Another recipe...

Hello there reader. If you do indeed exist I'd like to apologise again for being just about the laziest blogger in blogsville and hope you can find it in you heart to forgive me? If not though I'm sure I'll get over it *blows massive raspberry* Anyway as a peace offering I've given you the gift of a snap of my boy. Scrummy!!

I'm here with another chicken recipe because (I'm lazy and...) everybody loves a bit of chicken. No?


Honey Chicken Mountain
Serves 2

2 chicken breasts
2tbsp honey
Tbsp lemon juice
1 clove of garlic
Tbsp olive oil
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
4 Maris piper spuds
Tbsp butter
Splash of milk
Handful of strong cheddar cheese
Salt & Pepper

Slice each chicken breast into three and pop in a bowl. Cover with the lemon juice, honey and crushed garlic, stir and put the bowl into the fridge to marinade for 20 minutes.
Peel and slice the potatoes into chunks, add to a saucepan, cover with cold water and a pinch of salt and bring to the boil.
Meanwhile add the oil to a frying pan and place on a medium heat. Slice the peppers then add the green to the pan followed by the red. Once the green pepper starts to brown add the chicken and once the chicken starts to brown add the remainder of the marinade.
When the potatoes have boiled drain the water and put them in a bowl along with the milk, butter & seasoning and mash. Add the cheese and mash a bit more.
Place a mountain of mash onto each (heated) plate, place the chicken on top then drizzle the peppers and sauce over everything. Then eat! It's absolutely luscious believe you me :)

I think I'm going to start snapping my dishes when I make them because it's always a good thing to have a picture to copy!

I'M STILL ALIVE!!

Just thought I'd let you know case you were worried... It's been a while! Fabulous excuse though, wee boy called Harry (Jigglypuff got vetoed. Gutted). Amazing and all that. REALLY. Promise to get some coherent thoughts down on here about everything that's happened/happening at some point when I'm not up to my eyeballs ;p

I'm back!

So I'm fine and the bubs is fine and there's only six weeks left to go before I pop. Yikes. I'm giddy beyond belief and utterly petrified at the same time. I haven't had a decent night's sleep in over 3 months now and although I realise that a newborn isn't exactly going to improve this situation it has to be nicer to be woken up several times in the night because you're needed rather than just in agony with dodgy hips! Or at least I'm hoping so. It feels a bit like having a really long birthday when you're preggers as every time I see somebody they want to hand me a present. Excellent :) I've been given so many gorgeous gorgeous things it's bloody lovely! There's a minute pair of lemon fluffy socks that make me cry every single time I look at them so I think it's a cert that I've completely lost my mind at this stage. I wonder if I'll ever get my old brain back or if I'm doolally tap for good now. Probably the latter...

Anyhoo, to business - here's another super recipe that I love and I'm sure you will too. It doesn't look up to much on paper but believe me when I tell you that it's delicious and something a little different to all the zillions of other chicken dishes out there. It wouldn't win any beauty contests though so I wouldn't advice it for an uber posh dinner party but it makes a cracking cozy dinner for you and that lucky bugger you cook for ;)


NOT YOUR RUN-OF-THE-MILL CHICKEN
Serves 2

2 chicken breasts
1tbsp honey
1tbsp mayonnaise
1/2 tsp mustard
3 slices of bacon
Olive oil
1/2 onion
2 handfuls of mushrooms
1 cup of cheddar cheese

Rub the chicken with salt and pop it in the fridge for 20 minutes. Slice the bacon down the centre and grill it. Mix the honey, mayonnaise and mustard together to make a sauce. Heat the oil in a saucepan, slice the onion and fry until golden. Add the chicken breasts to the pan and cook until browned. Place the chicken in a ovenproof dish along with the onions. Pour the sauce over each breast then place the bacon on top. Scatter the chopped uncooked mushrooms over the dish then top with the cheese. Place in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for 20 minutes. Serve either with white rice or a baked potato smothered in butter. Yummy!

Rubbish at this malarky!

