CDwM Main Course recipe - Chicken with wild mushroom and spinach sauce.

From Bon Appétit

I've cooked this dish a few times before and it's always really tasty. It's sort of an up-to-date version of that old classic, Chicken Tarragon that my mum used to make. Now, having watched quite a few 'Something for the Weekends', I have noticed that Simon has a penchant for this herb, and, I believe, quite rightly so! It's one of those things I don't think we use often enough and tends to be in dried form at the back of the cupboard from the early 1970s! Well, this recipe uses fresh tarragon. You can't make it ahead of schedule, in terms of the day before, but pan frying the chicken and beginning the sauce is something you could do earlier in the evening, before your guests arrive.

For the real recipe, click here, or for my version, carry on reading!

Chicken breasts with skin on, preferably free-range
chicken stock
wild mushrooms
spinach
white wine
cream
tarragon

basmati rice
flaked almonds

Pan fry the seasoned chicken breast until browned, ensuring the skin is crispy.
Turn skin side up, pop into an oven-proof dish and pour chicken stock around them, until it reaches a third up the breasts.
Cook in a hot oven, about 180-200 degrees celcius, until cooked through: about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, fry the butter until sizzling, then add the torn wild mushrooms. Don't shake the pan around; let them sit there for a few minutes first.
When they are soft and browned, add a glass of wine and bubble 'til it's nearly gone.
Add the spinach, cream, I used double, and the chopped tarragon and season to taste.

Serve with the rice: Cook the rice as per the packet instructions, toast the almonds, either in a hot, dry frying pan or in the oven (keep an eye on them, I usually end up making two batches, the first always being very burnt as I get easily distracted!) Once done, combine them with the rice and add a blob of butter to taste.

On the night, I slightly overcooked the chicken and this is something to be aware of! If the sauce isn't quite ready, remove the chicken from the oven, and pop it back to heat before serving. It's a quick and easy recipe but, if you serve it attractively, looks more complex than it really is!

Halloween Recipe: Toffee Apple Sponge Puddings

Toffee Apple Sponge Puddings

These little puds looked like the perfect after-dinner treat, and so easy too! As usual, I took the idea from Simon Rimmer's Something for the Weekend recipe and made up my own version. Again, though, (when will I learn that the recipe generally helps rather than hinders?) the toffee sauce went a bit grainy, probably because I used single cream as it was in the fridge, and because the sugar went clumpy: I think I'd melt the sugar with the butter to start, then add the cream and condensed milk. Simply combine equal quantities of soft brown sugar, double cream, condensed milk and butter. Heat til bubbly and thickly sticky.

For the cake mixture, I always make a very simple one that's so easy to remember. Equal quantities of butter, sugar and flour, half of that in eggs and another half in baking powder. So, for example, 4oz sugar, butter and flour, 2 eggs, 1tsp baking powder. Basically, mix it all together, I never bother creaming the butter and sugar first, but one tip I did learn was to just combine the flour at the end and mix as little as possible to prevent the gluten from stretching.

Basically, you make a toffee sauce, coat the softened chunks of apple in it (I chop mine and pop it in the microwave with a little sugar and water,) leaving some sauce to pour over the sponge at the end. Put a splodge of toffee covered apple in the bottom of a greased ramekin or dariole mould. Blob the cake mixture over the top and bake for between 10 and 20 mins. Tip out when cooked and pour over the sauce. It really was incredibly quick and easy, but absolutely delicious.