Did my first recipe post on Chopping Board, my blog on Times of India. Here’s the link to how to make basa in pesto
Years back we used to cook at home ourselves every evening and on one such evening K said I should write a book called ‘Between the Breaks Cooking’.
The thing is that we watch quite a bit of TV at nights and I often would try to balance time in the kitchen with time in front of our favourite programmes. That’s when I developed a knack for cooking dishes which didn’t need me to tend them for long. I would jet into the kitchen during an ad break and quickly put the dish for the night together and then get back to whatever programme I was watching on TV while our dinner cooked inside.
One added complication these days is that we got out for a longish walk in the evenings before we come back and put dinner together. That’s when all the efficiency and planning in the kitchen comes to use.
The dinner I put together last night of grilled chicken with a side of veggies reminded me of those Between the Break days. Tasted pretty good, looked pretty neat and didn’t take much time to put together. There wasn’t much on TV which clashed with cooking though!
Recipe 1….Rosemary & garlic grilled chicken (for 2)
Ingredients:
2 chicken legs (I added an extra drumstick for a chicken sandwich for breakfast)…skinned and scored (slashed with a knife), 1 teaspoon chopped garlic, 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon sea salt, juice of half a lime, 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary sprigs
Prep:
Marinate the chicken by applying the lime juice over it. Sprinkle the salt and then stuff in the garlic and rosemary into the places where the chicken has been slashed. Apply 2 tablespoons of balsamic over the chicken. Let the chicken marinate in a baking dish in the fridge for an hour. Cover the chicken with a baking foil.
Cook:
- Preheat the oven for 10 min at 200 C
- Put in the chicken for 15 min at 200 C
- Take the chicken out after 15 min. Take the foil off. Turn the chicken around.
- Put it back in for 20 min at 200 C (35 min total)
- Once done keep the chicken in the oven for at least 5 minutes and let the juices settle down
- Before serving top the chicken with the rest of the balsamic vinegar
Recipe 2…grilled veggies with basil & cheddar
Ingredients:
250 g sliced portabella mushrooms, 2 carrots chopped into rings, 50 g sweet corn, 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 1 teaspoon sea salt , 4 or 5 fresh basil leaves, 2 tablespoon of grated salty cheese (I used the Cornish cheddar which I’d picked up in M&S, London)
Prep:
Put the vegetables in a baking tray and the basil. Sprinkle the salt on the vegetables, add the EVOO and mix it in. Top with the grated cheese
Cook:
- Put the baking dish with the vegetables into a preheated oven (pre-heated for at least 10 minutes). I put it in along with the chicken which had half cooked by then
- Let the veggies cook for 20 min at 200 C
That’s it.
All done within ad breaks. By the way, did I tell you that an oven is a very handy thing to have in the kitchen to increase efficiencies?
It's something to new, you have twisted. Great!