Orange and Apricot Chicken with Quinoa and Baby Peas

I found a recipe in a cookbook that looked good.  I thought I had most of the ingredients to make it but when it came time to cook it, I discovered that I didn't.  So ... I improvised.  Here's the resulting recipe ...

Ingredients:
1 orange, you'll need the juice and the zest
1/4 cup chicken stock, salt reduced
2 teaspoons apricot jam
4 chicken breasts, skinned and boned
2 tsp cornflour
fresh parsley
slivered almonds
olive oil

How to make it:
Preheat oven to 190C/375F

In a small saucepan, over a medium heat, mix 2 teaspoons finely grated orange zest, 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice, the chicken stock and the apricot jam.  Stir until smooth (like in photo above)  ... doesn't take more than a minute or two.

Over medium heat,  heat olive oil in a large oven proof fry pan and add chicken.  Lightly salt and pepper each breast. Brown chicken just a little bit ... a minute or two on each side.

Pour orange/apricot mixture on top and bake til chicken is cooked through ... about 20 minutes. 

Mix 2 tsp cornflour with 2 teaspoons of water to make a smooth paste.  Once the chicken comes out of the oven, remove to a plate and keep warm.  Add cornflour paste to fry pan with remaining sauce.  Stir for a couple of minutes until the sauce is nice and thick.

Serve chicken, drizzled with sauce, over quinoa and with a side of baby peas.  

Sprinkle parsley and slivered almonds on top of chicken.

Apricot Chicken

This was easy and delicious !!

This technically should serve four but we served it with A Nutty Cous Cous and only ate 1/2 a serve of chicken so had it for dinner and lunch the next day !

Chicken:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

salt

pepper

olive oil

Apricot Sauce:

a blub of oil, I used olive

3/4 cup dry white wine, I used Chardonnay

1/4 of a red onion

4 fresh apricots, pitted and chopped

3 tablespoons apricot jam, I used St. Dalfour

2 teaspoons fresh tarragon, chopped (or 1/2 tsp dried)

Here's what you do ...

Rub the chicken with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook on the BBQ. Or you could pan fry if you wanted.

To make the sauce ... Saute onion in oil over a medium heat. Add wine. Reduce ... maybe 3-5 minutes. Add apricots. Cook for a couple of minutes ... the fruit will break down. Stir in jam, tarragon and a pinch of salt. I kept it on the heat and stirred until it was combined and a thickness I was happy with. Take off heat and let sit til chicken is done.

When chicken is finished, top with apricot sauce and serve.

Delicious !!

Icy Poles ~ Peach, Nectarine and Apricot

What kid doesn't like Icy Poles ? Popsicles ? Ice Blocks ? Whatever you want to call them ...

My two love 'em.

And I don't mind them having them ... when I make them at home.

These ones were a bit of accidental discovery made in an attempt not to waste food.

I bought a box of seasonal fruit that included peaches, nectarines and apricots.

It's the end of the stone fruit season and they weren't all that great.

Some were not ripe. Some were over ripe.

Not one of the appealed to my eye ... or my appetite.

So ... I just chopped 'em up (skin and all), threw 'em in a pot of water and boiled away.

Then I took that whole pot, poured it (water too) into my blender.

(almost burned myself to death because the blender was too full ... be careful of that !)

Blended 'til smooth.

And then poured into our icy pole molds.

I had heaps of the mixture left over though

so I put a couple inches of the mixture into plastic cups, added half a straw,

covered with press and seal and froze those.

A couple minutes soak in hot water when ready to eat and they slip right out of the cup !