Nigella Lawson 's Italian Traybake from Nigellissima.

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again"

Remember that saying? Also remember my chicken tray bakes that take forever to cook and we end up eating at midnight or serving raw chicken to a dinner quest? Well... guess what?! I have not been put off by a chicken tray back. Nope. And all my efforts paid off!

SUCCESS!!! Wahhoooooooooo

This week I chose Nigella Lawson's Italian Traybake from Nigellissima. I was only serving two for dinner so halved the amount of meat in the recipe and made sure I didn't over fill my baking tray. No double layers, everything on a single layer. I pre-heated my oven as soon as I got in from work. And I left it in the oven for an hour, turning half way through. I cut my potatoes to the size the recipe told me to and butterflied my sausages. I was going to make this fail safe.

We had fluffy roast potatoes and chicken thighs that fell apart and sausages that had gnarly little crunchy bits on them. Soooo Delicious! Oh how I've missed fluffy roast potatoes. They were crunchy and soft and YUM!

I should have trusted Nigella first... She was one of my first true food hero's and her recipes always seem to impress! Her book 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' was the first Cookbook I stole from my mother and I still have that copy today. Oh I do love her and her dramatic and colourful ways of describing ingredients when she cooks.

 I found this recipe on her Nigellissima App....this weeks meal planning was pretty shocking. I worked an extra day this week and was totally not organised, so on my way home while I was stuck in traffic I meal planned. Yes I know... very illegal but I was a hungry woman who was stuck in a fogging up car in the pouring rain with a window half open getting a wet arm on a mission... who still had to face the supermarket. Most of the recipes I found online, knowing I had the books at home. There are so many good recipes online but I have thousands of pages sitting in my living room waiting to be cooked from and shared with you lovely readers. So I tried my best to find recipes that were from books I was yet to share with you. There are still so many recipes and meals and food I want to make and blog about. If time and money weren't an option I would eat like a king every meal (ok I defiantly want a dishwater too... or washing up wench). I would also probably be the size of a house...

I definitely recommend this meal as a mid week dinner you can quickly throw everything together in a baking dish, chuck it in the oven while you have a shower or get comfy and an hour later you have a mini roast dinner. The only addition I would add is some garlic cloves chucked in there in their skins so they get soft and mellow.

Yay so excited a tray bake worked!! (photo looks like it was a little burnt but I swear I wasn't!).   It proves the saying right... keep trying (or traybaking) and eventually you'll get it right. Tristan was also pretty happy eating at a decent time and everything was cooked :)

Nigella Lawson's Italian Traybake from Nigellissimia.

serves 2

(recipe adapted slightly)

500g potatoes, cut into 2cm chunck

4 chicken thighs, deboned

3 italian sausages, butterflied

4 sprigs of fresh rosemary

1 lemon, zest

Salt and Pepper

olive oil

PRHEAT YOUR OVEN! 220°C or 400°F.
(if your oven is fan forced you make not need it on so high)

- Line the very base of your baking tray with foil or baking paper.

- Arrange your chopped potatoes, chicken thighs sausages in your baking tray. Make sure nothing is overlapping or on top of each other. If it is, split everything between two baking trays.

- Finely chop half the rosemary leaves and sprinkle over the chicken. Place the other sprigs of rosemary around the tray.

 - Zest the lemon over everything and give it all a good helping of salt and pepper.

- Finally drizzle with some olive oil and bung it in the oven for 1 hour or until everything is cooked through and the potatoes have a fluffy centre. If your oven is an uneven cooker (like mine) turn it half way through.

ENJOY!