Monday, October 23, 2006

Roasted chicken breast with creamy butternut squash and chilli

Last night, Simon went out to a gig so I was home alone. I say this not to invite sympathy, because being home alone occasionally has its merits. You can eat when you feel like it. You can linger in a too-hot bath with a bath bomb and a good novel, and not worry about what time dinner will be. And you can watch repeated re-runs of Trinny and Susannah from the days when their advice really counted without irritating anyone. But it does mean you don't feel like doing a proper roast just for you - and all the same you don't want to make Sunday night even more miserable by eating a meagre sandwich. So. Jamie's dinners for one to the rescue! I have seen him leave one-person oven-cook dinners for Jools on old episodes of the Naked Chef, in foil parcels, and been torn between thinking 'ooh how sweet' and 'ugh why doesn't she learn how to cook?' But it has to be said that this sort of arrangement is useful when making dinner for 2 people eating at different times, as we were (Simon ate before he set off ridiculously early to his gig; I like to centre my evening around dinner so wanted to wait), and there are four incredibly easy roasted chicken breast recipes for one in Cook with Jamie. Of which I picked the one that appealed first: chicken breast with creamy butternut squash and chilli.

The recipe was very simple: toss half a deseeded red chilli with the picked leaves from a couple of sprigs of marjoram, a chicken breast (skin on) and a pinch of salt and pepper. Place the chicken breast and flavourings into a small baking dish or tinfoil tray, with very fine slices of butternut squash. Drizzle double cream over the squash and season the whole dish with grated nutmeg and salyt and pepper, before drizzling with olive oil and cooking for 25-35 minutes in a preheated oven.


The result is very good: deliciously creamy slices of squash, crispy chicken skin and tender breast meat, all infused with the chilli and marjoram. Very nice indeed - a sort of TV supper, a home-made equivalent of a ready meal, a pizza or a takeaway with none of the preservatives, additives or other spooky stuff, and bags more flavour. There are three more roasted chicken breast recipes- I am looking forward to trying them for another home-made TV dinner evening...

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