
1 chicken stock cube (OXO)
7 tbls cumin
1 tbls paprika
1 tbls turmeric
1 tbls chilli powder
1 tbls garam massala
1 tbls vanilla flavouring/extract
1 large frying pan or wok
1 slow cooker or large pot

1. Chop the onions into roughly quarters.
2. Finely chop the chillis.
3. Start frying the onions and chillis on a low heat.
4. Remove the skin and bones from the chicken thighs, so you're left with just meat.
5. Once the onions and chillis are soft, add them to a room temperature slow cooker pot or normal pot.
6. Add everything else to the pot. Mix thoroughly.
7. Heat on low heat for 10-12 hours in a slow cooker (or on a hob, stirring occassionally.)

Volumise: I intend to add mushrooms in the next iteration of the curry. Add more onions and chillis.
Add carbs: Add some sugar to the curry. Add some potatoes to the curry. Serve with rice. Add some tomato passata or some more tomatoes.
Add fat: Add some water at the start of cooking and mix in some almond flour about two hours before the curry is cooked. Add more coconut milk. Mix in some olive oil at the start of cooking.
Add protein: Seriously, there's about 250-300g of chicken in each of the four servings. You could add more chicken. You could serve with bits of crisped bacon.
Add three days of soaking to clean the pot: Leave it on high heat instead of low.

"Texan" chicken

Very nice chicken stew. Instead of chicken stock cube, I used home-made chicken stock. This lead to a very nice taste, but it was very gloopy and nasty after keeping it in a tub ad re-heating it.
For 3:
3 chicken breasts
3 small onions
3 yellow bell peppers
1 cube chicken stock (OXO)
Ground ginger
Chilli powder
Turmeric
Tomato puree
Peanut butter
1 Saucepan
1 grill/ 1 frying pan
1 jug

1. Chop onions and soften in saucepan over a low heat.
2. Start grilling chicken breasts or butterfly chicken breasts then start frying (singly).
3. Add a big squirt of tomato puree to onions and mix in.
4. Add about 1/2 pint of chicken stock (OXO cube in boiling water) to the onions.
5. Mix about a forkful of peanut butter into the onions+stock (sauce).
6. Mix some ginger, some chilli powder and some turmeric into the sauce.
7. Chop and mix in the yellow peppers.
8. Gently reduce the sauce while the chicken cooks.
9. Once the chicken is cooked:
If it's fried, throw it into the saucepan whole.
If it's grilled, roughly chop or tear it into whatever you consider bitesize
chunks, and mix it into the sauce.
10. Keep the whole thing on a low heat until you think it's thick enough.

Volumise: Add more onions.
Add carbs: Add more peppers. Add some sugar to the sauce.
Add fat: Use almond flour instead of heat to thicken the sauce. Fry the chicken in excess olive oil.
Add protein: Fry up some bacon until it's very crispy and add to the meal just before serving (again, pig bacon for more fat, turkey bacon for less fat).
Add a severely burnt pan: Leave the sauce for too long without stirring. The peanut butter can really mess up a pan.

P.S. I just made it without tomato puree and with okra. I added the okra once the food was nearly done and mixed it in. It worked really well.

Lamb with vodka, cinammon, cayenne onions.

My girlfriend has very little useful veg a lot of the time (no offence), but a spice rack (it's actually a cupboard) that's more expansive than mine. This was a ridiculously simple meal that I'm not massively proud of, but I do like my vodka-cinnamon-cayenne onions.
For two:
2 lamb steak
4 small onions
Ground cayenne pepper
Ground cinnamon
Roughly 3 shots of vodka
1 frying pan
1 saucepan

1. Chop the onions.
2. Add the onions to a hot, oiled saucepan and reduce the heat to the lowest setting.
3. Pour vodka onto onions and break the onions up with a wooden spoon.
4. Sprinkle cayenne and cinnamon over onions.
5. Leave onions to soften slowly in pan and when they're nearly done, oil and heat up a frying pan to max.
6. Fry the lamb steak as you like them.

Volumise: Add some more onions.
Add carbs:
Add fat: Brush the lamb with extra olive oil while it cooks. Add extra oil to the onions as they cook.
Add protein: Seriously? Add more lamb.
Add bright red lips: Use too much cayenne.