Garlic Lemon Chicken with Celery Salsa

Garlic lemon chicken with celery salsa is a great meal to prepare ahead of time and keep to cook for a midweek meal when you are tired.

How often do you come home from the office tired, weary and hungry. When you feel like that you do not want to spend ages cooking. You want something quick and tasty.

At weekends I often spend a lot of time preparing meals for the week to come.  It is nice to have home cooked meals that you just need to reheat and they are ready quickly.

Garlic lemon chicken with celery salsa is one of these dishes. It takes a bit of time to prepare but once it is done you can keep it in the fridge until you want to eat it. Reheat and you have a lovely tasty meal ready quickly.

It is a simple meal to make. You can easily prepare it whilst whizzing around, cleaning the house, putting away the shopping and tacking the Everest size ironing mountain in the corner of the room. Once the ingredients are ready it just needs to be left, undisturbed in the oven until it is ready. The house will be filled with the lovely scent of summer as the lemon and chicken cook. The garlic and lemon flavours really complement the chicken and it can be served with new potatoes and salad, creamy mash and vegetables or rice. Whatever takes your fancy. I suspect the chicken would be lovely cold with a picnic as well but it did not last long enough to find out.

Salsa is one of those dishes that complement everything. I love making my own and cumcumber, tomato and lime salsa is really rice and tangy, perfect with crisps on a summer day. Tomato is usually the key ingredient in salsa but there is no rule that says it has to be. I made this salsa with cooked celery, onions, herbs, chillies, garlic and a little oil. Mix it all up in a food processor to make a smooth salsa with a lovely punchy flavour. It can be served alongside the chicken or spread over the top and the two together create a taste sensation.

I think my food processor has seen better days, it left the salsa a little chunky. I could have pushed it though a sieve to make it even smoother but to be honest the chunky bits worked well and it tasted great. Along with the chicken I decided to try some Aloe Refresh Drinks from Grace foods. I have had these in my fridge for a while now but not got round to trying them.

I had two flavours, original and strawberry. I am not quite sure why I waited so long to try them, they are a lovely refreshing drink, perfect for a hot day. The drinks contain Aloe Vera pieces and if you hold the drink up to the light you can see them. Aloe Vera is a cactus which is used in lotions, it is known to calm sore skin. I had to admit I was a bit wary of drinking cactus but I should not have been. It is hard to describe the taste. The drinks are sweet, but not overly so and very refreshing. Aloe Refresh is rich in vitamin C which is known to combat tiredness. I am not sure if there are any other health benefits from drinking Aloe. Do let me know if you know any.

Garlic lemon chicken with celery salsa recipe

Garlic lemon chicken with celery salsa

Alison

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Ingredients

  

• 4 chicken breasts
• 1 bulb garlic
• 4 sticks celery
• 1 large onion
• 1 red chilli
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 90 ml olive oil
• 2 lemons
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp crushed chillies
• ½ tsp ground ginger
• Black pepper
• 3 basil leaves
• 4 mint leaves
• 6 parsley leaves

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 200C, Gas Mark 6
• Pull the cloves off half the bulb of garlic and peel them.
• Add them to a food processor with the soy sauce, 30ml olive oil, paprika, ginger, crushed chillies and the juice of one lemon.
• Whizz up until you have a smooth sauce
• Cut some slashes in the chicken breasts and place in a roasting tin.
• Pour the sauce over the chicken making sure both sides are covered well.
• Sprinkle over some black pepper.
• Cut the chilli in half and remove the seeds.
• Add to the roasting tin with the celery, lemon slices, onion cut into slices and the rest of the peeled cloves from the garlic.
• Roast for 40-45 minutes until cooked.
• Remove the celery, chilli, onions and celery from the pan and put into a food processor with the herbs and olive oil
• Mix until you get a smooth consistency

Another great quick and easy meal for those days you do not feel like cooking is sticky chicken and sweet potato tray bake.

Do you have any go to recipes for days when you need a meal in a hurry? I would love to know about them, let me know below.