Rachel Allen's Brown Soda Bread

Chicken Fillets stuffed with Clonakilty Black Pudding and wrapped in Smokey Bacon

Sometimes the ultimate comfort food is the most simple and hearty.....for example roast chicken. This is unbelievably easy and a definite crowd pleaser. I have cooked it for just the 2 of ourselves as Monday evening comfort food using leftover Sunday breakfast but also in my parents house for a group of 12 family and friends where it went down an absolute treat ( and anyone who knows us, knows we are good grubbers). I served this with typically rustic roasties, country vegetables, some gravy and cranberry sauce. I know us Corkonians can be a bit biased and we do love to look after our own but Clonakilty black pudding and rashers are undisputedly the most delicious. 

What you'll need:

Chicken fillets

Smokey rashers

Black pudding

Washed Rooster potatoes

Rosemary

Salt and Cracked Black Pepper

Olive Oil

Vegetables

Instant gravy (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 190oC. Wash your chicken fillets and cut a deep incision along the side of the chicken fillet. 

2. Next take your black pudding and remove all packaging including and edible casings depending on your brand. Mash your black pudding in a large bowl so that it's easy to mold. 

3. Divide your black pudding according to the amount of chicken fillets that you plan on cooking and start packing each individual chicken fillet. 

4. Wrap each fillet in a rasher and place carefully on a sheet of tin foil on a baking or roasting tray. These will take about 35 minutes to roast so warp loosely in the tin foil for the first 20 minutes of roasting. For the next 15 minutes of roasting, unwrap so that they turn nice and golden roasted colour. 

5. For the potatoes, cut each one in quaters roughly, Place in a large bowl with some roughly chopped rosemary, about a desert spoon of Olive Oil and some salt and cracked black pepper. If you have time to par boil your potatoes, they would probably be nicer. I just didn't have the time. Just add the washed potatoes to boiling water with a sprinkle of salt. Reduce heat and simmer for about 5-10 minutes until you can stick a fork through but you still wouldn't eat them - roughly about half cooked. 

6. In the meantime, steam some vegetables, I used carrots and mange toute. 

Serve with some cranberry sauce - see Christmas posts - and some gravy from the roasting j

 

Blueberry and Dark Chocolate Breakfast Bars

I find it's always a good idea to have some baked goodies that aren't completely bold in the house. Let's face it - a cup of tea is no fun on it's own and having something relatively healthy at hand can alleviate some regrettable binges. I'm use the term healthy loosely as I haven't analysed these with my nutritionist hat on and I'm sure if  were to be critical enough I'd find some reason why they're not ideal, but in my opinion, as part of a balanced diet, these are both a healthy alternative to goodies after dinner or when I come in from work and also provide a reasonable alternative to a breakfast on a morning that I want an all important extra five minutes in bed.

 

Shopping List:

• 3 cups of oats
• 3 desert spoons of coconut oil
• 3 desert spoons of honey
• 75g blueberries
• 50g dark chocolate – preferably as high a coco content as possible
• 50g of flax seeds
• 1 cup of water

1. Preheat an oven at 200oC.
2. Melt chocolate and coconut oil together in the microwave for approx. 40 seconds and stir gently.

 
3. Chop chocolate roughly and wash blueberries.
       
 
4. Add the oats, seeds, blueberries and chocolate to a large bowl and mix so everything is evenly distributed.
       
 
5. Drizzle in the honey/coconut oil mix so that it’s as evenly distributed as possible, then mix             thoroughly through the mixture.
6. Finally gradually add the water, quarter of a cup at a time, stirring between each addition. You may not need all the water, just enough so that the mixture is heavy enough to stick together when flattened into a baking tray.
7. Line a suitably sized baking tray with parchment paper and add the mixture. Pack tightly with a spatula and cover with tin foil. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes. Remove the tin foil and bake for a further 10 minutes.
8. Once ready, place in the fridge for at least 3 hours or overnight.