Chicken in Lemon & Parsley Sauce

Since Easter craziness, I've not really done any crafts of late, plus the weather has not been the very best.

Today all it's done is RAIN and thunderstorms! 

Which reminds me of being back home in Wales - the Rain that is.

I have been doing good lately, even with the naughty but nice easter chocolate madness.

I have kept up with counting my calories and exercising - to which I am pleased to say

That with the help of my LOSE IT app 

I am down 7lbs in 5 weeks

  This is my 6th week and weigh in this wed)

The app LOSE IT is so easy to use. I love it.

Yes, it does take a little time to calculate your meals of your cooking from scratch, but one you have them in the app, it's good to keep track of your calories.

So with yet another day inside, and wondering as to what I was going to make for dinner

And that it would be low in calories I decided on chicken tenders.

This is what you'll need:

 2lbs of chicken tenders

Flour

Lemon Seasoning

Salt and Pepper

Caper

Apple Cider Vinegar

Rice Vinegar

Parsley, Chopped

Lemon, squeezed.

Vegetable or Chicken Stock

Season the chicken with S&P.

Then lightly flour and set aside.

Heat your skillet with 3 Tablespoons of Olive Oil, 

Once the oil is hot, add the chicken.

Cook for 3 - 4 minutes on each side.

Once cooked, add the capers (if you don't like capers leave out) 

 & 2 Tablespoons of butter 

Good couple of splashes of Rice Vinegar

2 Tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar

Then cover and simmer for 3-4 mins

(If you're a wine drinker you can use White Wine instead of the vinegars ) 

Add the vegetable stock and cook for another minute.

Then add the parsley  and lemon juice, and allow to cook for 15 minutes.

Remove the chicken, cover and set aside. 

Now, I like my sauce to taste a little tastier, so I added 1/2 Tsp of Chicken Bouillon.

Stir well.

Add some cornflour to thicken the sauce. Stir well

Then to make it a little creamier, add some milk or cream & stir.

Stir well

Add the chicken back into the sauce, add some fresh parsley, cook for another few minutes.

Then serve.

You can serve with a fresh, tomato, cucumber & green onion salad,

Which is tossed in dill, lemon juice and salt.

This a quite a tart, yet tangy chicken dish, but quite delicious :)

Chicken In Lemon & Parsley Sauce

Add a side of steamed jasmine rice 

&

A dollop of

Fat free Fage yogurt with chopped parsley, seasoned with salt  & pepper.

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Creamy Carrot & Rutabaga Soup

The colder weather is here, and so it's time to make yummy vegetable soup.

A couple of Sunday's ago, I made Mashed carrots and Rutabaga ( For those in my home country Wales, we call Rutabaga - Swede) with our Sunday Pork Roast Dinner. I'd forgotten how tasty and sweet it was. The rutabaga / Swede is what my mother would give us with our Sunday Chicken Dinner, when I was growing up, although I didn't like it very much! But, oh how my taste buds have changed over the years.

So that got me thinking, that if I liked carrots and Swede/rutabaga mashed, how 'More' yummy I could make it in a soup.

The next trip to the grocery store, I picked up the necessary veggies and dashed home excited to make this soup. I had no recipe to follow, just my taste buds to lead me in the right way.

Here is what I used:

1 Carton of Chicken Broth 

( I normally make my own broth, from chicken bones, but we had Pork the day before)

1 Large Tablespoon of Chicken Bouillon.

1 large Rutabaga

1 small sweet cooking pumpkin

1 small bag organic carrots

3 Yams

2 medium sized onions.

1 stick of butter

1 1/2 Tsp Garam Masala Spice

1 - 6.8 fl.oz carton of  Kara UHT Natural Coconut Cream 

( I got this from Walmart by the Chinese section)

8 cups of Water.

Salt and Pepper to taste.

The first thing I did was to scoop out the inside of the pumpkin, place the 2 halfs of the pumpkins in a shallow oven proof dish with a cup of water, drizzle pumpkins with a little olive oil and sea salt and bake till golden brown and soft.

While the pumpkin is cooking, it's time to get peeling and chopping the veggies into  small chunks.

Now as I was chopping, I had a little helper named, Carys, climb up to give her taste test on all the veggies. Her favorite was the Raw Rutabaga !!! Who'd of thought she'd like that, so I guessed if she liked it raw, she'd surely like the soup.

So after snapping the cute photo shoot. It was back to cooking.

Add your butter to a deep saucepan, with your onions.

Once the butter has melted, add all the veggies and give them a quick stir, coating them in the butter. Next add all the chicken stock. You need to cover all of the veggies, so if your short use some water to top it off.

Bring to a boil, then reduce to a medium heat and simmer, until all the veggies are soft.

Check on the pumpkins, if they're ready to take out and cool.

Once the veggies have been cooking a while and they're nearly soft enough, spoon out the cooked pumpkin into the soup and stir.

Time to taste and then add  1 large spoon of the chicken bouillon, and stir well.

Now using an immersion hand blender, blend the soup till every piece of veggie is blended. You will find the soup will become thick, so you can start to add 1 cup of water.

Now add the coconut cream and blend.

Now I wanted my soup to be thinner, so I added 7 more cups of water.

Next add your Garam Masala spice, salt and pepper and blend. 

Then you have a 

Hearty Creamy Carrot & Rutabaga Soup.

( Or as my darling Lil tinker Seren, calls it Orange Soup)

Then the test is in the tasting right? 

 Right.

Carys certainly tucked into her soup.

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