Baseball Playing Chickens...

Non-Baseball Playing Chicken with Roasted Vegetables

Let me say, this dinner had some real potential.  And now because I have said this, you know it wasn't exactly a home run.  It was more like a walk to first.  Or maybe even like the other team forfeited and you won by default.  Or maybe this is a chicken, and chickens don't play baseball.




The Chicken with Roasted Vegetables looked so amazing in the magazine, I just had to try it.  Here's where it went wrong.  First of all, it required a cast iron skillet.  I really wish I was like that pioneer woman.  She can somehow manage to make the most delicate of souffles in cast iron, and make it appear like anyone with a cast iron skillet can do it too.  I should have known better than to try anything that requires that kind of pan.  A pioneer woman, I am not. Second mistake, I do not know how, but after an hour and half, my potatoes weren't cooked through.  My kids were not excited about eating purple potatoes to start out with (I overheard the two older kids discussing them in hushed tones in the next room "What are those purple things?" "She said they were potatoes."), but add to them the fact that they were crunchy in spots...not good, not good at all.  (The older kids in not so hushed tones from the other room "MOM? Are the (pause) 'potatoes' (said sarcastically) supposed to be crunchy?!") I think 3-4 minutes in the microwave covered before they went into the skillet would take care of that, along with not buying the tri-colored fingerling potatoes.  The final mistake, the recipe calls to just rub the chicken with olive oil.  I knew better than that.  I normally, at the very least, liberally salt and pepper the skin.  More times than not adding some kind of spice under the skin.  If I attempt this again, I might do a salt, pepper and lemon zest rub.  That chicken just needed some flavor....or to go to batting practice.

Vegetables in the Lemon Vinaigrette

The Ingredients

Chickens Before the Oven

Taste of the South Feb 2012