At last we have a weekend with no plans and nothing in the diary – hoorah! So we had a sleep in this morning and I had a chance to browse my foodie magazines. This household is fond of both chicken and bacon, so I decided to make ‘bacon-wrapped chicken with feta and tarragon’ from Dish magazine.
All you need is chicken breasts, one per person (the recipe said with skin on but I bought skinless), 100 g of feta cheese (for 3-4, I used Zany Zeus), 2 crushed garlic cloves, the finely grated zest of 1 lemon, 1 teaspoon of tarragon, pepper, streaky bacon.
I’ll never win a prize for food photography with an iPhone…
Preheat oven to 180C. Mash feta, lemon zest, garlic and tarragon together and season with pepper (you don’t need salt). Then as the recipe says, ‘cut a pocket’, or what I did was to slice the chicken breast horizontally to make a ‘flap’. Spread the feta mixture onto the chicken, fold over, wrap with the bacon, and ideally secure with a toothpick (which I didn’t have).
Before
Place in a baking dish and roast for 30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Cooking time depends on the thickness of the chicken – just make sure that the juices run clear when you insert a skewer into the thickest part of the meat.
After
Verdict? I thought there was too much lemon and not enough garlic for my taste, but a definite ‘do again’. I didn’t need toothpicks as the bacon was long enough to make a parcel wrapping.
For desert and to use up some nectarines, I baked them in the oven with a tiny dot of butter, brown sugar, vanilla extract and 2 tablespoons of orange juice for…well, until they were really soft, about 20 minutes. We had them with vanilla ice-cream but I think just yoghurt would work well.
A lonely little baked nectarine
Finally, here is the jar of juice. I don’t get the current trend for putting everything in jars – I even saw a salad in a jar on Pinterest the other day. Juice in a jar is a nice marketing thing, but difficult to pour into a glass and very odd to drink from (feels like you are desperate for a drink and have no clean glasses). Still, it tasted nice which is all that matters in the end.
Carrot, ginger, orange and apple juice in a jar in the office
Thistles and Kiwis 