Ingredients

•  500 g chicken cubed (small pieces)

•  3 large Cloves Garlic

• 2 Peppers preferably 1 green and 1 of any other colour.

•  2 onions Cut in half top to bottom, then cut into wedges.

•  2 tablespoons oil  -

•  2 tablespoons lemon juice

• Half a jar of Doritos Salsa or similar. This is around 150 g salsa. (see note on Jalapeños)

• 1 Sachet Fajita Mix * see note

• 4 Stalks Celery (cut finely)

• 1 Heaped Tablespoon Old El Paso** Jalapeños. If using hot salsa this may be enough but if its cool salsa you may want more.

• 1 teaspoon thyme or oregano or a mix of both

• Plenty of Black Pepper

• Corriander Leaves. If you like corriander sprinkle it over the dish when serving or if serving with rice mix it into the rice.

* I recommend Lidls Newgate Fajita Mix or Discovery if you can find it. I do know a lot of people love Old El Paso though I find it a bit ‘beefy’. The Jar of Schwartz is to be avoided.

**I like the Old El Paso Jalapeños because they are in water not vinegar. But a jar by another brand will be fine too. These are really handy to keep in the fridge for pizzas or chilli con carne too.

Check out a great dessert to go with this dish. Lemon Sorbet with Tequila Drizzle

Method

This dish is an experiment that just happened to work out well and I will be updating the recipe and versions the more I make it.

Video of dish in Chicken Highlights on my Instagram page. Its called Contents of the Fridge Traybake

The Experiment was to take all the contents of my fridge out and use them up. I was going to make a paprika chicken traybake but then I spotted the half jar of Salsa and I had a rethink. I love fajitas but sometimes Im slow to make them as frying all the stuff can create a lingering smell and when I make them .. 2 is too few and 3 is too much!

But the idea of cooking this in the oven appealed to me - so on finding a sachet of Fajita Mix at the back of the cupboard - we were up and running.

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180

Cut the onions into wedges, roughly chop the garlic, peppers and Celery. Dice the chicken into decent sized chunks. put it all into an oven proof dish and stir in your oil, lemon juice, fajita mix and black pepper. Add a little sea salt but not much.

- so far that’s just ‘Honors Chopping’ in fact “Pass Chopping will still taste great. Cover the dish with a lid or tinfoil and bung it in the oven for 20 minutes. You will be cooking without a lid for the last bit.

Spice Level

Now you need to decide what level of spice you want in this dish. I love spice and even though I used the Hot Salsa I still loaded up on the Jalapeños. I’ve indicated a heaped tablespoon but I did use a bit more. The ones I used this time were red although I generally have Green in the cupboard. They were delicious. I think you really want the proper jalapeños in this dish but if you just want Mexican and not spicy then by all means leave it out.

Pop the jalapeños into the dish and give it a good stir. Add the salsa at this stage too. Put it back into the oven with NO lid for another 30 - 35 mins. It will probably need a stir during this time to make sure it doesn’t burn.

See below for serving suggestions.

Ingredients

•  750/800 g chicken cubed

• 2 dessertspoons paprika

• 2 desertspoons Dijon mustard

• 1 heaped teaspoon of either thyme/oregano/mixed herbs

• 4 large garlic cloves chopped or crushed

• 2 red onions halved and quartered

• 2 courgettes sliced but not too fine

• 2 peppers  - different colours if possible

• Salt and pepper

• 4 tablespoons olive oil

• Basted Cherry Tomatoes * optional

This is the most easy thing you will EVER make and is the basic roadmap for every other one pot wonder you do in the oven.

I also call it Summer Chicken because it’s fabulous cooked in advance and served cold.

Video of dish in Chicken Highlights on my Instagram page.

Method

Heat the Oven to 180

Just get all your veg and chicken chopped and pop it into an oven proof dish. (except the tomatoes)

You could use other veg interchangeably but this combo actually work well together for cooking time but look - if you didn’t have a second courgette and you had some French beans - throw them in! Carrots take a bit longer to cook so if you have to use them make sure they are small batons.

Stir the herbs, oil and mustard well through your ingredients and pop it your dish in the oven for 15 mins. I usually don’t cover this dish for any time in the oven as I like to serve it cold and so the dryer result suits that. However you could cover it and you would build up juice.

But not covering it makes stirring essential so make sure you do that after 15 mins and then again after an other 15 mins. Then give it an other 10.

Total cooking time around 40 mins

* Basted Cherry Tomatoes.

If you fancy adding a few tomatoes that don’t fall apart and add something special to the dish you could try adding a few for the last 10 mins of the cooking time.

To make - Halve the tomatoes and baste them in a 2/1 mix of Oil and Balsamic. Sometimes I use a bit of chilli oil to give them an extra zing

Ingredients

•  1 Cooked Chicken – stripped or 500 g of cooked chicken

•  1 or 2 Cloves Garlic

• 140/170 G pack of  pancetta or bacon lardoons . Or similar amount of the ham or bacon of your choice. I use unsmoked

•  3 leeks (slice first and wash after if they are very dirty).

