Thanks for the comments guys. Got something Food Adventuresy brewing for the future - and those Jaffa cakes are still on the way - but for now, here's tonight's dinner - with a full step-by-step:
This is a stress-free way of throwing together a quick, varied meal that's pretty healthy. It doesn't take a lot more than the hour it requires in the oven to cook, and you can pretty much leave it to it when it's in there.
Basic equipment is simples, you'll just need the tray to cook it in, some chopping boards and some knives and, ideally, a salad spinner for the lettuce.
Ingredients-wise, there's not much to this at all. For the tray bake, you'll need two peppers, one red onion, two or three cloves of garlic, two tomatoes, a handful of fresh basil and chicken. I've used chicken breasts here, but you can use any cut. In the back, you'll see the Smoked Paprika (where the smokyness comes from), olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt and black pepper.
The salad can be whatever leaves you like best, but here we've got two baby gem lettuce heads, another tomato, a single red chilli and a lemon. You'll also need a bit of olive oil again too.
Step 1:
Take the onion, remove the very tip of the root - but leave it in-tact otherwise - then half and peel. Cut the two halfs into chunks of about the size shown here, and because the root's been kept on, they'll stay together before and after cooking.
Step 2:
Quarter the two tomatoes.
Step 3:
Deseed and roughly chop up the two peppers. It's worth getting different colours just for the visual variety, but it has little to no impact on the taste if you can only get red.
Step 4:
Chuck everything together into the tray, along with the garlic. Keep the skin on the garlic cloves, just crush them a little with the flat of your knife or the heel of your hand.
Step 5:
Prepare the chicken. If you're using a thin cut, like deboned thigh, then just chuck it straight in. If you're using breasts like me, then butterfly it so it cooks evenly. Throw the chicken in the tray on top of the veg.
Step 6:
You can pretty much put in whatever seasoning you like here, but the smoked paprika, salt and pepper are something you want to throw in generously. Make sure there's plenty of smoked paprika to coat all the chicken and the veg. I've also thrown in a teaspoon each of dried oregano, flat leaf parsley and chilli flakes. Two tablespoons each of olive oil and balsamic vinegar go in as well.
Step 7:
Chop the basil roughly. You may wish to drizzle a bit of oil over it before putting it in the tray.
Step 8:
Mix everything thoroughly and get everything covered in that paprika marinade. Ensure that the chicken is on top of all the veg at the end.
Step 9:
In to the oven for an hour - take it out every 15 minutes or so and baste it in the juices.
Step 10:
While the chicken's in the oven, we'll prepare the salad. Don't worry about washing the lettuce here, just shred up the baby gem by cutting it horizontally through to the base, then put it into your salad spinner and wash it now it's been cut up. Make sure you use the salad spinner to dry off the lettuce as much as possible.
Step 11:
Cut the tomato up into 8ths and throw it into the salad spinner on top of your washed lettuce, then prepare your chilli:
You need to deseed your chilli, or it'll be too overpowering. A chilli's heat doesn't just come from its seeds, though, so also make sure you get rid of all the white membrane inside. It's full of the capsaicin that makes it hot, so trim it off - or just scrape it off with your knife. Once thoroughly deseeded, finely chop and drop in your salad spinner too.
Step 12:
Grate your lemon in on top of your salad to get all that zest in there. Cover up your salad and put it in the fridge while you wait for the chicken to cook. When you're ready to serve it up, just mix it up in the salad spinner.
Step 13:
Make the dressing with the juice of the lemon, 6 tablespoons (about 100ml) of extra virgin olive oil and combine with some salt and pepper.
Step 14:
Once the chicken is thoroughly cooked, prepare the salad and remove the tray from the oven. Serve up however you like, but what I've done here is kept the salad in a salad bowl, and split the chicken into two bowls. If you want to split this between 4 people instead of two, just double the amount of chicken, tomatoes and onions in the tray - the rest can be left as is.
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