Valentine's Chicken Surprise

Happy Valentine's Day. I do hope you have a romantic meal tonight. I really enjoy cooking. I'm not a bad cook and can create a nice tasty meal providing it's not too complex or arty. I was one of the latchkey kids of the late sixties early seventies. Mother and father had to work to bring in meagre wages and I lived with my grandfather as well who was blind so when I came home from school there was a list of instructions how to cook basic meals and there it began.

"Where there's smoke; there's usually toast."
Anon

My favourite meals are:

1. Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding with fresh steamed vegetables;
2. Home made beef lasagne;
3. Fresh salad;
4. Lamb chops, grilled with soy sauce;
5. Chicken breast in seasoned flour and paprika and casserolled with fresh vegetables;
6. (Don't laugh) Tinned salmon sandwiches in fresh brown bread;
7. Minced beef with mashed potatoes;
8. Butternut Squash (A Jamie Oliver recipe on the BBC web site) baked with bacon and chestnuts on its own or as an accompaniment to pork or chicken;
9. Toasted cheese and onion sandwiches;
10. Roast pork and, of course, crackling.

I'm not a pudding lover particularly because the main meals tend to be fairly sizeable, but my favourite puddings are:

1. Home made bread and butter pudding;
2. Chocolate sponge pudding and chocolate custard - just like they made at school!
3. Biscuits and a variety of cheese, particulary stiltons, Danish and most French cheeses;
4. Rhubarb crumble, well baked with traditional custard or fresh single cream;
5. Fresh fruit salad with single cream.

Hence why I am overweight. When we were first married, pressure cookers were all the rage and we tried slow cookers but they went by the wayside, but we've just rediscovered the slow cooker and as the other half is working and wont be home until early evening, I have done a chicken surprise (the surprise is there's no chicken in it!)

CHICKEN SURPRISE: Ingredients to feed four hungry souls for the slow cooker, done in about 8 hours, prep time about half an hour.

5 large chicken thighs in their skins (come pre-prepared from Messers Sainsburys);
5 carrots - sliced;
Medium onion diced roughly;
Half a turnip - diced;
2 leeks - sliced;
2 courgettes, topped and tailed and sliced;
2 large celery stick washed and sliced;
Tin of chopped tomatoes;
2 ounces of butter.

Seasoning:

About 4 ounces plain flour mixed with a chicken stock cube, 2 tablespoonfuls of ground paprika, lots of freshly ground pepper. Salt is optional - I never use it in cooking, if you need it there's enough in the stock cube.

Method:

Prepare the carrots, turnip and courgettes and place them in the crock pot. Cover the chicken thighs in the seasoned flour and fry them in the butter, turning until golden brown all round. Place the thighs on top of the vegetables in the pot. Using the same frying pan, fry the onions, leeks and celery together until soft and starting to go brown and then add the tin of chopped tomatoes (beware of spitting) and bring to the boil. Once up to the boil, pour over the chicken in the pot and then cover the whole lot with boiling water.

Cover and cook on medium in the slow cooker for around 8 hours and serve with rice of your choice.

You can use an identical recipe for the oven and cook for about an hour and a half on about 180 degrees; just make sure you check that the water doesn't evaporate.

Have a great Valentine's day.

One spelling mistake today!

Chat soon

Ta-ra