A simple chicken dinner

By the end of last week, my fridge was almost empty, thanks to my car having engine trouble and my baby also giving me trouble. Had a bout of nausea and low blood pressure which has left me with little appetite. Could use some advice on what can boost my appetite. The weather has changed drastically to boiling hot, when you are carrying an extra load it feels even hotter than normal.

I had just two boneless pieces of chicken breast and some lemons. potatoes and rather sorry-looking beans.  So I decided to grill my chicken pieces, roast the potatoes into wedges and just blanch the beans.

For 2:
2 boneless chicken breast pieces
1 fat clove of garlic
grated zest of 1/2 lemon  and juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp chilli flakes, add more if you want it spicy
salt and pepper
a good splash of olive oil or vegetable oil if you don't have any.


1.  Place garlic, and salt in a motor and pestle and give a bash to mash it up. Add chilli flakes, zest, lemon juice and oil and mix well. Taste adjust salt.  Set aside.

2. Cover your chicken breast pieces with a cling film or place them inside a plastic bag and give a good bash with a heavy pan or meat tenderiser to flatten it up.  Place in a shallow tray or bowl, pour the marinade in and leave for a few hours or so. Or if you are in a hurry a few minutes.

3. While that is happening, you can cut your roasting potatoes into wedges, rinse and pat dry, season with salt and pepper toss in a little olive oil and place in a hot oven flip them after some time to cook evenly. ( for some odd reason my potatoes never turn out quite as I want them to be but this time hubby loved them so can't complain :)

4. Heat a griddle pan or a large nonstick frying pan till very hot, place your chicken pieces, as they say, presentation side down, leave it to cook then flip onto the over side and cook the other side. Press down a little to check if it is done. If no juices are coming out, remove, cover with foil and leave till you blanch your beans.

5. Unfortunately since I used a griddle pan I couldn't get much sauce out, so I just poured whatever juice I could get from the pan and from the plate I left the chicken pieces to rest.

Serve, chicken with potato wedges and beans. It is not fancy but when you have a few items in the kitchen or on a budget but still want a nice healthy meal, this would be pretty good.