Gluten-free Chicken Strips (KFC style!)

I haven't updated this blog for a while but after checking some comments and emails, people have been asking for this recipe which accidentally got deleted (sorry!) but I managed to recover it from google reader so here it is again...

 

I've been making my own KFC style meals at home ever since the "11 secret herbs and spices" were revealed (I left out the MSG.) So delicious and very similar to the original KFC chicken strips! I had mine served with homemade chips and ketchup for a classic takeaway style meal. This is just as filling and tasty as you might get from a takeaway but doesn't leave you feeling sick and bloated afterwards. Of course it does require a little more effort than just ordering at a counter but it will cost less and is a much healthier option.

KFC-Style Chicken Strips

Serves 3-4

• 3 chicken breasts
• Oil for deep frying (I used coconut oil) 
• 100g / 1 cup coconut flour 
• 2 eggs, whisked
• 125g / 1 cup macadamia nuts 
• 1 tsp ground oregano
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp ground sage
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1tsp dried marjoram 
• 1 tsp pepper
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp paprika
• 1 tsp onion salt
• 1 tsp garlic powder

1. Cut chicken into strips and leave to one side.
2. Put the macadamia nuts in a food processor and ground until they resemble bread crumbs. 
3. Take 3 bowls and fill one with the coconut flour and spices, one with the eggs and another with the macadamia nuts.
4. Take one chicken piece at a time and start by dusting it in the flour/spice mixture, then dip it into the eggs, roll in the macadamia crumbs and finish by dusting in the flour/spice mixture again.* 
5. Heat the oil (enough to cover the chicken) in a large pan or fryer. You can test when it's at the perfect temperature by putting a small piece of leftover chicken in the flour coating and leave it in the pan. It will sizzle and brown when it's at the right temperature. 
6. Carefully put the chicken pieces in the pan and deep fry for 8-10 minutes or until it's turned golden brown and crispy. 
7. When the chicken strips are cooked, carefully remove them from the oil and leave on a bowl lined with kitchen towel to absorb any excess oil.
8. Sprinkle with a little extra salt and serve!

*If you want to ensure a thick coating, repeat step 4.

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Pumpkin & Orange Ice Cream

Dairy-free Pumpkin & Orange Ice Cream

Serves 8

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

*Requires Ice Cream Maker

Ingredients:

• 200g /  ¾  cup canned pumpkin
• 350ml / 1 ½  cups coconut milk
• 250ml / 1 cup coconut cream
• Zest of 1 orange (+ a tablespoon of the juice) 
• 5 egg yolks (large) *
• 60g /  ½  cup coconut sugar
• ½  tsp ground mixed spice (or pumpkin spice mix)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

*You can freeze the leftover egg whites to use the next time a recipe calls for egg whites only

1. In a saucepan, mix the milk, cream, sugar, spices, vanilla and the orange zest plus 1 tbsp of freshly squeezed orange juice. Heat until it begins to bubble slightly.
2. Whisk the egg yolks and add to the pan, keep on a low heat. Stir well and make sure all the ingredients are combined. 
3. Once mixed well, let it cool for a few hours or preferably over night. 
4. When the mixture has cooled, whisk in the pumpkin. Then pour the ice cream mix through a sieve to create a smooth liquid. It's now ready to add to the ice cream maker.
5. Follow your ice cream maker's instructions.
6. When it's ready it should be very thick and creamy. Serve and enjoy!

Serving suggestion: Use mini pumpkins to serve the ice cream in, it's a really cute way to enjoy it! Simply hollow out the pumpkins using a spoon and knife (removing the seeds and stringly flesh) then spoon the ice cream into the pumpkins.

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Curried Stuffed Peppers

Curried Stuffed Peppers

Serves 2

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 peppers
• 1/2 head of cauliflower
• 3 tbsp or 1 small diced onions 
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 tsp tumeric
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C
2. "Rice" the cauliflower by chopping it roughly then add it to a blender. Fill the blender with water and blend for a few seconds until it has become riced. Then drain the water from the cauliflower. 
3. In a bowl, mix the cauliflower rice, garlic, spices, tomato puree and onion and microwave for 3 minutes.
4. Cut the peppers in half length-ways and cut out the seeds.
5. Fill the peppers with the rice mixture, drizzle with a little olive oil and put in the oven to cook for 25 minutes.
6. Serve alone or with salad.