Yep, I'm terrible. But as I don't think that anyone besides myself reads this anyway I don't suppose it matters that I only blog once a blue moon. I don't have much to say this time either - guilt simply got the best of me...
Jigglypuff's just fine, kicking away. It's the weirdest feeling ever but bloody lovely all the same. Eighteen weeks left to go, I honestly can't wait!
My poor excuse to blog this time is yet another recipe. It's dead simple and dead gorgeous. Now there's a quote for you! Seriously you'd have to be a total fool not to manage this one and your guests even bigger fools not to love it. Ok, here we are then:

Tasty Tuna Bake
Serves 4

For the tomato sauce
Olive oil
Knob of butter
1 chopped onion
2 crushed garlic cloves
6 chopped sundried tomatoes
Tablespoon of tomato puree
12 cherry tomatoes cut into quarters (vine ripened ones are best)
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Fresh torn basil
Teaspoon of oregano
Salt & Pepper

For the white sauce
40g butter
25g plain flour
425ml milk
Pinch of nutmeg
Pepper

Pasta
Tin of tuna
Cheddar cheese to top

Pre-heat the oven to 180C / gas mark 5. Fill a large pan with cold water and leave to boil, adding the pasta when ready. Heat the olive oil and butter in another saucepan then add the chopped onion, gently fry until golden. Turn down the heat a little and add the garlic (it's REALLY easy to burn garlic and then it tastes rank so do go steady!). Add the sundried tomatoes to the pan along with the tomato puree and cherry tomatoes. Stir occasionally until the tomatoes have started to fall apart. Finally add the tin of tomatoes, basil, oregano salt and pepper and leave to simmer.
For the white sauce add all the ingredients to a small saucepan on a medium heat then whisk occasionally until the sauce starts to thicken.
Once the pasta is cooked, drain then pour into a large ovenproof pot. Cover with the tomato sauce, then the tin of tuna and finally the white sauce and stir until completely mixed. Sprinkle with the cheddar then pop in the oven uncovered for 20 minutes until baked. Serve with some salad and a smile!

This dish is best consumed in cold weather with people who make you laugh - as are all dishes funnily enough ;)

Life got a bit mental...

Ok so it really has been an age since I last blogged but there is actually quite an impressive reason for my absence. Honest.
Sooooo, it was my birthday, my 30th as I think I may have mentioned before (!) and after my brilliant party at Alton Towers (totally refuse to grow up) my mister took me away for a romantic break by the sea. To get to the point whilst we were away I discovered that we had a bun in the oven. Now this came as quite a surprise, especially as we had our wedding booked for April and there's no way that beautiful dress was gonna wrap around me when seven and a half months pregnant! All the same we were thrilled along with being completely scared stiff of course ;) My main concern was that I'd been on the Oblivion THREE TIMES at the Towers when I must have been 3 weeks gone and I was convinced that this can't be a good thing! Fortunately upon returning home my doc managed to convince me that this didn't mean that I had smooshed the little cells and that everything was A-OK. The reason I haven't blogged in such a long time is because it took me this long to fully get to grips with this life changing news, which probably isn't that surprising! The little Jigglypuff (this WILL be his/her name - I have 22 weeks left to convince the mister...) is due in June and the wedding has been postponed until April 2011. Ten months to lose the 15 stone I'll no doubt gain. The excuse "eating for two" is just too bloody brilliant not to use quite frankly! It's amazing you know, I've spent the last 14 years in a state of a perpetual hunger just like every other woman I've ever known and all of a sudden I'm not even ALLOWED to diet! How great is THAT?! Forgive me if I seem a little giddy but as I'm currently scoffing raspberry ripple ice-cream on a Monday afternoon for no other reason than that's what I fancy I think I can be excused.
I'm very very excited about becoming a parent and fascinated by just how vastly my life is about to change. I really think I'm ready for jumping into the unknown and evolving into someone a little bit different from the person I've spent 30 years becoming. Fingers crossed I won't make a complete hash of it!
Hopefully I'll get the urge to blog a bit more frequently now I'm back in the land of the living (two months of extreme morning* sickness turned me into a zombie).

Ta ta for now.

*ALL DAY EVERY DAY!

