Yoghurt Chicken with Pumpkin & Chickpea Salad

My hubby and I went to Adelaide this Australia Day long weekend for our friends' wedding. It also gave us the chance to have a post-wedding dinner with family friends who could not make it to our wedding in Sydney. When we travel afar, we'll be eating non-stop all the way through (that seems to be our style!) - starting with a BIG dinner on Friday night, followed by lunch & our friends' wedding reception dinner on Saturday, lunch again with friends on Sunday & closely followed by a BBQ, then a big breakfast with relatives before we caught our plane back to Sydney. As you can imagine, we've gobbled a whole lot of food in our ever bulging bellies! For some reason though, I managed to lose a little bit of weight when I weighed myself as soon as I got home. I have no idea why - maybe water retention before I left for Adelaide - or maybe I was just lucky I didn't gain 5kgs!

To compensate for our overeating this long weekend, I have decided to eat light this week. No objections from hubs since he thinks he really is getting a bulging belly. Not much coz he's so lean but I think guys with a little bit of fat around the waist is cute! hahaha...that's just me though. So, as I was saying, we have to eat light this week.

Tonight's dinner was my little invention - Yoghurt Chicken with Pumpkin & Chickpea Salad. It was a joyous success as hubs gave it a big thumbs up! "This is fantastic", he says. It's a filling and low GI salad. The yoghurt chicken went nicely with the salad. The pumpkin added sweetness, chickpeas added a little saltiness, whilst the tomatoes and cucumber were both refreshing. I served the salad with my double mustard and lemon dressing. There you have it.


Yoghurt Chicken with Pumpkin & Chickpea Salad
(serves 2-3)

250gm chicken breast
1/2 small butternut pumpkin, diced
1 can (240g) chickpeas, drained
2 tomatoes, diced
2 cucumbers, diced
few stalks of parsley, chopped finely
salt &/pepper for seasoning

Marinade for Chicken
1 small tub (125ml) of plain yoghurt
1 tsp Chinese 5 spice
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Salad Dressing
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp English mustard
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

- Preheat oven to 160C
- Slice up the chicken then marinade and refrigerate it for 30 mins
- Dice pumpkin and place on a baking dish, season with salt and pepper. Roast the diced pumpkin in the oven for 25-30mins or until they are ready
- When the pumpkin is roasting and chicken is marinating, drain the chickpeas, dice up tomatoes and cucumber, and make dressing
- Make the dressing in a small bowl, combining the 2 mustards, lemon and extra virgin olive oil together. Set aside.
- Pan-fry the chicken pieces until the chicken browns on both sides; then place the chicken pieces in the oven for 8 mins
- Meanwhile, combine the pumpkin, chickpeas, tomatoes, cucumber and half the chopped up parsley in a serving dish
- Top with the marinaded chicken from the oven
- Drizzle with dressing. Sprinkle the rest of the parsley into the dish.