Harissa Chicken & Roasted Vegetables

I cooked this quick and easy chicken dish up for our midweek supper - I love throwing things together from what's in the fridge, and this really worked! Very simple and tasty :)

Here's what I used:

4 chicken fillets/pieces
1 green bell pepper, chopped into chunks
A handful of cherry or chopped fresh tomatoes
Regular and sweet potatoes, cut into wedges
Harissa paste
Olive oil
Freshly ground sea salt and black pepper to taste


I pre-cooked the sweet potato in some boiling water for 4-5 mins to soften a little first before roasting, and also pan-fried the chicken pieces that had been smeared with harissa paste for a couple of minutes on each side to brown. Just pop it all into a roasting tin with some olive oil and cook for about 20-25 mins at 180C, or until the chicken is cooked through and the vegetables are soft. Yum! :-P

Tackling the Jungle

I booked some time off work recently and was lucky enough to get some sunshine to go with it! I've been making some big alterations in the garden and house, so it's been perfect for getting outside and topping up the Vitamin D ;-)

 I've had a lovely buddleia in my garden for some years now, and have let it grow from what should have been a large shrub into a huge tree due to not pruning it back hard enough. I decided to cut it right back this year to hopefully rejuvenate it - these are some of the branches waiting to be cleared away! You can see the trees on the right hand side were getting pushed away and mis-shapen so it will give them some much needed space too :)

This white potentilla was planted in front of the buddleia and has never really done much - but already the difference is amazing, it's really starting to thrive!

And after all that hard work? Homemade tzatziki and bbq kebabs... ;-)