Before I'm Thirty

Yep, it's been forever again but there's not even an apology this time. You know the drill...
My inspiration, if that's not too grand a word for it, is my birthday this time. If you were looking for a recipe you're all out of luck I'm afraid :)
So I'm going to be thirty soon. Yes T. H. I. R. T. Y. Really really soon. There's a good reason why this word rhymes with dirty because it's honestly the filthiest word I can think of right now. Surely this birthday has to be the most traumatic? Sixteen, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-five, all these birthdays are pretty exciting in lots of ways. Sure, you make a little fuss at 25 because it has the slightest hint that you may just be a 'proper grown-up' now, but deep down you're more than aware that actually you're still just in your mid-twenties and nobody in their right mind could call you old. And on the other side we have forty, fifty, sixty and beyond if you're lucky. I'm inclined to think that by the time you reach these milestones you've already accepted that you are indeed a full blown adult and although getting older isn't a bag of laughs it's certainly inevitable. And, as you're now so wise with maturity you won't feel like throwing a massive paddy and holding your breath until you pass out just to make it all go away. Right now I feel some need to commit the latter but I have to say it isn't actually quite as terrifying as I once imagined it to be. In fact I'll let you in on a little known secret here... After doing a small poll amongst my nearest and dearest we've come to the conclusion that turning 29 is far worse than reaching the big 3 0. The stress I put myself through last year was horrendous! Knowing that the coming year was to be the last of my twenties sent my head into serious Scanners mode (it's a movie if you don't know - watch and be disgusted), and I was an absolute nightmare for at least three months before the event. In fact I was so very horrible at my birthday party that I'm too ashamed to share my behaviour with the world wide web, but rest assured that Veruca Salt would have been inspired by my petulance. Obviously I had imagined that THIS birthday was going to send me completely over the edge and I'd seriously considered booking myself into a mental institution for six months just to be around people who could cope with my freak out. However, like I said it really doesn't feel so bad. It doesn't feel GOOD but I think I might just feel a sense of relief when the bloody thing gets here and I can get on with the rest of my life.
There is something about this momentous occasion though that I simply can't ignore and that's all those billions of 'things you MUST do & learn before you're 30' lists that are floating around in cyber space. Most of them are complete shit and quite frankly if I had done half the things they wanted me to I'd be ashamed to know myself, so I decided to make one of my own. So here's the stuff I think is important to know. It's schmaltzy in parts but it's the best advice I can give. Obviously I'm still working on a few of these myself, but heck I've still got two and a half weeks left to go...

1 - Learn to cook for yourself. It doesn't have to be an array of amazing dishes but by this point you need to have at least two or three ways of feeding yourself and others without the aid of a microwave. I know I sound like your granny but it's the ruddy truth!
2 - Get rid of all the deadwood in your life once and for all. "Friends" who make you feel like something they've trodden in, bosses who make your working life a living nightmare, and notions of who you think you're supposed to be. This is it. Whoever you are right now is the person you're supposed to be. Try and like that person, treat them like you would a good friend and stop forcing them to be something they'll never become. As long as you're not hurting yourself or others YOU'RE ALRIGHT :)
3 - Stand up for yourself, the ones you love and the things you believe in. This sounds like a woolly one but I honestly think it's the trickiest lesson of them all. All of the people will not like you all of the time, it's just impossible. Instead of attempting to please and placate, stand firm and hang your thoughts and feelings out there for others to see. Yes, this will make you unpopular with some but quite honestly these aren't the people you need in your life anyway. Others, whether they agree with you or not will be impressed by the belief you show in yourself and respect you - these are the ones to hang on to.
4 - If you're not already a parent and you think that someday you might like to be, then get a pet. It's the best way to learn how to put the needs of something which is defenceless and mute before your own. Dogs are the most dependant so if you have the inclination then go for it, I'm sure you'll be glad you did!
5 - Learn to be alone sometimes. This one's hard for me. I've always been terrible at being on my own but it's such an important lesson that I've slogged my guts out at achieving it. The only person we'll never lose touch with is ourselves so we need to find that person bloody good company.

And that's it I think. Nothing funny or wild or deviant I'm afraid, just five things that I wanted to share. Oh and one other - if you haven't flung yourself of a bridge with a bit of elastic tied around your ankles by this point then you haven't lived at all. Ha ha ha.