Roast Chicken with Herbed Olive Oil

We promised chicken, so here's our first!
We had a small (3 - 3 1/2 lb) organic chicken to roast, and I have to say, this was the *most* delicious roast chicken P's ever made. I don't know if it was the recipe or the bird, but it was delicious! The most important parts, according to P, are flipping the bird from breast side down to breast side up, basting, and reducing the heat midway through cooking.

Roast Chicken with Herb Oil,
from Bittman's How to Cook Everything

1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp pestled rosemary and a bit of thyme
salt and pepper
1 whole chicken (3-4 lbs)
1/2 cup water, plus more if needed

1) Heat oven to 450. Mix herbs into olive oil. With your fingers, loosen the skin of the chicken wherever you can and massage oil under skin. Put a bit into the chicken cavity, and remaining on outside of the skin. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
2) Put 2-3 T butter in a cast-iron skillet. Melt butter and add water and 1 smashed garlic clove (if desired). Put chicken, breast side down, in the cast iron pan. Roast for 20 minutes, spooning some of the butter mixture up over it, then flip bird over onto its wings and thighs. Baste again, then after 10 minutes; at this point, the breast should be browning. Turn heat down to 325, baste again, and roast until the thickest part of the thigh is at least 155-165.
3) when the bird is roasted, transfer to a platter and rest at least 5 minutes before carving.

We served our chicken with whole wheat bread, and truly wonderful carrots. This recipe is sooo simple, and so delicious. Even H ate 1/3 of it, which I'm certain is a new record for volume of vegetables consumed at one meal. Between the chicken breast and the carrots, she really feasted, and so did her Big Baby, who sat in H's high chair and got fed alternate bites.

Moroccan-Style Carrots,
modified from the Gourmet Cookbook, edited by Ruth Reichl

1/2 lb baby carrots, cut into thirds if large
garlic powder, a generous sprinkle
1 T olive oil
a small sprinkle of cinnamon
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp turbinado sugar (a spoonful of sugar makes the veg-tables go down in the most delightful way!)
a healthy squirt of lemon juice
salt and pepper

Steam carrots in the microwave, covered with some water for 8 minutes on high (in our microwave).
Heat oil with spices, garlic powder, cinnamon, cumin seeds, and sugar for 2-3 minutes (or more) until spices are lightly toasted and it smells delicious. Stir in carrots and steaming water and cook, until carrots are well coated, about 2 minutes. Stir in lemon juice, and salt and pepper.

A proposal, and a winter's dinner

Now that it's the depths of winter in MN, and that winter is on the way out in RVA, we propose an idea. We have Bittman's How to Cook Everything and it is just chock full of delicious chicken recipes. So, we here in RVA think it would be fun to try one new chicken dish every week or two and post about it. Are you all game?
Our first post will be a mock-chicken salad and cream of pea soup with avacado.



This tofu salad is a great favorite at our house, and it doesn't contain any noxious onions or garlic that must be avoided by E at this juncture. It does contain delicious curry powder, raisins, and carrots.

1/2 lb firm tofu
3 T mayonnaise
1 tsp curry powder
1 rib celery, run through a mandoline
1 carrot, run through a mandoline
1 large hand full of raisins
salt and pepper

1. Wrap the tofu block in a CLEAN cotton/linen kitchen towel and gently wring much of the moisture out of the tofu over the sink (really, a clean one. This will not be cooked). Drop tofu into bowl and crumble into course bread crumb size.
2. Stir in all remaining ingredients and chill at least 1 hour, covered to let flavors develop.

We made a green soup to go with our white and orange sandwich spread, and it turned out deliciously.



Cream of Pea and Avacado Soup

3-4 celery ribs, chopped finely
1 T butter
3-4 cups of chicken broth
3 cups of frozen peas
1 tsp dried dill
salt to taste (check it before salting, packaged broth is SUPER salty)
1/4 (or more) avacado
1/2 -1 cup whole milk

Soup is pretty forgiving, but here's how we made it.
1. Saute the celery in the butter for c. 10 minutes.
2. Add the chicken broth, and taste for saltiness. Bring to a full boil.
3. Add frozen peas, continue to boil on lower heat for 5 minutes. Add dill.
4. Take off the heat and add avacado and puree until smooth. Stir in milk to lighten the color.

Easy Peasy Chicken and Pasta

I always like something quick and easy to cook for dinner after work. Something that works really well for us is chicken and pasta.

It started because I had planned to have Patrick grill some chicken for us for dinner one night but didn't put the marinade in soon enough so I just threw all the chicken in a pan with the marinade to make sauce. Then I served it over pasta and it was yummy!

This time, I got a bunch of zucchini and yellow squash and onions and sliced them up and sauteed them during the weekend. When we got home, first I started the pasta water then, I cut up two chicken breasts into chunks and thew it in a bowl with the marinade powder. It calls for 1/4 c water and 1/4 c oil but I cut back on the oil a bit.

I got a pan hot and dumped in all the chicken/marinade mixture and cooked it till the chicken was mostly done. Then I added the vegetables I cooked over the weekend and cooked it all together until the chicken was done through and the vegetables were hot. At some point when I was cooking, the pasta water boiled and I put in some whole wheat spaghetti and cooked it.

I put together a quick salad and dinner was on the table in less than 20 minutes. Take that Rachel Ray!

Here is the chicken cooking.
Chicken and pasta cooking
This is the marinade packet that I used. I used the tomato garlic pesto but I didn't take a picture before I tore the packet. The italian herb is really good too. We get this from Patrick's coworker Joe who's mom works for Weber but I know you can also get them at the grocery store.
I'm not going to write down an official recipe because it's mostly just throw it all in a pot and cook it but here is a shopping list.

• 2 chicken breasts (or as much chicken or other meat as you want to use to feed your family and have leftovers)
• 1 marinade packet - we like the ones above but you could use anything you want
• olive oil - for the marinade & sauteing vegetables.
• vegetables - we used yellow squash and zucchini and onions but I think broccoli would be good too.
• pasta - we used whole wheat. You could also serve with rice if you want.