Roasted Chicken & Vegetables
I have begun the new year committed to trying to incorporate more fresh, whole food into my family’s diet. This is leading me to try new recipes and be creative with how I prepare the fresh meat and produce that I bring home.
Each Tuesday during the month of January, The Fresh Market will have boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale for $2.99. I decided to look for some new and healthy ways to cook chicken while taking advantage of this great deal.
After running across several recipes online that featured oven roasted chicken and vegetables, I decided to create my own version. I roast vegetables all the time, but this is the first time I have cooked chicken along with them.
This meal was super easy and inexpensive because of two things that The Fresh Market offered that I could not have found at another store. 1. The great price on chicken (for Tuesdays only) and 2). the prepackaged, washed, and cut vegetables. The package of vegetable skewers had just the right amount and variety for the dish: portobello mushrooms, squash, zucchini, and onion-cleaned and already cut (although I did cut a bit smaller before cooking). All I added were two sweet potatoes, which cost next to nothing.
This recipe would be easy to adapt to your own tastes by changing seasonings and herbs. Many of the recipes online used a higher temperature (400 or 425 degrees), which might turn out better. I had to leave the house for a couple of hours, so I cooked on 350 degrees for almost two hours.
Roasted Chicken & Vegetables
2 lbs chicken (this was exactly 2 breasts)
1 package of vegetable skewers
2 sweet potatoes
9 cloves fresh garlic (or to taste)
lemon (optional)
extra virgin olive oil
Penzey’s Sunny Paris (or your favorite seasoning)
sea salt & fresh ground pepper
Cut the chicken breasts into strips. I did this with kitchen shears (MUCH easier than a knife).
Cut all vegetables into uniform chunks.
Cover a large jelly roll pan (or any large baking sheet with sides) with foil. Put vegetables on first, and sprinkle with evoo, sea salt & pepper.
Sprinkle chicken with seasoning; place on top of vegetables.
Mix the evoo, minced garlic, juice of one lemon, and seasonings; sprinkle over all. Then put a bit more sea salt and ground pepper.
Seal tightly with foil, and bake at 350 degrees for an hour or hour and a half. Remove foil. If needed, cook longer, but my dish was perfectly done at this point.
As you can see from the photo at left, there was a lot of liquid in the pan after cooking. This actually kept the chicken moist and probably “braised” it somewhat rather than baking. The chicken was fork tender, and the vegetables soft (I would have preferred them a bit more al dente, but they were still great).
We enjoyed this dish so much, and even my youngest said it was one of the best meals she had ever had!
Remember the Tuesday deal on chicken, and give this dish a try! If you find a way to make a better or different version of this, please share your ideas with us!
