rainy day roast chicken

what happened?

one minute we were enjoying the hottest summer on record… day after day of sunshine and heat… and then POW!… cold, wet, windy… this better be a small glitch in 2010’s computer programming, I have a lot of outdoor stuff planned…

but I feel that miserable weather calls for hearty, old-fashioned pots of warming lovelyness that can only come from the depths of the oven.

I had a little of that fantastic tomato sauce left over from the pizza I made on Saturday… it was so rich and unctuous… I urge you to make loads of it and freeze some, or keep some in the fridge… you can use it with so much… I even had it spread on toast for lunch today with a few slices of strong cheddar on top… delicious!… anyhoo, I wanted to get creative with it for dinner and thought it would be great spread onto chicken thighs and potatoes and then roasted… and that’s exactly what i did.

Yes, it’s an old favourite here at Belleau Kitchen but the one-pot roast is so easy and so effective I can’t really complain… I roughly chopped some onions, garlic and celery and also cut some potatoes into chunks, placed it all in an oven proof dish, seasoned with s and p and some fresh herbs and then placed the chicken thighs on top, seasoned again then added a little glug of white wine and gave it all a good drizzle of olive oil.

I did the same for The Big V but used Quorn chicken pieces (I know some of you probably think i’m crazy and un-inventive using Quorn but… and you need to see some of my old posts on this… The Big V wants what I’m eating… just without the meat) I roasted them in a hot oven for just over an hour, turning the thighs every 20 mins or so, so they remain moist and still get golden all over…(the Quorn dish needed a little veg stock half way through to stop it drying out) …and it came out the most glorious golden red colour and tasted superb and had that deep deep intense tomato taste.

eat and of course, enjoy!