Chicken Parmigiana & Jamie Oliver Potatoes/Carrots

Nothing fancy but tasty just the same

I haven't cooked dinner for nearly a week. Finishing off a university assignment and enjoying Mother's Day weekend seemed to zap all my time and energy. Lucky I have a stock of meals for Oscar in the freezer and for us, well take away pizza, cheese on toast, and whatever we can eat standing at the fridge door has been our dinner! So tonight I am making amends. Nothing fancy, probably not blog-worthy but here it is anyway.

I love Jamie Oliver's cookbooks and enjoy watching his 30 minute meal shows. On the weekend (while eating cheese & crackers for dinner) I decided to give his herb 'roasted' potatoes and glazed carrots a try. We're having them with a chicken parmigiana and whatever vegetables are in the fridge to steam, cauliflower and broccoli.

Prepare it earlier to save time

Here's what you need - Chicken Parmigiana
chicken breast (I needed 3)
flour to coat chicken (about 1/2 cup)
1 lightly beaten egg
1 cup flour
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1 tbspn chopped parsley (if you like)
1 bottle pasta sauce or whole tomatoes in can
grated mozzarella cheese
olive oil

Vegetables cooking away

Here's what you need - Potatoes & Carrots
500g potatoes (I used 2 large brushed potatoes)
1 lemon (use a potato peeler to shave off the zest)
4 sprigs of fresh thyme & rosemary
1 bulb of garlic, unpeeled
1 large carrot, wash, peeled, cut into stalks
small knob of butter
2-3 bay leaves
2 tspn sugar

Chicken in the oven

Here's what you do - Chicken
Heat the oven to 180C. Press down the chicken breast with your hands to flatten it out. Combine the parmesan and breadcrumbs with the parsley in a bowl. Coat the chicken in flour, dip and coat in egg and then cover with the cheesy breadcrumbs. For my son's chicken I cut the breast in half horizontally so it is not as thick. Heat the olive oil in a fry pan and lightly fry each side of the chicken until it is golden. Drain on kitchen paper. (I prepared the chicken during the day and kept it in the fridge to save time).

When you're ready to cook the chicken, place the cooked chicken on a baking try lined with foil. Pour over your pasta sauce generously and top with grated mozzarella. I probably put too much cheese put better too much than too little in my opinion. Bake in the oven for about 10-15mins.

Vegetables
During the day when I prepared the chicken I also steamed some cauliflower and broccoli and kept it in the fridge. It's just one less thing to think about at dinner time and I reheated them when I was ready to serve. I followed Jamie's recipe and instructions to the letter and the results were pretty good.

Boil the kettle and heat a fry pan on high. Put the cut potatoes in the pan and cover with boiling water from the kettle. I didn't cover mine with a lid. Cook on high for about 10mins or until the potato breaks apart with a knife easily.

Boil the kettle again and put the carrots in a sauce pan. Pour the boiling water over, add a few twigs of thyme, sugar, pinch of salt, bay leaves and a lug of olive oil. Leave cooking on high.

Seasonings

Once the potatoes are ready, drain them, return the pan to the heat and warm up some olive oil. Let the potatoes steam in colander for a few minutes. Add the potatoes to the olive oil and lay them out flat. Add your unpeeled bulb of garlic a clove at a time and grate in your lemon zest. Add a knob of butter and toss on high heat for a few minutes. Turn the heat low and continue tossing for a few minutes more. Tear in some rosemary and toss a few more times. They should go golden in colour.

Drain the carrots then pour a little olive oil and sprinkle some salt over them. Take the chicken out of the oven and serve up with all the vegetables. I needed to add a bit of salt to my dinner. Enjoy!

Five! Vegetable Rissoles

I just made these rissoles up for Oscar's lunch today and they are great. So many variations possible and I think next time I will add some chicken. The recipe was adapted from Annabel Karmel's fantastic cookbook, New Complete Baby & Toddler Meal Planner, which I've mentioned before is a favourite. The only change I would make to this recipe is to slightly cook the broccoli first before adding to the frypan as they were still a bit crunchy at the end.

The recipe made 6 medium sized rissoles which I have frozen.

Here's what'll you need:

Ingredients

3 medium potatoes or 300g                
25g butter        
50g sweetcorn  
50g broccoli florets chopped up small              
1 small onion, peeled and chopped      
1 garlic clove crushed                          
6 mushrooms or 75g                            
1 medium carrot, peeled & grated        
vegetable oil for frying  
1 teaspoon soy sauce        
flour for coating
1 egg, beaten
75g breadcrumbs
75g grated cheese (I used cheddar, recipe suggests Gruyere)    

Here's what you do:    

The mixture 

Peel and boil the potatoes under tender (for about 10-15mins), wait for them to cool (unlike me who literally kept dropping a hot potato) and then grate them using a cheese grater. Keep to the side.

Melt the butter in a frypan and cook the onion, garlic and broccoli for about 4 minutes or until they become soft. I think I needed to do this for longer though as my broccoli were still a bit crunchy. Add the mushrooms and cook till they shrink a bit then add the grated carrot and cook for about 2mins more. Add the sweetcorn and cook for 1 more minute.

Mix in the grated potato, cheese, soy sauce and salt & pepper if you like. I never add any salt but it's up to you. You mixture will become almost gooey like, perfect for shaping into rissoles.

Ready for frying

Take the mixture off the heat and allow it to cool (again, I am an impatient cook and didn't listen to my own advice). Using your hands, mould the mixture into 6 rissole shapes. Make sure to pack down the ingredients, otherwise they will fall apart. Roll each rissole in flour, dip it in the egg and then coat with breadcrumbs. 

Heat the vegetable oil in a fry pan and cook the rissoles until crisp. Enjoy!

Oscar eating his rissole with baked beans