Cheese and Chive Chicken Wings with Homemade Fries

How do you like your chicken wings cooked and served? Do you only ever eat them from fast food outlets? This is an incredibly easy way of cooking chicken wings at home and by combining them simply with a little bit of cheese and chives, they are granted an altogether different but appetising flavour.
 

Ingredients per Person

4 large chicken wings
1 tbsp olive oil
Sea salt
2oz cheddar cheese
1 tsp chopped fresh chives
Portion of homemade fries (optional)

Directions for cooking wings

Note that if you are making homemade fries, they will be required to be started well in advance of cooking your chicken wings.

Put your oven on to preheat to 400F/200C.

Pour the olive oil in to a large bowl and season well with salt. Stir to combine before adding the wings and carefully folding them over in the oil a few times to get them well and evenly coated. Lay the wings on a roasting tray and pour over the remaining oil. Cook in the oven for thirty minutes.

 
Take the tray from the oven and set aside to let the wings rest for five to ten minutes.

Grate the cheese and add it to your (washed and dried) bowl. Chop the chives and stir them in to the cheese.

Lift the chicken wings one at a time with cooking tongs and add them to the bowl with the cheese and chives. Carefully fold to melt the cheese over the wings.

Lift the wings with the tongs to a serving plate and serve immediately, with or without the fries.

Green Puy Lentil Soup with Smoky Bacon

Soups of so many different types are wonderful comfort foods but can very often require several hours or even an overnight to prepare properly. This soup recipe is different. Not counting the preparation of the vegetable stock (which you can easily prepare in bulk in advance and freeze in portions for up to three months) this soup is ready from start to finish in just over half an hour.

Le Puy green lentils are organic lentils from the centre of France. They do not require to be steeped for several hours like certain other types of lentil prior to being cooked and are a delicious cooking ingredient in a number of different ways. This soup idea is just one quick way in which you can use this new ingredient discovery for your store cupboard and is a great way of introducing a new taste experience to your family.

Struggling to find Le Puy Green Lentils? Let Amazon Deliver them Straight to your Door!

Below, you will find these green lentils available to buy on either Amazon.com or Amazon UK - this is where I bought them!

Soup Ingredients (Serves Two)

4oz Le Puy green lentils
1 celery stick
1 small red onion
1 small to medium carrot
1 clove of garlic
1 ½ pints fresh vegetable stock
2 rashers smoked back bacon
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 small basil sprigs to garnish

Directions

Peel and finely dice the red onion and the garlic clove. Top and tail the celery stick, wash and dry it with kitchen paper and finely dice. Top, tail and scrape the carrot and finely dice.

Pour the vegetable stock in to a pot and add the vegetable ingredients. Season only lightly at this stage as your stock should already be well seasoned.

Put the green lentils in to a very fine sieve and wash them under running cold water as shown.

Tip the lentils in to the pot and give everything a quick, gentle stir with a wooden spoon.

Put the pot on a high heat until the liquid begins to boil. Reduce the heat to simmer for thirty minutes.

The bacon should be fried in a little vegetable oil at a fairly high heat in a non-stick frying pan. It should take about two minutes each side to become nice and crispy. Remove it to a chopping board and finely slice in to strips.

Taste your soup for seasoning and to ensure the lentils have softened. Season as required and ladle carefully in to serving plates.

Scatter the bacon strips over the centre of each plate and garnish with the basil sprigs.

Chinese Noodles with Cockles and Green Pesto Sauce

A healthy, tasty and satisfying lunch in less than ten minutes from start to finish - how does that sound? That is exactly what this dish represents, even though it came about entirely by accident. It was when I found the supposedly fresh chicken I had bought for my lunch to be more foul than fowl that I found myself looking for an alternative. As I shop seven days a week for fresh ingredients, I don't tend to keep a lot of food in the house. A quick scavenge of the fridge and cupboards led to me creating this incredibly simple but delicious dish.

Ingredients per Person

4oz dried Chinese egg noodles
1 tbsp cockles in brine
2 tsp green pesto sauce
Sea salt
4 or 5 fresh basil to garnish

Directions

You should of course follow the instructions on the pack of noodles you buy but this variety required them to be simmered in salted water for four minutes. They should then be drained thoroughly through a colander and returned to the empty pot.

Spoon the pesto sauce and cockles in to the pot with the noodles. Use a wooden spoon to carefully stir around and ensure everything is evenly combined.

Spoon the noodles in to a serving bowl, scatter with the finely sliced basil leaves to garnish and serve immediately.

Pan Fried Mackerel Fillets with Bell Pepper Bruschetta

Bell peppers are not an ingredient normally associated with bruschetta. This was, therefore, very much an experiment but the combination proved to be delicious and I hope you'll give this very simple and very healthy lunch idea a try.

Ingredients

1/4 red bell pepper
1/4 green bell pepper
1/4 yellow bell pepper
1 medium tomato
2 cloves of garlic
5 or 6 basil leaves
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil plus extra for drizzling
Dash of white wine vinegar
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 whole mackerel
Flour for dusting
Olive oil for frying
3 slices of bread stick

Directions

Moderately finely dice the bell peppers.  Cut the tomato in half and scoop out the seeds and pulp with a teaspoon. Dice the flesh in a similar fashion to the bell peppers. Peel and finely dice one of the garlic cloves and roll and shred the basil leaves.

