Jamie's Tray-Baked Chicken with Creamed Spinach

By Chris,

Main ingredients:

• 6x Chicken breasts
• Maris Piper potatoes
• 400g Baby Spinach
• Garlic, Parmesan and Streaky Bacon

Ahh chicken and bacon, what a timeless combination! This recipe is a great use for a really good quality chicken breast, and a great way to introduce people to spinach - in the least healthy way possible... Many of Jamie's 30-Minute Meals are heavily reliant on herbs, but this one is worse than most, with four herbs employed, not to mention two spices and plenty of garlic.

Start off by boiling about a kilo of washed and diced potatoes, then fry a fistful of spring onions in olive oil. To the onions add three cloves of garlic, some thyme leaves, butter, nutmeg and a splash of boiling water. Next up, roll the chicken breasts in salt, pepper, olive oil, oregano and paprika, then fry in butter for two minutes on each side to seal in the juices. While these are going, wilt the spinach down in the pan with the onions.

Next up the chicken is moved to a baking tray, then lined with steaky bacon, and four lemon quarters are stuffed in, along with some rosemary and cherry tomatoes (which I forgot, d'oh!). The whole thing is then grilled at 200 degrees (gas mark six) for 14 minutes. Once the spinach has wilted down, pour on cream and grate over a decent helping of parmesan to make a nice gloopy sauce. Finally, dry off the potatoes by frying them in a pan for a few minutes with garlic, salt and rosemary.

This is one of the fiddlier 30-Minute Meals I've done so far, which took 45 minutes in total, but the potatoes, and chicken came out perfect and the spinach is tempting enough to turn even the most ardent veggiephobe into Popeye. 

Without the tomatoes (which will make a cracking salad tomorrow) it all came to a fairly reasonable £2.50 a head, including a bonus sixth chicken breast for everyone to fight over.

Best for... Using up all the frozen herbs in your freezer and introducing people to spinach

Taken from... Jamie Oliver - 30-Minute Meals

Helen says... Not spectacular but pretty tasty - and the timings made sure the chicken was perfectly cooked

Jamie's Spinach and Feta Filo Pie

By Helen
Main Ingredients:

• Ready-made pastry
• Spinach
• Feta cheese
• Cherry tomatoes and cucumber
• Mint and basil

This week's New Food Monday starts (as is becoming traditional) with me blaming our local supermarket for not having a key ingredient. 

This week it was filo pastry, and I have to admit I had but low expectations for the puff pastry we substituted, after rejecting Plan A (throw tomatoes at staff).

Three eggs were mixed with crumbled feta and grated cheddar, toasted pine nuts, oregano, lemon zest, nutmeg and a big bag of spinach which had been wilted in a little butter and oil. While the frying pan was still hot it was lined with half the thinly-rolled pastry and the eggy mixture poured back in, before the other half of the pastry was artfully arranged on the top.

I considered tackling this recipe during Veggie Lent and I'm very glad I came back to it now. The pie was much prettier than I expected, the spinach was soft and sweet and the cheese not too overpowering. Admittedly this meal was made special by the salads - tomatoes with basil and garlic, and cucumber with olives, chili and mint.

The mix of herby flavours and fresh veggies made the whole thing feel just a little bit luxurious (or at least like one of my favourite Whitecross Street lunchboxes) - and for once it didn't require every pan and worksurface in the kitchen.

For a veggie recipe, it wasn't cheap - coming in at £3.12 a head - but it was surprisingly filling, relatively uncomplicated and gave the illusion of being fantastically healthy!

Best for... Dining on the terrazzo, or with a mix of veggie and carnivorous friends
Taken from... Jamie Oliver - 30 Minute Meals
Chris says... Tasty, summery and surprisingly filling, even sworn meat lovers will be happy!