Dinner Time

I'm sure a lot of you would agree that there is just not enough time during the week to prepare something special or to even consider plating the dish that you've just tossed together from whatever you could find in the fridge.

So this should sound familiar...you get home after work and you throw something in the pan, scan the fridge for some veggies, pop potatoes, rice or pasta in a pot....throw it all on a plate and make yourself comfortable on the coach.

Hey, I'm not judging! Most nights in our house aren't much different.

But tonight I decided - screw that!

So I also started by scanning the fridge to see what I have at my disposal. Chicken fillets, green beans, carrots, and rice. Doesn't sound much different to the average mediocre weeknight meal does it?
Oh, I also had a few slices of sandwich ham, tomato jam I bought in Parys last weekend and a piece of leftover puff pastry.

Here's what I did with it:

If you decide to follow this recipe, I added a few extra comments in blue

I deboned the chicken fillets and butterflied them. Then added some salt to both sides of each fillet and a bit of mustard to the inside of each fillet. I also had a little bit of sesame seeds so I sprinkled them on the outside of the fillets.

Next I sautéed some finely chopped onions and browned the chicken fillets on the outside using the same pan. They were still going into the oven later on so no need to cook them at this point.

This is a good time to pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees celcius and to get some water boiling for the rice.

In the meantime I rolled out the puff pastry so that I had enough to wrap the chicken fillets. I only had a small piece of pastry to work with but my plan wasn't to make chicken pie so I didn't need a lot anyway. I wanted a thin layer of pastry to wrap around each fillet just for that rich salty taste that puff pastry brings to the party.

I opened the fillets again and added the ham, onions and a spoon of tomato jam to the inside of each.

I folded them in half again and wrapped a piece of pastry around each fillet.

To prevent the pastry from drying out too much in the oven I painted the outside with a bit of milk and popped them into the oven.

I must admit I don't know how long they were in the oven, I just watched them carefully and took them out once the pastry was golden brown. Probably about 20 minutes.

With the chicken in the oven and the rice simmering it was time for the veggies. I blanched the green beans first and then the carrots.

In plain English: add the veggies to a pot of boiling salty water. When you add the veggies the water obviously cools down, as soon as it starts boiling again take it off the heat, toss it in a colander and rinse under cold water.

I then cooked them in "unsalted" water for a couple of minutes.

I wanted the carrots a bit sweeter but I also wanted to keep the meal "relatively" healthy so I only took 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1 tablespoon of butter and melted it in a pot to form a syrup. In goes the carrots which simmers on a low heat in the syrup for about 10 minutes.

All together it probably took about 50 minutes. Not much longer than the preparation time for any other meal hey...

I could sit through Masterchef Australia without feeling ashamed about the food I have on my lap!