Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Chicken Provencale in a Heart-Shaped Le Creuset Dish






This is a great recipe to make for Valentine's day and it looks even better in a Le Creuset heart-shaped dish!



The recipe is adapted from one in a free calendar that came with Slimming World magazine at the end of last year. I bought this casserole dish from the Le Creuset shop at Bicester Village, the designer outlet shopping village, when I went in January. I came home with quite a few shopping bags that day! I'd had my eye on this casserole for a while and when I saw it was reduced from £45 to £27, I couldn't resist. Now all I need to do is find space for it in my kitchen cupboard....







For this Provencale chicken casserole, to serve two you need:

2 chicken legs (here I've actually used one leg and two small breast portions)

400g tin tomatoes

1 courgette, thinly sliced - though as neither of us likes courgette, I pureed it so I could stir it in without it being noticed

1/2 red onion, sliced

1/2 red pepper, diced

1 clove garlic, crushed

2 tsp dried herbes de Provence

salt, pepper

2 tbsp tomato puree

100ml chicken stock



Preheat oven to 180C. Spray a frying pan with Fry Light, season the chicken and fry the chicken for a couple of minutes on each side. Then transfer to the casserole dish.






Scatter the pepper, courgette and onions over the chicken.







Add the tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, chicken stock and garlic. Sprinkle the herbes de Provence over the top.







Put the lid on the casserole dish and bake in the oven for about an hour until the chicken is cooked.






The cooked dish....






Serve with a few spoonfuls of the liquid and the slow-cooked vegetables on top. And if your other half really loves you, they will do the washing up!






I'm sending this to Cooking with Herbs, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage; she has a dual theme this month of Chinese new year and romantic recipes for Valentine's day.






I'm also sharing this with Four Seasons Food, hosted by Anneli at Delicieux and Louisa at Eat Your Veg. The theme this month is "food from the heart".