Chicken with Figs, Feta & Quinoa

This is a delicious dish that I would recommend one would cook to treat their partner after a long day at work. The flavours of roasted figs with the slightly spicy chicken and cool feta cheese, sitting on a bed of fig flavoured quinoa is just perfection!

I would eat this any day of the week but best when figs are in season. We have a very young fig tree at the moment in the garden, but it only produced 3 figs this year and they are long gone.. scoffed straight off the tree!

Ingredients:

4 ripe figs, quartered
200ml port
2 shallots (or a small onion), sliced
1 cup quinoa
1 small red pepper, sliced
1 courgette, cut into chunks
1 tbsp. + 1tsp. olive oil
2 chicken breasts
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. powdered garlic
50g feta cheese


Method:

Set the oven to 200 C. Put 2 of the quartered figs into a small pan with the port. Bring to the boil and cook on a medium heat for about 10 minutes. Using a hand blender, blitz the figs and port into a sauce.

Put the shallots, red pepper and courgette into a small roasting pan with 1 tbsp. oil drizzled over and roast for 15 minutes. Then add the rest of the figs to the roasting dish and roast for a further 15 minutes.

Cook the quinoa in boiling water for about 10 minutes until cooked. Drain (if necessary) and add to the port sauce. Stir well and reheat gently in a microwave or back in the pan. Keep warm.

For the chicken, put the breasts in between two pieces of cling film and hit gently with a rolling pin to flatten out and make the same height. Sprinkle over the cayenne, paprika and garlic powder and drizzle with 1 tsp. oil. Cook in the oven (uncovered) for about 25 minutes - while the veg is roasting.

To serve. Place the fig flavoured quinoa at the base of a plate. Top with the roasted vegetables. Slice the chicken breast and lay that on the top and crumble over the feta. Season, serve and enjoy!