Chicken hugging, family and fajitas made from scratch!

I invited my nieces and nephew round for some quality time, chicken hugging and home-made fajitas!  Since my move from London to the country, I have been relishing having people round and none more so than my family.

Anna, Kirsten and Patrick have been very supportive of Eating Ideas, Anna and Kirsten faithfully commenting on posts, Kirsten featuring as a hand model in a cheese on toast video and Patrick clearing thousands of spam comments from the blog.  They definitely deserve some thanks and a thank you meal!

As they normally come for Sunday lunch with all the family including Grandparents, I was keen to make something completely different and took it upon myself to make chicken fajitas (perhaps a little bit insensitive to the chickens watching us through the window but hey-ho!).  It occurred to me that while I have made this many times, I have always used a prepared spice mix and it was about time, I tried my own.  I am a big believer that freshly prepared food tastes infinitely better so why wouldn’t that apply to the spice mix and resulting fajitas.  But where to start?

I had a look at several recipes on line and cobbled together the bits that I liked the best.  The risk with this strategy is that you can leave out a really important element that affects the balance of the ingredients but hey-ho, I’ve always lived life dangerously!

Here’s what I ended up with:

• 4 chicken breasts, cut into small slices
• 1 red onion sliced
• 1 red pepper sliced
• ½ red chilli finely sliced

For the marinade:

• 2 tbsps Smoked paprika
• 2 tbsps ground coriander
• 2 tsps ground cumin
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Juice of 1 lime
• A few drops of tabasco sauce
• Salt and ground black pepper to season

Accompaniments:

• One pack tortillas
• 100g grated Cheddar cheese
• Sour cream

For the salsa

• 12 ripe cherry tomatoes
• ½ fresh red chilli, to taste
• Juice of a lime
• A handful of fresh coriander (finely chopped)
• Ground salt and black pepper to season
• extra virgin olive oil

 For the guacamole

• 1 ripe avocado
• ½-fresh red chilli
• 5-6 cherry tomatoes
• Juice of a lime
• a few sprigs of fresh coriander

To make the salsa

• Chop the cherry tomatoes
• Finely chop the chilli
• Finely chop the coriander
• Mix the ingredients together and squeeze over the lime juice
• Add the salt and pepper to taste

To make the guacamole

• Peel and stone the avocado
• Roughly chop the flesh and place in a bowl
• Chop and add the tomatoes along with the chilli and coriander
• Add the lime juice and mix it all together

To make the fajitas

• Mix all the marinade ingredients in a bowl
• Add the chicken, onion, garlic and pepper and mix well
•  Heat the olive oil in a pan and fry all the ingredients
• Heat the flour tortillas for around 5-8 minutes
• Place the chicken in a dish and serve with the tortillas, sour cream, salsa, guacamole and cheese, ready to assemble

If ever you consider using a packet mix for your fajitas think again as this is so easy and tasted far far better!