We are great lovers of meatballs in this house. Tasty little bites, usually accompanied with sauce or gravy, they always go down well.

I have a real cracker of a recipe for Spaghetti and meatballs that I have been making for years. Todd hates pasta though, so I only very rarely get to make it, although I have used the sauce and meatballs to make a meatball sub casserole before to rave reviews.

I often make Swedish or Norwegian Meatballs, which we like to have with fluffy piles of mashed potatoes to help sop up all that lucious gravy.



Meatball stew and soup also make it onto our menu once in a while. Mince meat is quite economical and needn't be fatty and un-healthy. I always try to buy lean minced beef and pork. Buying cheap mince is using false economy as most of it disappears down the drain in fat anyways. When you think about it, buying meat that is 1/3 fat means that you are paying 1/3 more in the long run, as you are paying for something that you are not actually going to eat. (Well at least you SHOULDN'T be eating all that fat. It's not good for you!)


I had never been all that fond of making meatballs out of turkey or chicken mince though. They usually ended up dry and tasteless, until I discovered this little secret.

Mincing up equal amounts of dark and light meat. You get a really tasty and moist mixture that doesn't dry out.




You're going to really love these. We do.

*Glazed Chicken Bites*
Makes about 40
Printable Recipe

These meatballs are tangy and delicious and moist. They make excellent appetizers and are lovely as a main course as well. I serve them with a rice pilaff, and everyone loves them. I have made them with ground turkey as well, although I do admit the chicken tastes better though. I usually make my own chicken mince, using a combination of thigh and breast meat.

500g minced chicken
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp chinese five spice
1 TBS chopped chives
1/2 cup of stale bread crumbs
For the glaze:
1/2 cup red currant jelly
1/2 cup mango chutney
the juice of half a lemon

Pre-heat the oven to 200*C/400*F. LIne a baking sheet with baking parchment and grease the paper. Set aside.

Place the chicken, egg, coriander, chinese five spice, chives and bread crumbs into a bowl. Mix well with your hands. Shape level tablespoons of the mixture into balls. Place on the prepared baking sheet. Bake, uncovered, for about 15 minutes, or until well browned. Drain on absorbent paper if need be.

Place the glaze ingredients in a medium skillet. Stir low heat until melted and combined. Add the meatballs and heat through, simmering, uncovered until lightly glazed. Serve hot.

After all the hedonistic, rich and unctuous food (great words there!) that I have eaten lately, I felt a real need to eat something healthy . . . but somewhat crunchy . . . (no, not potato crisps)

Something tasty and moreish, but also good for me . . .



I picked up some tasty looking bean and udon radish sprouts at the shops . . .



And with a few additions, I ended up with a tasty salad that quite, quite fit the bill completely.



It almost felt bad, it was so good, but . . .

well, you decide for yourself. Good or bad?



*Bang Bang Chicken Salad*
Serves 6
Printable Recipe

This delicious salad can be made with leftover cooked chicken salad, or you can do as I do and poach fresh chicken to be used in it instead. I just love the dressing, with it's peanut/Thai flavours. You almost feel like you are eating something naughty when you are eating it, but it's salad, so it has to be good for you, right?

For the Chicken:
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup white wine
cold water
1 shallot, peeled and sliced
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp salt
1 celery stalk with leaves

For the Dressing:
200g smooth peanut butter
4 TBS toasted sesame oil
3 TBS vegetable oil
2 TBS sweet chili sauce
2 TBS lime juice
sea salt to taste
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste

For the Salad:
1 TBS sesame seeds, toasted
1 cucumber, peeled, quartered, seeded and cut into thin diagonal slices
4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into thin strips
(I use a vegetable peeler)
100g bean sprouts
1 small handful of udon radish sprouts
4 spring onions, trimmed and cut into thin diagonal slices



Place the chicken into a large saucepan. Add the remaining ingredients, including enough water to barely cover it. Poke it all over with a sharp knife. Bring to the boil, then cover it and remove it from the heat. Let stand until cooked through and the juices run clear. Remove from the liquid and shred.

To make the dressing, warm the peanut butter, sesame oil, and vegetable oil together, whisking until the peanut butter is melted and all are combined. Whisk in the remaining ingredients. Taste for seasoning and adjust as necessary.

