simple chicken

Yikes! It's been nearly a week since my last post. Doesn't mean I haven't been eating though, that's for sure. Life has been a little hectic lately, and I've turned to simple food prep.

Case in point was last night. It'd been a busy day, and I opted to get in a workout late in the afternoon. By that time, Jennifer had gotten called away for work, and neither of us had given dinner a thought. Martha to the rescue. Actually, the rescuer was that little magazine called Everyday Food published by MSL. It's really a nice compilation of quick and yummy recipes. I grabbed a pack of chicken breasts on the way home from the gym and prepped the recipe for cayenne-spiced chicken with avocado salsa. When Jennifer called to let me know she'd be home in 20 min, I threw on the chicken, prepared a small salad, and dinner was on the table when she came in the door. And the spice rub is so simple - 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp cayenne, that's it.

The addition of a spice rub or an herb can transform something ordinary into a dish that really offers lots of taste. It's a matter of having it on hand.

chicken over pasta, broccoli, and ice cream sandwiches

I haven't been blogging but I have been eating. And eating pretty well from scratch. Case in point: chicken over pasta. A couple of years ago Jamie Oliver appeared on the Today Show and cooked up this very simple dish. What I like about Jamie is his recipes are so incredibly easy to remember. I've never ever written down this recipe - it's that simple.

We went away this past weekend to our friend's ski house in Vermont and met up with about 8 friends. If you've ever been skiing, you know that apre-ski is all about snacks and a big meal. Jennifer and I took on the meal duties Saturday evening, after a great day of skiing at Stratton - 10 inches of fresh powder! But, I'm getting off track. Here's the dish (I doubled for 8):
about 1.5-2 lbs chicken thighs, legs or drumsticks, skin on, season with salt and pepper, set aside

• In a bowl combine 2 medium/large tomatoes; quartered & two handfuls grape/cherry tomatoes; a bunch of basil, stem ends removed, and roughly chopped. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper
• Combine the chicken and tomato/basil mixture in a large skillet or dutch oven - use your hands to mix it all together, getting the chicken nice and oiled. Arrange the chicken so it sits on top of the tomatoes, skin side up.
• To this add one whole head of garlic, placing individual cloves - unpeeled - snuggled into crevices. Count them, because you'll need to remove them later on and it's nice to know how many you started with!
• Put this into a 400 degree oven for 1 hour. Take a look now and then. You may find you want to baste the skin a bit.
• Put on some pasta water and boil up whatever type of pasta you like, about a pound. I use linguine or angel hair. Time the pasta to be done about 2 minutes after the chicken.
• Remove the garlic cloves and let them cool off for about a minute.
• Remove the skillet from the oven after 1 hour. Place the chicken pieces on a plate and tent with foil.
• When nearly cool enough to touch, squeeze the roasted garlic from its peel into the tomato basil mixture still in the skillet. Break up the cloves a bit with a fork and give it a good stir.
• You've cooked your pasta meanwhile, and you've taken it out (not drained) and placed it into a big serving bowl. Add the juicy tomato basil mixture to the pasta and a touch of the pasta water.

You'll totally enjoy it!

For a side, Jennifer made Tyler Florence's roasted broccoli. Did I link to that earlier? It can go into the oven for the chicken's last 20 minutes. Again, an easy dish to prepare. And very tasty.

For dessert, homemade ice cream sandwiches! Nearly homemade, anyway. I use the Nestle Toll house pre-made cookie dough packages where you just break off little squares. It makes 24 cookies. The pre-cut squares ensure the cookies come out all about the same size. Once the cookies are cool, I scoop about a 1/4 cup semi-hard ice-cream (chocolate chip is a good combination) and put between two cookies. Get them in the freezer fast! Let them harden for several hours. I made these the day before the meal.

Enjoy!