Honey and Soy Sauce Marinated Chicken with Spinach Salad

Honey and Soy Sauce Marinated Chicken

Ingredients:
500g free range chicken thighs
5 tbs Dark soy sauce
8 garlic cloves - roughly diced
1/5 onion - roughly diced
3 tbs of honey
1/2 tsp. cracked black pepper

Method:

Place the chicken into a tray. Rub all of the remainder ingredients onto the chicken. Cover and leave in the fridge to marinate for at least 12 hours. The longer you leave the better it'll taste!

After the marination is complete, bake the chicken in the oven at 180degC for 30 - 50 minutes. Make sure to check the juices run clear before eating it. Once you are satisfied that it is properly cooked, serve with some rice or mashed potatoes along with some crunchy salad. 

Spinach Salad

Ingredients:
4 cloves of fresh garlic - finely chopped
1/5 red onion - finely chopped
2 cups of spinach - soaked in boiled hot water for 5 minutes
1 cucumber - sliced thinly with a potato peeler
3 tbs olive oil
Salt & cracked black pepper to suit taste

Method:

Make sure you have a good potato peeler so that you can slice off nice cucumber strips. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a nice juicy piece of meat. Enjoy!

Pea and Tomato Salad

The fruits of our labour, S flew up to Auckland for work, so left me with the tomato harvest, they are delicious.

Ingredients:
Small tomatoes - as many as you like - quartered
Snap peas - as much as you like
Red onion - about 1/5 of a small onion - finely chopped
Olive oil - about 2 to 4 tbs
Salt & cracked black pepper to taste

Method:

First take out the peas out of their jackets and set aside. Don't discard the jackets. Dice each pea jacket into strips, make sure to remove the stringy edges as these don't taste very good though are bit rough to chew. 

Now in a large bowl mix together the red onion, peas, the peas jacket strips, the tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper. That's it! Have a taste and add some salt/cracked black pepper/olive oil to suit your taste if required. I can T=taste the hours of sunshine, warm and vibrant in my stomach.

Quick, and Easy Healthy Salmon Salad

I made up this recipe the other day as I was keen to eat something healthy, yet still delicious. Salmon is extremely good for you as it contains loads of vitamins and protein which help to reduce risk of heart disease and diabetes. This is super quick and easy to make, and you really just have to let the fresh ingredients speak for themselves.  

Ingredients:
Fresh salmon fillet - sliced in to chunks
Fresh lettuce leaves - torn
Bean sprouts - soaked in hot water for 2 minutes
Kalamata olives - sliced
Fresh bird's eye chili - sliced (you can leave the seeds in depending on how hot you want it)
Fresh spring onion - sliced
Olive oil - about 3 to 5 tbs.
Lemon Juice - about 1 - 2 tbs.
Salt & cracked black pepper to taste

Method:

You can use as much of the above major ingredients as you want, you simply can't go wrong here. Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl, let it sit for 10 - 20 minutes to let the dressing absorb all of the awesome flavors.

Serve along with toasted bread. Turkish bread works perfect. 

Salmon with Lemon Sauce, and Potato with Mint Salad

Ingredients: 
Salmon and Lemon sauce:
3 Tbsp of lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil or any other vegetable oil
200g to 300g Salmon fillets
1/4 cup chicken stock
1 cup full-fat cream
Salt & cracked black pepper to suit taste
parsley - added in the end for garnish 

Potato Salad with Mint:
Small potatoes
1 cup fresh mint leaves
Lemon juice 
Olive oil
Salt & cracked black pepper to suit taste


Method:

Salmon with the Lemon Sauce

Add cream, chicken stock, and lemon juice to a pot on high heat. Bring to boil and reduce the heat to low. Cover the pot with lid and simmer for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to suit taste.

Coat the salmon fillets in olive oil, salt, and cracked black pepper. Bring a frying pan to high heat. Fry the salmon on each side for 5 minutes. Serve the salmon and pour the lemon sauce over, and garnish with parsley.