Place the salad ingredients in a large bowl, except for the toasted sesame seeds.. Add the shredded cooked chicken and toss all together well, along with a squeeze of lime juice. Drizzle with the dressing and scatter with the sesame seeds. Serve immediately.

Don't forget to put your halo on when you are eating it, coz . . . really, this is quite healthy . . .

It sure has been hot here this past week . . . I think this is what they call the dog days of August. You know what I mean . . . hot and sticky . . . sapping your energy and making you feel lethargic and lazy.

Or at least that is the way it affects me. Thankfully though, it also cools down quite nicely in the evenings, so sleeping is not so bad or uncomfortable. If you've at least had a good night's sleep the muggy days are not so hard to take . . .



But you don't really want to put the oven on, or cook anything heavy . . .

Something light and refreshing is the rule of the day . . . something quick . . . easy . . . but always tasty.



I am a real lover of salads. Todd is not so much, but I always throw in a baked potato for him that I cook in the convection oven, so as not to heat up the kitchen. He's a meat and potatoes man and it's not a main meal for him unless there is a potato involved somewhere along the line.

This tasty salad with a baked potato on the side fits the bill perfectly for him . . . and he doesn't even complain that it's salad. There's cheese here . . . something else that he really likes.



*Herbed Chicken Salad*
Serves 4
Printable Recipe

Quick to make and low in fat, this is the perfect supper salad for a hot and humid summer's evening. We love eating this with bread sticks, but toasted pita breads go really well also.

For the Chicken:
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast meat, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 TBS fresh lemon juice

For the Salad:
8 cups chopped Cos lettuce
1/2 English Cucumber, peeled and cut into cubes
1 small punnet of baby plum tomatoes, cut in halves
a small handful of pitted kalamata olives, halved
2 ounces Feta cheese, crumbled

For the Dressing:
1 cup plain Greek Yoghurt
2 to 3 tsp tahini Isesame seed paste)
1/2 tsp garlic paste
1 to 2 TBS fresh lemon juice (depending on how tart you want the dressing)
salt and black pepper to taste



Mix the oregano, garlic powder, black pepper and salt together for the chicken. Heat a large skillet, which you have sprayed with low fat cooking spray, over medium high heat. Add the chicken pieces and sprinkle with the herb mixture. Saute until the chicken is cooked through and slightly browned. Drizzle with the lemon juice and remove from the heat.

Make the dressing by whisking together all the dressing ingredients. Set aside.

Divide the lettuce amongst 4 chilled salad plates. Divide the olives, tomatoes and cucumber evenly amongst them as well. Scatter 1/4th of the chicken mixture over each. Crumble the feta cheese over all. Place the dressing into a small pouring container, for each person to drizzle over their own salads. Serve immediately.

One of the things I have come to embrace over here is the curry. Several years ago there was a program on the telly called Britain's Favourite food and it was not surprising that curry came quite high on the list. The shelves in every grocery store are stocked to the hilt with a variety of curry sauces, curry ready meals and you can find curry in any self respecting chippy in the land. Chips served with curry sauce are a very popular dish! (Kind of like the British Poutine, but without the cheese)



There are over 9000 curry houses in the UK, spread out all over the land. It's an industry worth some £3.5 billion! The British love affair with curry goes back to colonial days which entailed some two hundred years of British Colonial presence in India, where much loved traditional Indian dishes wormed their way into British hearts and tastes.

I tasted my first curry when I was stationed in Suffield, Alberta with my ex husband. This was the British Army Training base in Canada. We were close friends to many British soldiers and their wives during the time we spent there and often had dinner parties together. One night one of the ladies served up a chicken curry and I have to say it was love at first bite for me!



The other day I was wanting to make a curry from one of Bill Granger's books. It was a rich and tomatey roasted curry. I got the red curry paste stirred into the coconut milk and stopped to read the ingredients on the jar. It had shrimps in it. I had to throw it away then, as I am allergic to shrimps. (I know, poor me!) Anyways, I had to quickly rethink what I was going to do and this is what I came up with. We found it most delicious!



