Pan Seared Chicken with Vegetables

Last week was a bit cooler, gray, and rainy. It looked like fall outside. What a perfect opportunity for some comfort food! This dinner filled our apartment up with warm and familiar scents, and made us really feel like it was November.

I took this recipe out of the March 2008 issue of Gourmet, generously provided by my good friend, Sasha. Sasha and her fiancee, Phil, are both wonderful and avid cooks! The original title is "Chicken in Riesling", but we didn't feel much like buying a bottle of wine to just use one cup for cooking. I think the wine would have added more flavor, but it was just fine with out. When I was at the store, they only had packages of chicken breasts with the skin and rib meat, no whole chickens, thighs, or pick-of-the-chicks. The recipe calls for 1 whole chicken, and I think that would have worked out much better, since the breast meet gets a bit more dry than everything else. And finally, the recipe calls for you to skin the potatoes, but then you are throwing away flavor, color, and nutrients!

In general, this was pretty good. Very comforting, easy, and a bit different from just baking chicken (but just about as easy). I should have seared my skin sides a bit more, and I think next time I make this I might brine it the night before, just so the chicken stays nice and moist. Greg and I also think that the presentation is nice. It's a bit rustic since you can present everything in the same dish it has been cooked in, but I think that adds to its charm!

Recipe:

About 3.5 lbs of chicken with bone and skin
1 TBS extra virgin olive oil
3 TBS butter, divided
4 leaks chopped or 2 C. sweet onion chopped
4 Medium carrots, halved
6 asparagus sprigs, cut into half
1.5 lbs small redskin potatoes
2 TBS fresh chopped parsley
1/2 C. heavy cream
1/2 C. lemon juice


-Heat oven to 350 degrees
-Rub chicken with salt and pepper.
-Heat oil with 1 TBS of butter in a wide oven proof pot or cast iron.
-Brown chicken in 2 batches. Transfer to a plate.
-Pour off fat from chicken. Add 2 TBS butter, leaks/onion and salt. Stir until golden.
-Add chicken, skin side up. Add carrots and asparagus. Add 1 C. of water or wine, boil until the liquid is reduced by half (about 4 minutes)
-Cover the pot and bake until the chicken is cooked through, 20-25 minutes.
-While chicken is baking, clean and boil potatoes until they are just tender. Drain, sprinkle with parsley, salt and pepper.
-Stir in heavy cream to the chicken, add potatoes and lemon juice.

-Enjoy!!!

Layered Lemon Dessert

This post is for my sister-in-law Beth. Beth is soon to be a first time Mom, and last I heard, citrus had been among her cravings.

This week at work my office moved, and to "celebrate" there was a company bbq. Dan did a great job grilling, and everyone else brought something for a potluck. I volunteered a "summery lemon dessert", but needed a recipe. I wanted something super super easy, a little creamy, and with good lemon flavor. www.allrecipes.com ended up having just tons of different versions of lemon desserts. The ones that sounded best were all layered with cream cheese and lemon pudding. Most of the recipes called for a homemade crust using a food processor. Normally I'm all for being very homemade, but I just wanted something I could throw together without turning the oven on, and that would taste great. Instead of cutting flour with butter, pressing and baking, I bought ginger snap cookies, broke them into pieces, and made a "crust". A "first layer" may be more appropriate since they didn't end up covering the whole bottom, and got slightly incorporated into the second layer. The coolness of the rest of the dessert really cuts the heat of the ginger (good for those who don't like ginger that well), but the ginger and lemon make a wonderful flavor combination. I also wanted to really taste the lemon flavor, so I added the juice and zest of a lemon to "zest" things up a bit. I think it worked really well, and Greg agrees. There is so much sugar in here that the extra lemon doesn't make the dessert tart at all, but just really "bright".

Greg got to have a serving or two when I got home from work. This is one of those desserts that you can easily just take a forkful of, walk away, and come back again in 30 minutes. It seems pretty light, which is great, and it is cool, which is wonderful. We'll be making this again because it is so delicious, very easy, and can serve at least 20 people.

Recipe

2 1/2 C. of crushed/broken ginger snap cookies
1 package of lemon pudding
1 8oz package of cream cheese
1 tub of cool whip
1 lemon
1 C. powdered sugar
1 1/2 C. milk

-Spread ginger snap pieces on the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking pan
-In a mixer, mix the cream cheese, 1 C. of cool whip, powdered sugar, and juice from the lemon until smooth.
-Pour the cream cheese mixture on top of the ginger snaps, gently spreading across the pan.
-Mix the milk and pudding, pour over the cream cheese mixture and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
-Spread the remaining cool whip on top of the set pudding.
-Cover the top of the cool whip with the lemon zest.
-Cover and serve cold.

-Enjoy!!!