The great thing about meal-planning is I no longer have to avoid long marinating recipes like the plague. In fact I look forward to it because I know some dishes taste SO much better with adequate marinating time. So for today’s post I’m sharing one of my biggest obsessions in life: Peri Peri Chicken a.k.a NANDOS!!! So I have to say, this isn’t exactly like Nandos chicken but it’s half-way there and frankly it feels a little more guilt-free to eat this because I know exactly what’s going into the recipe It’s also insanely easy to make, so why pay $10 for 1/4 of the chicken when for the same price you get a whole one that’ll last you at least 2-3 meals?
Roasting a whole chicken is still kind of intimidating for me. I haven’t yet figured out the PERFECT equation for getting a moist completely cooked chicken without char. The past two times I’ve roasted a chicken, I’ve gotten more char on the skin than I’ve wanted. I did find a blog post after I made this that might offer the best roasting technique(s). So if you’re going to try this recipe out, I highly recommend checking out this nifty post on roasting the perfect chicken. I read the whole thing and it makes so much more sense than some of the posts I referred to, to roast my chicken. Here’s a video on how to carve the chicken if you are new to the roasting a whole chicken/carving situation!
The recipe below will guide you through making the marinade, which by the way is also going to be your dipping/slathering sauce! Hope you enjoy this recipe 🙂
For the longest time, I avoided recipes that required things to marinate for a long time before consumption. I just wasn’t a planner with my meals because my life was anything but routine when I first started cooking. But over the past year or so, routine has finally made its way into my life. I s’pose it’s inevitable 🙂 To make life a little easier and to be less wasteful with food, I decided to plan my meals ahead of time. Don’t judge me, but I keep a spreadsheet of my meals for the week. I blame wedding planning for making me turn everything into a spreadsheet. But it really does help me stay organized and know exactly what to buy at the grocery store. This is probably a blaring sign of a novice cook, but I’m ok with that! The great thing about meal-planning is I no longer have to avoid long marinating recipes like the plague. In fact I look forward to it because I know some dishes taste SO much better with adequate …
As promised in my last post, I’m sharing the recipe for Harissa that I found in Marcus’ book, ‘Marcus Off Duty’. I don’t know if I’ve ever had harissa, it’s possible that it was mixed into a dish I’ve had. But this was the first time I truly had harissa and it was amazing! I googl-ed harissa and realized that there are a number of variations. I think that’s kind of the best part about this condiment, you can have different kinds of harissa and tailor it to your taste-buds. The biggest key to any recipe though is to use a mild chile powder, else it can be quite difficult to incorporate into a dish or use as a condiment. I didn’t have aleppo pepper and the only true chili powder I did have was an Indian one my mom gave me that is insanely spicy. So I decided to use a mix of cayenne and paprika. Cayenne is pretty spicy, but mixing it with paprika was actually perfect. It had a little kick but didn’t overwhelm …
If you know me, you know I’m not really a reality TV show enthusiast. Not to say I haven’t watched reality TV, I definitely followed a couple of the MTV ones back in the day *shrug*. But now, not so much. The only reality TV I do follow are the cooking shows. I started out watching Top Chef and then after a few seasons I stopped mainly because I didn’t have cable for 3-4 years. Then I got cable again and I started to watch Chopped. That was the show that introduced me to Marcus Samuelsson who was a frequent judge. He seemed like he was always the level-headed one of all the judges and didn’t blatantly cause a scene for entertainment value. Then I stumbled on another show called ‘The Taste’, where Marcus is a mentor/judge, which I now religiously follow! If you love food/cooking- I highly recommend this show! Contestants have literally one spoonful to prove their culinary prowess- really interesting stuff. My husband, Suril, and I find ourselves almost always rooting for Marcus’ team …
Happy new year everyone!!! I definitely paused with the blog unexpectedly due to the holiday season (clearly I’m still getting used to maintaining a blog religiously). 2014 was a wonderful year for me on so many levels and I hope 2015 will be even better! What a great couple of months I’ve had with family, friends and travels! But I’m not going to lie, part of me was looking forward to time after the holidays to get back into my old routine of healthy eating and working out. I hope there comes a time when I can maintain the healthy-ness even during the holidays! The first thing my husband and I wanted to eat after the holidays was: vegetables. Literally our mantra on new year’s day was “MUST. EAT. VEGETABLESSSSS”. After all the fatty, sugary, carb-heavy foods we consumed for 2 months… our bodies were definitely fed up. I’m not a fan of diets that strictly cut out an entire category of foods i.e. carbs, gluten etc. But I figured a little break from pasta and …