*Roasted Chicken Curry*
Serves 6
Printable Recipe

This started off as a chicken curry cooked on top of the stove, but I decided that I wanted to roast it instead. It is a dry curry, in that there is not a lot of sauce with it. It's tender and delicious though, and if anything tastes even better the day after, as most curries do! The ingredient list is long, but once you have everything assembled, it basically cooks itself.

3 pounds of chicken pieces
5 TBS oil
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 1/2 inches of fresh gingerroot, peeled and finely chopped
2 medium onions, peeled and finely chopped
3 bay leaves
4 whole cloves
1 1-inch piece of a cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
4 whole peppercorns
4 whole cardamom pods, bruised
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp roasted cumin
1/2 tsp red chili
1/2 tsp ground tumeric
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp mace
salt to taste
300ml whole milk
300ml creamed coconut
3 ounces cashew nuts, cut in halves lengthwise
1 ounce pistachio nuts, chopped coarsely
5 ounces sultana raisins



Pre-heat the oven to 180*C/350*F. Place the chicken pieces into a large roaster. Season lightly and then put them into the heated oven to roast while you make the sauce.

Heat the oil in a large heavy bottomed saucepan. Put in the garlic, ginger, onions, bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon stick, cardamom powder, peppercorns and whole cardamom pods. Cook and fry gently until golden brown. Stir in the garam masala, roasted cumin, red chilli, turmeric, nutmeg, mace, and salt. Add the milk and coconut milk. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium low and simmer for about 15 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Remove the chicken pieces from the oven and reduce the oven heat to 160*C/325*F. Stir the nuts and sultanas into the sauce. Pour the sauce mixture over the chicken. Cover the roaster and return to the oven and cook for 45 minutes to an hour, until most of the sauce has been absorbed by the chicken and the chicken is very tender. Remove from the oven and serve.

I've been lucky enough at various times in my life to have had chickens. I love chickens. They're really quite fascinating and although they often look quite alike, they have their own unique personalities and can be a lot of fun to watch.

My first husband's family had battery hens. I used to help grade eggs in the hen house on Saturdays, which was a long metal building. I never saw the inside part where the chickens were kept. I only ever saw the grading room, where all the eggs used to pass through a machine which would then categorize them according to size and quality. They passed through it on a conveyor belt and at the end of this belt I would put them into the appropriate cartons. I had not idea what it meant to be a battery hen at that time. Good thing too, or my heart would have broken into a million pieces.


Thankfully these days we have all been made aware of the appalling conditions on battery farms and we have the option to buy free-range organic chicken . . . happy chicken just tastes better!





This is my favorite way to roast a chicken. It turns out moist and delicious each and every time.



*Perfect Roast Chicken*
Serves 4
Printable Recipe

I highly recommend free-range, organic chicken. All that running around in the farm yard is good for them and they taste better. A happy chicken is a tasty chicken!

1 X 1.75kg chicken
salt and freshly milled black pepper
30g of butter, softened
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 carrot, roughly chopped (no need to peel)
1 stick celery,roughly chopped
1 leek, white part only, chopped
olive oil
1 sprig sage
1 bay leaf




Pre-heat the oven to 190*C/375*F. Remove any giblets from your chicken and save for another day. Wipe your chicken dry and then rub it all over with the softened butter and season it liberally inside and out with some salt and pepper.

Place the chopped vegetables in the bottom of a thick roasting tin with some olive oil. Place on the hob over medium heat and cook and stir with a wooden spoon, cooking for about 5 minutes to slightly colour the vegetables. Remove from the heat. Add the spring of sage and the bayleaf. Place the chicken on top of the vegetables and roast for about an hour and 15 minutes, or until the chicken tests done. (The leg bone should move easily in it's socket and the juices should run clear) Remove from the oven, place on a cutting board, and let sit for 15 to 20 minutes (lightly cover with some foil) before carving.

If you like you can add some chicken broth to the vegetables in the pan and place it over the burner and bring it to a boil. Allow to boil for several minutes before straining into a large jug. Discard any solids in the strainer and then skim off any fat from the juices in the jug. Return them to the pan and cook and simmer for a good 10 to 15 minutes, to reduce somewhat. Spoon these juices over the sliced chicken when you serve it. You can also thicken them with a bit of flour and water to make a thick gravy.

mmm . . . I can't wait to do something with the leftovers. Tune in tommorrow to see what I came up with!