 

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Spicy Indian Lamb Chops with Butternut Squash & Sweet Potatoes

Whilst looking for dinner inspiration earlier, I turned to Nigella's 'Kitchen' book which I hadn't looked through in a while. I came across her recipe for 'Indian Rubbed Lamp Chops' and remembered how much I'd be wanting to try them so I set off to gather the ingredients. The recipe called for a number of different spices; coriander, cumin, ginger, cloves, cayenne pepper and cinnamon but she did suggest that you could just use a Madras curry powder instead. I had some garam marsala which worked beautifully (seeing as it's made up of all the above mentioned spices bar the cayenne pepper.)

A few pages later I come across 'Indian Roast Potatoes' which inspired my mixture of butternut squash and sweet potatoes with some indian spices.

Spicy Indian Lamb Chops (adapted from Nigella's Indian-rubbed Lamb chops) 

Serves 2

• 4 small lamb chops (or 2 large ones)
• Garlic infused olive oil 
• 3 tsp garam marsala
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper
• Salt and pepper

1. In a wide, shallow bowl or dish, mix the garam marsala, cayenne pepper and a large pinch of salt and pepper. 
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat.
3. Dip each lamp chop into the spices, covering on both sides. 
4. Then fry them for about 3 minutes on each side, or more if you like it well cooked. 

Indian Roast Butternut Squash & Sweet Potatoes
Serves 2

• 2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 small butternut squash, peeled and diced
• 2 tsp ground tumeric
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp smoked parika
• 1 tbsp garlic olive oil
• 1 small red onion
• Juice of half a lemon

1. Preheat oven to 200° C. 
2. Mix all the spices in a small bowl.
3. In a roasting dish, add the peeled, diced sweet potatoes and butternut squash drizzled with the garlic olive oil.
4. Sprinkle the spice mix over the veg in the roasting tray and shake well to evenly distribute. 
5. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes until crisp.
6. Whilst waiting for that to cook, dice a red onion and leave it in a bowl with the lemon juice to marinate.
7. When the veg is ready, mix with the onion and serve!

You could also just boil the squash and potatoes together then blend with the spices to make a spicy mash, mmm!

 I know you can never go wrong with Nigella recipes, but since I made my own adaptions I still wasn't sure what to expect. But wow! The flavours were so amazing, I couldn't stop picking at sweet potato and squash, very addictive... And the lamb was very flavourful and juicy inside, It had a nice spicy flavour but not too spicy. Delicious.

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Honey & Almond Cake!

A few weeks ago I was in Lakeland and found a really cute honeycomb shaped cake tin. And of course with a blog named 'The Honeyed Almond' I really had no choice but to buy it. And of course I had to use it to make a honey and almond cake.

The thing I really love about this cake tin is that it makes a cake that requires no slicing. The cake mixture is poured into individual slots in the tin, but overlaps slightly to create a thin base that holds the cake together. However, this allows the cake to be really easily torn into portions. I love it.

You can just about make out the really cute bee shape :-)

This is one of the best cakes I've ever had.

 The recipe I used is originally from here with some very minor adjustments plus my own glaze recipe. To make the cake in the honeycomb tin, I had to add an extra half of the ingredients but the recipe below is for a regular sized cake to fit a 9 inch cake tin.

Honey, Almond & Lemon Cake

• 300g / 1  ¾ cups ground almonds
• 4 large eggs, separated
• 120ml / ½ cup honey
• 1 tbsp lemon zest
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ½ tsp baking powder
• A pinch of salt

