Simple chicken dinner

I have decided that Thursday should be mash night. I LOVE mash! Especially on a deliciously cold night, it's almost the end of the week and it's date night!

Luke and I used to meet after his bass guitar lesson (yes, my man plays the bass!) and go out for dinner somewhere. It was recently decided (with some helpful advice from Miss Nadia Mitsakis) that we spent way too much money on eating out and while we can continue with "date night", we don't really need to go out for dinner.

Last week was the first Thursday in a long while that we didn't go out for dinner, and we had a steak and mash dinner. I forgot how much I loved steak! I used to eat it all the time and when Luke and I started living together, he indicated that he wasn't such a big fan - so we stopped buying and cooking steak at home.

This week, I wanted to use the leftover potatoes - so I decided to make mash again. It was a cold autumn day and perfect for piping hot, comforting, buttery, creamy mash. But what to serve with it?

On Tuesday, I cut up a whole chicken and used the breast meat for a honey mustard chicken dish. I cut out the thighs, drumsticks and the wings and froze them. I also froze the carcass and some leftover chicken fat and this will be useful in making chicken broth and chicken rice respectively. Waste not, want not. I will demonstrate how to cut up a whole chicken, but that is another post altogether.

So let's get to this dish. I sort of created this recipe myself. I made it during the last mahjong night and I thought that it was pretty tasty. However, I tweaked the recipe tonight and this was ten times better! Recipe below:

NESS' HOMEY BAKED CHICKEN

Ingredients

• Assorted chicken pieces (in this case, it was 2 drumsticks, 2 wings and 2 thighs)
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder (or more depending on whether you like garlic)
• 1 tablespoon red chili flakes
• 1 tablespoon thyme
• 2 glugs of olive oil (no need to use extra virgin)
• Salt

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200C and pre-heat the frying pan.
Once the frying pan is heated up, fry the chicken pieces skin side down.
Once the pieces are brown, put them on a lined baking tray and pour the excess juices/oil over the chicken
Bake for about half an hour.
Serve over mash potatoes and pour the pan juices over the chicken.

Very simple dish. Even tastes like chicken bococini! Really hit the spot tonight. LOVED it!

Alright - I have to go to work at an obscene hour tomorrow, so I suppose I should scadaddle! Night peeps!

xoxo