Chicken, Chorizo, Butternut Squash and Orange
Did you buy a ridiculous amount of food last week? I did. Wasn’t planning to. But then I saw some slightly depleted shelves and panicked. They weren’t even empty. But my brain just screamed BUY EVERYTHING!!! So I did.
There was no rhyme or reason to it. No plan. Bought lots of tinned stuff (that’s sensible enough), lots of frozen fish (OK, that’s very healthy and still quite sensible), and then lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. … I’m not sure why. I’ve currently four full fruit bowls in the kitchen.
It’s not all fruit. I keep onions, butternut squash, avocados and tomatoes in fruit bowls. But there’s a lot of bananas…
Bananas.
The worst thing is though that I haven’t been cooking at all. I keep popping out and buying trash instead of eating a good healthy meal. That’s got to end.
Also, I’m refusing to dump any of the food I’ve bought. I’m going to eat every last bit of it.
That’s definitely one way to stop panic buying.
No, I did not buy loads of toilet paper. They were already out of that in Lidl.
It’s that you see horror stories online with photos of empty shelves and you think – that’s so silly, why are people behaving that way? – but then you go to the supermarket and it’s not looking quite as stocked as normal and you think – THERE’LL BE NOTHING LEFT!!!
But that was last week. We’re all much more used to this now, aren’t we?
Are we?
I went shopping again yesterday. Because the chicken drumsticks I had bought had a Use by 24 March sticker on them. And I’m not dumping any of this food.
I had already decided I wanted to use the chicken in some dish with chorizo. But then I ate all the chorizo I had bought the week before shortly after buying it. Because I am completely unable to resist eating chorizo.
Chorizo.
Anyway yesterday was a much more normal day of shopping. I went in to just pick up a packet of chorizo. But then anything I touched I felt I had to buy. So I came out with some chorizo, six creme caramels, a bunch of face masks (as in creams – not as in anything sensible and pandemic related) and a magnolia tree.
Roasted chicken drumsticks and butternut squash with fried chorizo and orange
I intended this to be a salad. I have quite a bit of lettuce to use up.
But actually it tastes best without the salad leaves. So ignore all that green stuff in the photos. Unless you too have panic-bought a whole load of lettuce. In which case – yeah, it works grand. I guess.
The seasoning I used for this is Cape Herb & Spice Season it all Seasoning. But you can easily substitute this with a pinch of pepper, salt, chilli flakes, ground coriander seeds, a pinch of ground mustard and tiny little pinch of some dried garlic and onion. Or even just some chilli flakes with some salt and pepper would be fine.
Ingredients
- 250 - 300g chorizo, uncovered and sliced
- 10-12 chicken drumsticks
- 1 butternut squash, peeled, diced, reserve seed for later use
- zest of 1 orange
- generous seasoning
- salt
- olive oil
- juice of 1 orange
- 2-3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- pinch of salt
- generous pinch of seasoning
- 1 mean teaspoon brown sugar
Instructions
- Combine the orange zest with a generous pinch of seasoning, some more salt and a teaspoon of olive oil. Gently rub this into the sliced butternut squash.Leave aside until ready to use.
- Turn on the oven to 200 C.
- Heat a large frying pan. If you have one that is oven-ready use this. Do not add any oil to the pan. Add the peeled and sliced chorizo. Stir around for a minute or two on high heat until it's all getting just a tiny bit crispy looking. Reduce the heat to low and leave for a minute or two. If you stir the slices around you should notice a little pool of oil around them.
- When there is enough oil in the pan remove the fried chorizo with a slotted spoon, fish slice or fork. Leave the chorizo in a very large dish or plate for later use.
- Turn the heat up to high again. Add the chicken drumsticks to the pan and brown on all sides. When the drumsticks have all been browned turn off the heat. Add in the butternut squash and gently mix around.
- If the pan is oven-ready transfer to the oven. If not transfer the contents of the pan to an oven ready dish. Cook for an hour. Every 20 minutes or so take the pan out, carefully tip to the side and with a spoon baste the drunsticks with the cooking juices.
- When the chicken is done take out of the oven and transfer the contents of the pan to the plate or dish of fried chorizo.
- To the empty oven pan add the butternut squash seeds and sprinkle over a little salt and seasoning. Put back in the oven and bake for 10 minutes or so, until the seed are golden and plumped up. Take out and turn off the oven.
- Make the dressing by adding the ingredients to a jar and shaking till it's combined.
- Spoon some of the dressing over plate with the chicken, chorizo and butternut squash. Scatter the roasted seeds on top.
- Serve however you like it. Enjoy!
So hopefully you’ve been more sensible than me with your purchases. And I really hope you’re well and not too affected by this pandemic. Let’s all do what we can to get ourselves and each other through this.
Oh no, I think that means having to be sensible.
Well, a change is as good as a rest, I suppose.
