Parmesan and Polenta Chicken with Corn Salad

Ten reasons why I love this time of year:

1. The sun wakes me up early.

2. My jasmine is about to pop.

3. There are lorikeets in the garden.

4. The air smells good.

5. It is light when I leave home. It is light when I return.

6. All the (non-native) trees are bright green with new growth.

7. New season fruit and vegies are in the shops.

8. I'm not cold (I despise being cold).

9. Third term is nearly over.

10. Stone fruit is on its way, but then again so is Christmas.....

And so winter gives way to spring, and shanks give way to salad. Part of my plan for the warmer seasons ahead, is to get the kids eating main course salads for dinner. For some sensible and also some stupid reasons, I have never really pushed salads on them in the past, but it is definitely time. With this in mind, I was glad to see the challenge this month for Hey Hey It's Donna Day, because it was a kid-friendly main course salad.

The salad looked delightfully sunny and yellow. The polenta and parmesan crumbed chicken was tasty, although a bit "sandy" in texture according to one 10 yr old expert. I accidentally overcooked the corn, so instead of coming off the cob in nice elegant slivers, it came off kernel by kernel (hence the lack of an elegant photo above). No matter; the small fry don't really care about plating or aesthetics. Baby spinach is a great salad leaf for children too - not too strong in flavour or bitter, it is the second salad leaf I got them to eat (sort of) after iceberg lettuce. The dressing is a little strong for the kids, so serve this on the side for the adults rather than dressing everyone's salad. All in all a lovely meal enjoyed by the whole tribe. And the leftover chicken made great sandwiches for the kids for a couple of days.

Thanks to Stephanie from Dispensing Happiness for the choice. If you feel like making use of your enormous pile of Donna hay cookbooks / magazines once a month, join in Hey Hey It's Donna Day, facilitated by Denise from Chez Us.

Parmesan and Polenta Chicken

from Donna Hay Magazine, Issue 31

2 cobs corn, husks and silks removed

olive oil for brushing

2 x 200g (7oz) chicken breasts

flour for dusting

2 eggs, lightly whisked

1/2 cup(100g/3 1/2 oz) polenta

1/3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

100g (3 1/2 oz) baby spinach leaves

1/2 cup basil leaves

grated parmesan cheese, extra to serve

dressing

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 teaspoons honey

sea salt and cracked black pepper

To make the dressing, place the mustard, lemon juice, garlic, oil, honey, salt & pepper in a bowl & whisk to combine. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 220 C. Brush the corn with oil, place in a baking dish & roast for 25 minutes or until golden. Slice the kernels from the corn & set aside.

Slice the chicken in half horizontally, dust with the flour, dip into the egg & press into the combined parmesan & polenta to coat. Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat & cook the chicken for 2-3 minutes each side or until golden & cooked through. Arrange the chicken, corn, spinach & basil on plates & spoon over the dressing & grated parmesan to serve. Serves 4

Zucchini Salad for Hay Hay It's Donna Day

I have decided to jump into a new cooking group on the web: Hay Hay It's Donna Day. Regular readers would know that I am already cooking and posting Donna's recipes regularly (so a new group is not really much more incremental work), and I like the idea of a monthly challenge. I have had an ongoing love affair with Donna Hay's recipes for years. I have collected every issue of her food magazines (slightly obsessively embarrassing), plus have most of her cookbooks. She is so prolific that it is becoming a problem for me to house my collection of her work, let alone the other squillion cookbooks I seem to have amassed. So why do I hang onto her magazines when I am happy to ditch others? There are a few reasons:

- I find her recipes work (as long as you follow them) and they are generally pretty quick to pull together and never require a trolley of ingredients.
- the magazines are beautiful to look at, and the food is styled so wonderfully that it is a pleasure using them.
- there is an outstanding index to the magazines, which used to be in hard copy but is now on the web. This means that if I am looking for a particular recipe, I can track it down without literally thumbing years of accumulated magazines. Yay!



So on to Hay Hay It's Donna Day #27. Denise from Chez Us has stepped in to facilitate the event after it was started by Barbara at Winos and Foodies and then nurtured by Bron Marshall. This month's challenge was chosen by host Priya from Akshayapaatram, and she nominated summer salads, preferably vegetarian as her theme. So off I went to my large pile of Donna magazines and found this Witlof with Zucchini, Mint and Fetta Salad in the Dec/Jan 07 issue. It was really good - so good in fact that I am planning to make it again as soon as I can get to the supermarket to get more zucchini. I have never been a zucchini fan, I think because I started eating zucchini as part of ratatouille (squishy and a bit of an underperformer). Served like this - sliced thinly and chargrilled - zucchini is a star. Throw in some fetta and mint and toss it through some lettuce (sadly no witlof to be found), and it is completely delicious. The dressing is nothing more than some white wine vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper - all you need to show off this gorgeous produce.



Witlof With Zucchini, Mint and Fetta
from "Donna Hay Magazine" Dec/Jan 07
Serves 8, as a side dish

2 yellow zucchini, thinly sliced (I used a vegetable peeler for the slicing)
2 green zucchini, thinly sliced
1 tbl olive oil
150g fetta, chopped
1 cup mint leaves
1 tbl extra virgin olive oil
1 tbl white wine vinegar
1 witlof (I used oakleaf lettuce)

Heat a char grill pan over medium heat. Toss the zucchin with 1 tbl olive oil, and sea salt and pepper to taste in a bowl. Chargrill in batches for 1-2 mins or until golden and soft. Place zucchini, fetta, mint, extra oil and vinegar in a bowl ad toss gently to combine. Serve on a bed of lettuce.