•  Pre Rolled Puff Pastry  - make sure your pie dish can be fully covered by a sheet.

•  1 Chicken Stock Pot jelly cube to make 500 ml

• 50 mls Sherry.

• 1 or 2 Teaspoon Grainy Mustard (optional)

• 200 ml single cream (double is fine)

• Needed no herbs if you mix use a cooked whole chicken and mix through with the herb crusted skin before discarding the skin before cooking.

• 1 teaspoon thyme (or your preferred herbs)

• 45 g /3 tablespoons butter

• 1 Egg – for egg washing the pastry.

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Melt about a teaspoon of the butter in a large frying pan or wok over a medium heat and add the pancetta. For some recipes I cook these until almost crispy but for the pie I don’t over cook them and don’t forget they will be going into the oven anyway.

Scoop the lardons out of the pan and set aside.

Melt the rest of the butter and add the leeks to the pan and gently fry until soft and silky, add the garlic about half way through doing the leeks. Add your stock and sherry and bring it up to a simmer. Let it bubble for a minute or so but don’t reduce the liquid too much, then stir in the cream, mustard, thyme and the bacon. Season with plenty of black pepper but remember with the bacon you may not need that much salt. Finally stir in the chicken.

Pour the chicken and sauce into the pie dish and allow to cool. Brush the rim of the pie dish with egg wash, then place the pastry on top, pressing down to seal. Crimp the edges with a fork for a bit of the trad look, then cut a small hole in the top and brush the whole lot with egg wash. With any left over bit of pastry you can make a little cross or design on top.

Bake for about 30-40 minutes until the pastry has risen and is golden, and allow to cool slightly before serving. 180 degrees

Ingredients

• 600 g quality minced beef, pork, or a mixture of the two (my preference is a mix with slightly more pork)

• 2 heaped teaspoons Dijon mustard 

• 1 heaped tablespoon dried oregano 

• 1 large free-range egg – lightly beaten

• 3 cloves Garlic – crushed not chopped

• 1 small to medium onion – slightly softened in oil (you could sub in shallots)

• 50 g bread crumbs 

• 40g parmesan cheese, finely grated

Options

Obviously you can make lots of tweaks to this recipe.

Oregano can be omitted in favour of thyme or mixed herbs.

Use 500 g mix of Beef and Pork and 100g of pancetta.

Add a bit of chilli, cayenne or some chilli flakes if you want a bit of spice.

For a Mexican feel add chopped jalapeños

For a Hungarian Meatball use some paprika or hot paprika.

Method

This is your basic Meatball recipe that will steer you right. As you can see - below the recipe I have added other little tweaks and versions for you to try and of course you can always try an idea of your own. Let me know - links to my accounts are here.

Take your ingredients and use a fork to mix them all up in a bowl.

You should be able to get about 12 Meatballs from this recipe - I aim for meatballs about 58 - 60 g

When you have shaped them all put them on a plate and leave to rest in the fridge.

To cook - I gently fry them on all sides for just a few minutes to seal them and then bake for around 40 mins.

See below for serving suggestions.

Ingredients

• 650 g Chicken Breasts

• 75-90g  unsmoked pancetta lardons

• 1 Tblspn Butter 

• 1 Small onion or 3 Large Shallots - sliced

• 2 or 3 cloves Garlic – crushed

• 1/2 Tsp Dried Thyme

• 60 mls White Wine or Sherry

• 250 mls Cream

• 1 Desertsp Dijon Mustard

• 40g parmesan cheese, finely grated

• Salt and Black Pepper

• Parsley or Spinach (optional)

Options

Method

This is so delicious and with cream of course it’s worthy of special occasions -but without any particular hassle. It’s all done in one pan on the hob!

Lightly season your chicken and fry it in a large pan on both sides until its cooked through - you can have the heat quite hot to start to get that nice crispy outside to it if you wish.

Set the chicken aside and keep any juice.

Then add your pancetta to the pan -UNSMOKED PANCETTA for this dish. And cook to your liking. Also set this aside and keep any juice from the pacetta aside too.

Now turn down the heat so your butter doesn’t burn and add it to the pan. Cook the shallots or onions on a lowish heat with a bit of sea salt and as they start to turn translucent and smell delicious you can add your garlic. Then you can add your wine or sherry and your thyme along with any of the juices that you set aside. Let the alcohol burn off as you stir in the dijon mustard and keep stirring. Add your cream and don’t leave it too long to add your parmesan because it will thicken the sauce so while you want to reduce the cream a bit - not too much! Add plenty of black pepper as its just delicious in this dish but remember if you have added salt to the chicken and onions already you may have enough.

Add your chicken and bacon back to the pan to heat through. If you wish to add torn spinach or chopped parsley you can add it into the pan now to at the last minute before serving.

See below for serving suggestions.