Greek Style Lemon Chicken

Dear Readers I have stumbled across a cut of chicken that may or may not always be on special - but yesterday I got enough chicken for 5 people for $7.60!!!  I could not believe it - that made this meal spectacularly cheap to produce.  While perusing the chicken shops I found that they were selling 1/2 chickens for $1.65 each!  So I bought a half for each person - they were not overly huge - but there was certainly enough meat for each person in their serve.

I had seen a recipe of the cover of the current edition of Super Food Ideas for Greek Lemon Chicken - this was a great meal as it was produced all in one pot - chop up everything, bake and forget!!  My kind of meal.  So armed with my chicken halves this was dinner last night.

Greek Style Lemon Chicken


Serves 5


5 x 1/2 chickens (or replace with pieces) - skin on *
300g baby red rascal potatoes, halved
2 medium red onions, cut into wedges
1 medium red capsicum, cut into strips
8 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 medium lemons
250g cherry tomatoes
1/3 cup kalamata olives (optional)
6-8 sprigs fresh lemon thyme


Preheat the oven to 200C.  Place the chicken in a large roasting pan.  Arrange the potato, onion, capsicum and garlic cloves around the chicken.  Pour over the stock.  Grate the rind from 1 lemon, and reserve.  Juice the grated lemon.  Cut the remaining lemon into wedges.  Add the lemon juice and wedges to the pan.  Season with salt and pepper.  Sprinkle with the thyme sprigs.

Roast for 20 minutes or until the chicken starts to brown.


Reduce the oven temperature to 180C and roast for a further 30-40 minutes.


At this point you may want to move the chicken and vegetables around to ensure even browning.  Add the tomatoes and olives, grated lemon zest, and roast for a further 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the tomatoes are starting to collapse.


* Cooking time is based on using the chicken halves - decrease each time segment by around 5 minutes if using pieces.

This was a great easy dinner - and cheap as chips to produce!  If you can't get the chicken halves try using maryland pieces.  If you have a Red Lea Chicken shop in your area have a look to see if they have the halves!!

So Dear Readers do you have a super cheap meal idea that you would like to share with us?  Perhaps a cut of meat that you have found that others haven't  discovered yet, and bumped the price up on it?  Remember when ribs used to be around $3 per kilo (that was before they got trendy!!)


As I type Dear Readers I am conducting a scientific experiment - can you make a cake and substitute the butter for Rice Bran Spread?  Will let you know tomorrow!!!

BBQ Pork and Singapore Noodle Stir Fry

A "Precious" favourite!

What a lovely quiet week it has been.  It is amazing the how the chemistry changes in the house when you remove a few "free radicals"!  

With the "darlings" at camp we decided to go out and have a Thai meal last night, and enjoy the quiet while we could.   That got me to thinking about what recipe I could share with you today, when I hadn't actually cooked last night, (well technically I did as I was preparing the next night's dinner, but you will have to wait until tomorrow to hear about that one!).

This dish is a favourite in our house - in fact this is the dish that "precious" asks for as her birthday  dinner treat.

BBQ Pork and Singapore Noodle Stir Fry

Serves 4

Recipe is best made just before serving - but having said that the flavours develop and it tastes really good the next day!

250g dried thin egg noodles
2 tbs peanut oil
4 eggs, beaten lightly
1 medium brown onion, chopped finely
2 cloves crushed garlic
2 tbs mild curry paste (red thai curry works well)
200g Chinese BBQ Pork, cut into thin slices
200g pork mince (chicken works well too)
200g small shelled cooked prawns
3 green onion (shallots), chopped coarsely
1/4 cup (60ml) light soy sauce
2 tbs oyster sauce
2 fresh red chillies, finely chopped (optional) or you may like to use sambal oelek (chilli paste)


Note:  If you like, you can use green prawns in this recipe as well - just add them after you have cooked the pork.  I actually like to use green prawns and I slice them in half so they are "thinner versions" of themselves - this way they go further and they curl up beautifully.


Cook the noodles in a large pan of boiling water, uncovered until tender, about 10 minutes - drain well.

Heat 2 tsp of the oil in a wok or large frying pan, add the beaten egg, swirl to make a thin omelette.  When the egg is just set, remove the omelette from the pan, roll it, and then cut into thin strips.  Set aside.

Heat the remaining oil in the wok, and fry the onion and garlic until the onion is softened, add the curry paste and stir-fry until fragrant.  At this time if you don't like "raw" shallots in your noodles add the shallots to the pan as well.

Add the mince to the wok and stir fry until the meat is browned.  Add the bbq pork, prawns, noodles, combined sauces and chillies.  Add half of the omelette strips to the pan, stir fry until it is all heated through.  If you haven't added the shallots - add them now.

Serve immediately topped with the remaining omelette.

This is a great dish to serve with other asian style dishes as part of dinner party.



So it is now time to batten down the hatches, and prepare for the onslaught that is due to arrive this afternoon - and then life goes back to it's usual hectic pace!!   I wonder how many loads of "stinking" washing I will be doing tonight???

Corn Chowder

Baby it's cold outside!

Faced with the prospect of coming in tonight after sport and feeling quite chilled to the bone I decided that some soup was in order - nothing warms you like a bowl of steaming soup!!

I have been making this recipe for more years than I care to mention - but I have "tweaked" it a little today - I have taken out the butter that you soften the vegetables in, and cooked them in chicken stock instead. A much healthier option than adding the unnecessary saturated fat!

Corn Chowder

4 x cobs of corn
2 x carrots, diced
1 x onion, finely diced
4 x potatoes, diced
2 x rashers of bacon, chopped into small pieces
1 x can Cream of Chicken Soup
2 cups Chicken Stock
1/2 cup milk

Place the cobs of corn in a saucepan of water and bring to the boil. Boil for a few minutes, just to take the crispness off them. Drain and cool slightly. When they are cool enough to handle slice the individual kernels from the cobs. The original recipe called for canned corn - but why would you when fresh corn is so lovely and sweet??

Into the pan add the diced onions and the chopped bacon and fry over medium high heat until the onion softens. There is no need to add any oil - the small amount of the fat in the bacon is all you need. Cook until the onion and bacon run out of their own juices - you will see - it will start to stick to the pan.

Add to the pan the remaining diced vegetables and pour in just enough chicken stock to cover them. Cook the vegetables for approximately 2-3 minutes or until they start to soften, stirring constantly.

Add the can of chicken soup and the remaining chicken stock. Simmer gently until the vegetables are soft, around 10-15 minutes. Make sure you stir regularly as the vegetables tend to stick to the bottom of the pan.

Season to taste with salt and some freshly ground pepper. Add the milk and heat through.

So tell me Dear Readers, is there a favourite recipe that you have "tweaked" over the years to make it a little "healthier"?

You know nothing makes me feel happier than to hear from one of you that you have tried one of my recipes, or that you are about to try one.

The best compliment I have received was today when one of my Dear Readers told me that I had inspired her!! Sometimes all we need is a little bit of "inspiration" to change the mundane boring job of producing a meal each night into... well, maybe an "adventure". To be enticed to try something a little bit different, something that we may not have thought about trying before. Or perhaps it is being told about something that is just so easy to prepare that it makes your life a whole lot easier.

So thank you Dear Reader - I love you!!!! I do sooo love to hear when I have helped make your meal preparations a little easier.