Honey & Lemon Glaze

• 3 tbsp honey
• 65g / ⅓ cup coconut sugar
• 50g / ¼ cup arrowroot powder/cornflour
• 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 180°C . Beat 4 egg yolks in a bowl (leave egg whites in a separate bowl for later) and add the honey, vanilla, baking powder and salt. Mix well.
2. Add the ground almonds to the mixture and combine, mixing until a thick batter is formed. 
3. In the bowl with the egg whites, using a hand held mixer, mix on a medium speed until the egg whites turn white, foamy and double in size. Don't let them form stiff peaks or the cake will flop when you take it out of the oven. 
4. Now gently fold the egg whites into the cake batter with a spatula.
5. Pour the mixture into a greased or lined cake tin and put in the oven for about 25 minutes until golden.
6. When the cake is baked, leave it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes while you make the glaze.
7. In a food processor, pour in the coconut sugar and arrowroot powder and grind until a powdered sugar is formed. Remove from the processor and sieve into a bowl.
8. In a small saucepan, mix the honey, bowl of powdered sugar and lemon juice until the sugar has dissolved. You might need to add more lemon juice or maybe a small splash of water if it gets too thick. 
9. Carefully turn the cake out of the pan onto a board or greaseproof paper and then glaze using a pastry brush.
10. Now it's ready. Enjoy!

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Chicken & Leeks

Here is another of my favourite dinners, that's simple, quick and easy. It's quite filling on it's own but is also great served with boiled new potatoes, I love mopping up the leftover cream with the potatoes! The leeks add a nice texture and almost onion-y flavour. The nutmeg in the cream adds a little sweetness and spice to give an overall wonderful flavour to this dish.

Chicken & Leeks

• 3-4 Chicken breasts, diced
• 6 leeks, peeled and sliced into discs
• 2 egg yolks
• 8oz / 1 cup double cream
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Juice of half a lemon 
• Butter for frying

1. In a bowl, add the cream and lemon juice together to sour and leave to one side.
2. Heat a knob of butter in a frying pan and add the chicken. Cook thoroughly then remove chicken with slotted spoon leaving the juices in the pan.
3. Now add the leeks and more butter if needed. Cook for about 5 minutes, until squeaky. 
4. Return the chicken to the pan with the leeks and leave on a low heat.
5. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks then add the cream and lemon juice from earlier. Mix together well and add the nutmeg. Season well with salt and pepper. 
6. Pour the creamy mixture over the chicken and leeks in the pan and cook on a low heat for 3 minutes until heated through completely. Then serve!

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Vegan Treacle Toffee...

... made entirely from coconut! (That being, coconut sugar, coconut milk and coconut butter.) Being perfectly honest, making toffee wasn't my aim today. I was attempting to create a coconut butter tablet but instead ended up with a chewy, treacley substance that was very tasty but nothing like butter tablet. It is, however, very toffee-like! And strangely doesn't taste of coconut at all. If you've ever had traditional treacle toffee and liked it, I think you will like this too :-) It leaves a wonderful lingering aftertaste, which is great for those who want something sweet but don't want to over-indulge.

Coconut sugar, also known as palm sugar, can be found in most health food stores, Asian supermarkets or online. Coconut butter can also be found in health food stores, or you could try using coconut oil. And of course coconut milk is available in most food shops.

Creamy Treacle Toffee
Makes 80-90 toffees

• 400g / 2¼ cups Coconut sugar
• 750ml / 3 cups Coconut milk
• 8tbsp Coconut butter / oil
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

Edit: I tried this recipe again recently using coconut oil instead and it didn't turn out right so it has to be coconut butter I'm afraid!

1. Oil an 8x8 baking tray and put to one side.
2. Tip all ingredients into a large pot on the stove and put on medium heat.
3. Stir the ingredients as it reaches boiling point, then turn down to a medium boil. Keep stirring!
4. Maintain the medium boil and stir every so often, for about 20 minutes.
5. By this time, the mixture will have thickened. Now take it off the heat. To test if it's ready, using a spoon, drop a piece of the mixture onto a tray and it should harden within a minute. If it remains liquid, then it's not ready. 
6. Carefully pour the contents into the baking tray and leave to cool and set. 
7. Once cooled, put in the fridge for a while to firm up a little more.
8. Later on (at least 3 hours) it will have formed a firm toffee-like texture and will be ready to chop into toffee pieces!

A note for the health conscious: The ingredients in these toffees are all natural, vegan and low GI but are still very sweet (seeing as they are mostly sugar!) and work out at about 25 calories each. Not as bad as most shop bought toffees but still something to be enjoyed in moderation. Or not. Up to you! In any case, these are a nice, healthier and vegan alternative to a popular sweet :-)

I've been keeping mine in the fridge because it seems to make them less sticky, but are also fine stored at room temperature. Hope you enjoy!

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