Three Tasty, Easy Dishes to Cook in Your Brand New Kitchen

Getting a brand new kitchen installed in your home is exciting. By just changing one room, you can give a new lease of life to your entire household and open up a whole new world of opportunities for you and your family to entertain and learn new cooking skills.

   

But, after unpacking all of your plates, pots, pans, utensils, cloths and cleaning products into their new cupboards and drawers, you’ll have worked up an appetite and will probably want your first meal to be something that’s easy to make but which gives you a chance to play with all your new gadgets and accessories.

Here are just three simple recipes for a delicious meal that let you do just that:

Spicy Chicken and Vegetable Kebabs, by BBC Good Food

Click here for full recipe instructions, but in brief, you will need:

Garlic, peeled
fresh ginger, peeled
orange zest
3 spring onions, chopped
clear honey
light soy sauce
vegetable oil
4 chicken breasts
20 button mushrooms (or other vegetables you might like)
20 cherry tomatoes
2 large green peppers, cut into strips
20 wooden skewers.

Set your blender on your new worktop or island and pop in the garlic, ginger, orange zest and onions and whizz them into a paste. Add the honey, orange juice, soy sauce and oil and blend again.

Take a bowl from your new cupboard, put in the mushrooms and the chicken which should be cut into bite-sized pieces. Pour your whizzed-up marinade over them and then set aside for an hour. While those lovely flavours are mingling together you can prepare the next two dishes. (I unfortunately wasn’t able to include mushrooms and tomatoes.)

Roasted Red Pepper, Tomato and Feta Couscous

You will need:

1 large red pepper
10 cherry tomatoes
100g feta cheese
1 large mug of couscous
a handful of fresh mint or coriander
olive oil
salt

While your chicken is marinating, preheat your new oven to 200˚C/Gas 4. Take a sheet of tinfoil from its new wall-mounted dispenser (if you don’t have one, it’s never too late to get one installed, wall-mounted racks for foil, kitchen roll and other accessories make any cooking task, easy!) and line a baking tray.

Drizzle the pepper and tomatoes with olive oil and salt, and roast for 20-30 mins.

While they’re cooking, prepare the couscous according to pack instructions.

When the peppers and tomatoes are ready, remove the stalks and seeds and, along with the feta and herbs, chop them roughly and mix them into the couscous.

Leave the oven on at this temperature for your final dish.

(I opted to stuff the couscous inside the pepper and have the cherry tomatoes whole.) 😀

Buttered and Baked Corn on the Cob

You will need:

1 x corn on the cob per diner (or more depending on how hungry everyone is!)
salted butter
chopped parsley (optional)

Place each cob in the centre of a square of tin foil. Smear generously with the butter and sprinkle with finely chopped parsley.

You can use a blender to do this, but make use of any new knives and counter-space and do it by hand.

Wrap the foil up tightly so that the melting butter doesn’t escape, pop onto a baking try and into the oven for around 30 mins.

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While they’re cooking, return to your marinated chicken and thread the pieces, along with the mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and green peppers onto skewers.

If you have a Domino BBQ grill this is the perfect introductory dish to cook on it, but if not a griddle pan works just as well. I used the contact grill we have at the moment.

Lay the skewers onto the heat and cook for 7-8 mins on each side until the chicken is thoroughly cooked and ready to serve. Garnish with spring onions.

That’s it! Three delicious dishes ready in an hour. All you need to do now is to set the table, pour some wine, adjust the lighting to the ambience you desire and sit down to eat.

To find out more about useful kitchen accessories and appliances for your brand new kitchen, contact the design and installation specialists or request a catalogue from LWK Kitchens.