Add the peppers, tomato, garlic and basil to a glass bowl. Pour in the extra virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar. Season with salt and pepper, stir well and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until required. Note that this part of the preparation can very successfully be done the night before to make the lunch preparation ultra quick.

Lay the mackerel on a chopping board and use a filleting knife to carefully slice off the first loin fillet. Turn the fish over and remove the second fillet in the same way. Remove any bones which may happen to be left in the fillets and wash them carefully in a bowl of cold water. Pat dry with kitchen paper.

Mackerel Preparation, Filleting and Recipes

If you want full instructions on how to prepare and fillet mackerel, with step by step photos, as well as a whole host of delicious mackerel recipes, you will find all of this and more on the site linked to below:

Mackerel Recipes and Different Ways to Cook and Serve Mackerel

Add the ordinary olive oil to a non-stick frying pan and gently heat. Scatter some flour on a plate and season. Pat the mackerel fillets in it on their skin sides only and shake off any excess. Fry for two to three minutes on the skin side until you can see they are almost cooked. Reduce the heat and turn them on to their flesh sides for a final minute.

While the mackerel is frying, toast the bread on both sides until golden. Peel and crush the second garlic clove and rub it over the top of each slice of toast. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
 

Lay the toast on a plate and carefully spoon some of the prepared salsa on top of each slice. Lay the mackerel fillets alongside and garnish with a little more basil if desired before serving.

Bell Peppers and Sage Grilled Cheese Bites

How often does your lunch consist of the previous night's dinner leftovers? Fairly often? If so, what do you do? Simply reheat them and eat what is essentially the same dish for the second time in less than twenty-four hours? This creation came about when I had some bell pepper slices left over from dinner the night before but I didn't want another stir fry. Instead, I chose to come up with something quick, easy, tasty - and different.

Ingredients per Person

3 1" thick slices of French bread stick
3 or 4 slices of mixed bell peppers
2oz cheddar cheese, thinly sliced
Generous pinch of dried sage
Freshly ground black pepper
2 green lettuce leaves
4 cherry tomatoes
6 cucumber slices
Sea salt

Directions

Toast the bread slices on one side only. Lay them on a chopping board.

Cut each bell pepper slice in half and then to size that you can mix them up and lay them on the untoasted sides of the bread.

Cut the cheese slices to size that they approximately cover the bread and lay them on top of the peppers.

Places the slices carefully on to a grill tray and heat until the cheese is just melted. Season with black pepper and the dried sage and place back under the grill until the cheese is bubbling.

Shred the lettuce leaves and half the cherry tomatoes. Mix roughly with the cucumber slices, season with salt and pepper and lay on a serving plate, ready for the cheese and pepper slices coming out from under the grill.

Looking for more grilled or toasted cheese sandwich ideas for lunch? Check out the site below:


Best Grilled or Toasted Cheese Sandwich Recipes

Pub Style Steak and Guinness Pie with Fresh Veg

Steak and Guinness Pie is a prime example of classic British pub grub. It is a combination I first tried more than twenty years ago in a pub in Edinburgh, Scotland, called The Last Drop. Although I have eaten Steak and Guinness Pie many times since, in a number of different pubs, The Last Drop's version - made to this day from a secret recipe - remains unsurpassed. Like so many other examples of bar or pub food, however, it is not something that many people choose to prepare at home. This lunch dish is not difficult to make and the meat can even be prepared the night before, cooled and refrigerated to save time the next day.

Ingredients per Portion

6oz stewing steak or beef, cut to bite sized pieces
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 small onion, sliced
1 pint fresh beef stock
1/2 pint Guinness
1/2 tsp dried thyme
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
6 baby new potatoes or as required
4oz puff pastry
Flour for dusting
Beaten egg for glazing
1 medium carrot
2 tbsp frozen peas
1oz butter plus extra for greasing baking tray
6 fresh mint leaves, shredded

Directions

Put the vegetable oil in to a medium to large pot and gently heat. Add the beef and season, stirring around for a couple of minutes with a wooden spoon to brown and seal. Add the sliced onion and stir for a further minute.

Pour in the beef stock, followed by the Guinness. The order is important, otherwise the Guinness may froth up and boil over. Bring to a simmer and cook gently for one and a half hours, or until the beef is tender. If preparing the night before, allow to cool then refrigerate in a plastic dish. It will require only to be reheated the following lunch time.

Put the potatoes unpeeled in to a pot. Season with salt and add plenty cold water. Bring to a boil and simmer for twenty-five to thirty minutes until soft.

Lightly flour a chopping board and rolling pin and roll out the pastry to be just slightly larger than your intended serving dish. Use the dish as a template to cut the pastry. Don't worry about cutting round the edges of the dish as the pastry will shrink slightly in the oven to fit snugly inside when cooked.

Grease a baking tray lightly with butter and lay on the pastry. Lightly wash with beaten egg. Bake in the oven, preheated to 400F/200C, for around twenty minutes until well risen and beautifully golden in colour.

The carrots will take about fifteen minutes. Top, tail, scrape and slice in to half inch discs. Add to a pot, season with salt and pour in boiling water. Put pot on heat and bring to a simmer. The peas should be added to the pot after around twelve minutes.

Drain the potatoes well and return to the pot. Add the butter and mint and gently stir to ensure even coating and flavour distribution.

Spoon the steak and Guinness gravy in to your serving dish and lay it on a plate. Arrange the potatoes and drained carrots and peas alongside. Remove the puff pastry from the oven and use a spatula to carefully sit it on top of the pie immediately before service.