I find this is a great dish as it is generally pretty healthy (the only thing that's not the best for your here is the full-fat cream), and take's almost no time to prepare.

Potato Salad with Mint

We ordered this at a local City Gallery cafe and were surprised at how well the mint complemented the potatoes. Add all the ingredients listed above together in a bowl. You can vary the amount of each of the ingredients depending on how much salad you want to make. It's hard to go wrong here. Mix well and serve. Sue's mum came over shortly after this and just missed out. Oh well 

Great dish for a dinner party.

Cucumber, Red Capsicum, Onion, Feta Cheese Summer Salad

This salad is quick to knock up in under 5 minutes. Perfect to go with a stodgy meal, like BBQ steaks, sausages, etc.

Ingredients
1/4 White Onion - chopped
1/2 Cucumber - chopped
1/2 Capsicum - chopped
Feta cheese - as much as you like
Olive oil - 1 tsp.
Cracked pepper - to taste

Mix all the ingredients together and serve. When mixing you can squash the cucumber slices gently with your hands to get some of the juices out and mix with the onion flavor to give its own dressing. You can add heaps of other ingredients to suit your taste like olives, lemon juice, cherry tomatoes, red onion.

Russian Winter Salad ('Zimney Salad') - Potato Salad.

For this you will need the following ingredients:

Potatoes
Roast beef slices (200g) - this can found in any supermarket deli
Gherkins
Canned peas (these can be mint flavoured if you like - works just fine)
Mayonnaise
Salt

This is the potato salad we used to make in Russia all the time. The reason it is called winter salad has something to do with the growing seasons for some of the veggies. Not sure what exactly.

The amount of potatoes, gherkins, and canned peas can be any amount you want as long as they are all equal. Peel all the potatoes first then give them a good rinse under cold water. Prepare a large pot of boiling water and throw all the potatoes in there. Leave the potatoes to boil. While you wait for the potatoes to cook you can do the following steps:

Take the sliced beef and cut it into small rectangular pieces similar size you can see in the above photo. Do the same with the gherkins. Take the cut up gherkins and beef pieces and throw into a bowl. Pop open the can of peas and throw this into the same bowl.

Check if the potatoes have cooked. If they have, pour out the water and cut the potatoes into small cubic pieces slightly larger than the beef or the gherkins pieces. Throw all the cut up potatoes into the same bowl with the peas, gherkins, and the beef.

Now we add the mayonnaise. Put just enough mayonnaise to cover everything nicely. Mix the whole mixture together until everything is evenly distributed. Try tasting and if need be add a touch of salt (say 1 teaspoons) and mix again. Finished! Now store the salad in a fridge for 2 hours or longer to allow it to reduce in temperature. When the salad is fully cold it will taste much better. If you ever have a BBQ or a party to go to, this salad will go down really well.

Quick and Easy Caesar Salad from Left Over Roast Chicken

This recipe is perfect for left over roast chicken. It takes less than 15 minutes to make and is pretty damn tasty. 

Ingredients (enough for 2 people):
120g of your favourite salad leaves
1/4 roast chicken - shredded
6 tbs mayonnaise
2 slices of bread - toasted
3 cloves of garlic - crushed
2 tsp of lemon juice
1/2 tbs of Dijon mustard
1 tbs of grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbs of white wine vinegar
3 tbs olive oil
Cracked black pepper

Method:

Cut the crust of the toasted bread slices and discard. Cut the remainder of the toasted bread into bite size cubes and place into a large bowl. Into the same bowl place the salad leaves and the roast chicken pieces.

For the dressing place the mayonnaise, garlic, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, Parmesan cheese, and white wine vinegar into a food processor. Grind everything until it turns into a smooth, milky looking dressing. Have a taste and add more of any of the above ingredients to suit your liking. 

Add the dressing to the salad bowl and mix together with the chicken and toasted bread cubes until everything is evenly distributed. Finish off with a drizzle of olive oil, a few twists of cracked black pepper, and serve.