Easy fajitas

This is something I make all the time. Just made it this evening as I found out the French student staying with us loves them. It's really easy.......

Get some chicken breasts, cut them into strips. Also cut a couple of onions and peppers into strips, (even better, get someone who really likes fajitas to do all the chopping for you) chuck them into a wok or frying pan with some olive oil, lemon juice, dried oregano and chilli flakes or some of that very lazy chilli stuff they sell in jars for people like me.

Mix together. Fry. Stir occasionally.

Serve with tortillas, grated cheese, creme fraiche or sour cream and salsa (from a jar, obviously)

Job done!

Cuban Roast Chicken

I'm on a roll now, people keep sending me recipes so I guess I'd better get my finger out and actually blog some of them......

So next up, this one:

That Med Lemon Chicken recipe sounds delicious - I do chicken with citrus lots of times. Another variation for you to try, esp if you like ethnic-easy - and exotic for France - is this CUBAN roast chicken :


Prepare EXACTLY as your friend's recipe, except leave out potatoes & herbes de provence. Instead of straight lemon juice, use a combination of lemon, orange, & lime juice (or buy the 100% citrus juice melange from Lidl, dirt cheap), salt & pepper, sliced onions or dried onion, & LOADS of garlic (however you prefer, fresh cloves or powdered). Roast as you normally would, allowing to brown & crisp at end.

Serve with plain steamed rice (easiest way you can make it) & a bowl of hot, canned black beans (if you can't find canned black beans, then pink or red or white would do). Also, you can quickly saute big chunks of bananas till slightly crisp & serve all together. A typical Cuban spread!!!!!

And it was bloody delicious!! Had to go and cook it chez les guinea pigs due to my oven cooking slower than just leaving the food out in the sun would have done. Used actaul oranges, lemons and limes instead of juice as we happened to have a load lying around after a recent cocktail party, like you do......as for the sauted bananas, they went really sweet, it's a great combination. Nothing was left except bones and citrus rinds, which went into the composter, got eaten by the dog and sicked up the next day (you probably didn't need to know that though......)

Mediterranean Lemon Chicken

Well I have been given some recipes to try for my lazy cook collection and this is the first of them from my friend Chrissie up in Brittany. She writes:

"Take the biggest baking tray with deepish sides you can fit into the oven and fill it with chicken thighs, drumsticks and smallish or halved par boiled spuds. Slosh over this plenty of olive oil and lots of 'herbs de Provence' salt and pepper. Lastly, cut a couple (we use four) lemons into quarters and squeeze them over the top of the chicken. Now, the fun bit. Put some hot soapy water in the sink 'cos you're going to need it. With clean hands (we do try) get in there and mix the whole lot together. Once you've done that and washed your hands pop the whole thing into the oven until cooked ! The house, by the way, will smell amazing!"

Sounds nice and easy, doesn't it? Obviously I didn't bother peeling the spuds or anything, parboiling them is enough of an effort. You can get ready peeled & cooked spuds here vacuum packed but didn't have any handy and as yesterday was yet another Bank Holiday here, I had to use actual potatoes......the rest of it was very simple though and the results were fantastic, tried it out on some friends they loved it too, nothing was left, not even the juice!

My friend Guy in this photo is highly qualified as far as eating goes, he once challenged a friend to see which of them could eat the most beef in a year, you'll find the journal of that year here, needless to say he won, being an insanely competitive person ........not sure how great it was for his health though.

So thank you, Chrissie, a great recipe, really easy to do and tastes fantastic! Oh and the kitchen does indeed smell amazing......

Lazy stir fry

Well first of all a big thank you to all the people who have sent me easy recipes, I will be trying them all in the next few weeks to make sure they are indeed faff-free enough to be included here. Couldn't really get this across to my chef friend who was telling me about his "simple" sweet potato recipe last night, he was most offended when after a 10 minute explaination I told him it wasn't at all simple for us mere mortals...........

Anyway, today's recipe is something I eat a lot because not only is it easy, it's quick to cook as well. Get a chicken breast, chuck it in a frying pan, if you're feeling really keen, chop it up first but I often don't bother if I'm just cooking for me, it's easier to pull it apart in the wok once it's cooked. Maybe bung in some veg like peppers, courgettes and aubergines if you can be bothered to chop some up (they do come frozen ready chopped too, even over here) Fry it for a bit in oil, then chuck in something no kitchen should be without: sweet chili sauce.

This is available from all good supermarkets, except in France where we have to drive all the way to Bordeaux to a fabulous place called Eurasie (they even have a website here) where you can buy civilised stuff like Patak's curry paste and huge bags of ground coriander. No so in the local Leclerc where you're lucky to find such exotic foreign fayre as Marmite and lemon curd. Anyway, back to the sweet chili sauce which is fantastic for loads of things but I use it mainly in stir fries. Cook the chicken in it til it goes all nice and caramely (is that a word?), add a splash of soy sauce and there you are. Serve with rice or noodles (Eurasie do the lazy precooked version where you just open a sachet and chuck them in the wok, guess which ones I use.....). If you really want to push the boat out you can go to the trouble of opening a tin of bamboo shoots to chuck in , or beansprouts are nice too.