Two Tasty Dishes

My wife was looking over recipes in magazines (one was Light Cooking, I think) this weekend and pulled out a couple to try.

The first was a rosemary chicken dish we had on Tuesday night. It was really easy to prepare (I watched as she put it together). Here's the full recipe:

Roast Rosemary Chicken and Vegetables

serves 4 total prep time: 40 min

8 small chicken drumsticks (about 1 3/4lb)
4 large red potatoes, each cut in 8 wedges, wedges halved
2 large peppers, cut in 3/4 in. wedges
1 large red oninon, cut in 1/2 in. thick slices
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary or 1 1/2 tsp dried
2 tbsp chopped garlic
1/2 tsp each of salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives, cut in half
Serve with: balsamic vinegar to drizzle over chicken and vegetables

1. Position racks to divide oven in thirds. Heat oven to 500F. You'll need 2 rimmed baking sheets lined with nostick foil.
2. Distribute drumsticks, potatoes, peppers and onion evenly between pans. Drizzle with oil; sprinkle with rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper and toss to turn and coat.
3. Roast 30 minutes, stirring mixture after 15 minutes, or until chicken is coooked and vegetables are tender.
4. Arrange on platter; add olives.

We swapped out to regular olives and cooked the olives in with everything else.

It was very very tasty and pretty healthy too. I'm not a major vegetable fan but I did enjoy them roasted this way. If you pull off the skin from the drumsticks after they have cooked, it is probably even better for you. I didn't though - I enjoy some good cooked chicken skin every now and again. This was going to the keeper file.

The second dish was a chicken pot pie sort of thing which we had on Wednesday night. This one required a little more preparation work up front. You peel and slice up some regular potatoes and carrots (about a cup of each). Then you chop up a cup of celery. You put all this and some frozen peas and frozen pearl onions into a pot of chicken broth. You also add some chopped up boneless, skinless chicken breasts and let it all boil for a few minutes. You use a slotted spoon and pull all that out of the broth, then add flour and milk (we use skim) to the remaining broth to thicken it up. Sprinkle in some fresh parsley and tyme for flavoring. You then put the meat and vegetables back into the sauce for a few more minutes. Once that is done, you pour it all into a casserole dish and cover the top with a pastry sheet (we got one from the frozen food section but you could make your own if you're that adventurous). Cook the entire disk in the oven at 350 or so until the pastry crust gets golden brown.

Besides all the healthy vegetables and the homemade sauce, the other goodness of this is that there is only one part that is crust - on the top (instead of it being in a full pie shell which increases the crust consumption). I'm a big fan of pot pies and found this dish also very tasty. Our son isn't big on vegetables so he didn't like it much - but the adults sometimes get to overrule when it comes to dinner choices. Again, another keeper.

If anyone wants the exact recipes, let me know and I'll post them up.