So the list has already been circumvented this week, we had beef chilli last night instead of Thursday. What did I tell you? We’re crazy like that. The chilli was cooked in my new Pressure King Pro as an experiment by the chap. To be honest while I was delighted to have a delicious dinner handed to me I was slightly raging he got to use it before me! I shall keep you posted about the pressure king pro – I may be a convert. It’s basically a multi cooker/pressure cooker, so may change my life, who knows?!

In other super exciting news I went to The Arnotts warehouse sale on Saturday and treated myself to these

Aren’t they amazing?!! I was loving my new purchases anyway – the whole set was a bargain at under €60, then I was watching Nigella’s new show last night and saw she had the same one. Squeeeeee!!!! I love love love her! I dream of her kitchen, so like the mixing bowl was a pretty good place to start.

On to tonight’s dinner then:

Really simply it’s just the chicken legs baked in a sticky sauce then served with salad and it would be delicious with rice but because I can’t help myself I made Southern Living’s Cornbread. Though because we don’t need that much cornbread in the house I halved the quantities and baked it in a loaf pan for 20 mins. The whole dinner takes 1hr start to finish but most of that is hands off time with the chicken in the oven.

You will need:

• chicken legs
• 1/3 cup marmalade or apricot jam
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• hot sauce to taste, I used 1tbsp chipotle and 1 tsp extra hot habenero*
• 1 clove garlic, minced

Preheat oven to 190c

Put the sauce ingredients into a microwaveable bowl

Microwave for 1min, then mix

Put the chicken in a lightly oiled roasting dish

Pour the sauce over to coat

Roast for approx 40 mins until cooked through

Serve with a nice crunchy salad and the cornbread if you fancy

Do yourself a favour and make a small jar of mustard vinaigrette to use on the salad

Into a clean empty jar put:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tbsp cider vinegar
• 1 tsp honey
• 1tsp dijon mustard
• 1tsp wholegrain mustard
• 1/2 tsp salt & pepper

Shake to mix and use a small amount to dress tonight’s salad and save the rest for tomorrow.

 

Pork chops with warm potato salad and greens:

This couldn’t be easier to throw together in about 20 mins using

• Pork Chops
• Salad Potatoes
• Sugarsnaps
• Leftover salad dressing

Simply season the pork chops and pan fry/grill them to you liking

Microwave your salad potatoes for approx 8 mins or according to the packet, I got one of those microwaveable packs. Drain them and cut them in half while still warm and put them into serving bowl with the leftover dressing from you salad. Cover with a clean tea towel to continue steaming while you get on with your sugar snaps/green veg.

Cook these in the microwave – see instructions here

Serve and enjoy.

*A note on hot sauce: I have a hot sauce obsession and I love El Yucateco  brand which you can buy In The Asian Store on Mary’s st or in Picado on South Richmond st.