What's Cookin' For Dinner… Yum!

I was working on two new things tonight, because they could be baked for basically the same time/temp it made sense to try these out together…  Lemon Chicken & Spicy Roasted Vegetables.

First Lemon Chicken… this is very loosely based on a recipe I saw on Annie's Eats which can be found here; however, I lightened, simplified, and reduced the quantity…






Ingredients:
  Zest & Juice of 1 Lemon
  1 Clove Garlic, crushed
  1/2 tsp dried Thyme leaves
  1/2 tsp dried Rosemary leaves
  1/2 tsp Sea Salt
  1/2 tsp Whole Peppercorns
  4 Chicken Thighs, defrosted & rinsed
  Olive Oil Spray


Grind the Dry Spices together with a Mortar & Pestle, mix with the Lemon Zest, Lemon Juice, and Crushed Garlic.  Put the Spice Marinade & Chicken Thighs in a Gallon size zip top bag, squish things around so that the chicken is well coated with spices & zest, squeeze the air out of the bag & place bag in the refrigerator to marinate 1-2 hours.


Once marinating is complete: preheat oven to 425F, spray an 8x8 glass pan with Olive Oil spray.  Place the Chicken & Marinade in the pan with the Chicken skin-side up, spray the top of the Chicken thighs with Olive Oil spray.  Bake in preheated oven for 50 minutes.

Next Spicy Roasted Vegetables… I had done something like this a while back, but I wanted to refine it a bit… this is what we had tonight, with notes about variations following.


Ingredients:
  1 med Parsnip (1/4 lb)
  2 med Potatoes (3/4 lb)
  1 lg Beet (3/4 lb)
  1 cup rough cut Carrots
  1/2 med Onion
  Olive Oil Spray
  1 tsp Cho-Cho Spice
  1 tsp Orange Zest
  Salt & Pepper


Preheat oven to 425F.  Rough cut the vegetables, mix together with Cho-Cho Spice & Orange Zest in a large bowl. Spray the mixture with Olive Oil Spray and mix again.  Spray a 9x13 glass pan with Olive Oil, place the vegetables in the pan.  Spray the top of the vegetables once in the pan, and season with Salt & Pepper.  Bake for 25 minutes, remove from oven, stir the vegetables, spray the top of the vegetables with Olive Oil once more, season again with Salt & Pepper, bake for another 25 minutes.


Roasted Veggie Variations:
  Switch up the vegetables… root vegetables work well but so will many others, experiment and find your favorites.
  Switch up the spices… Greek or Italian spices would work well… play with it… if you want it spicier you could try adding a bit of Tabasco.