The Menu
Garlic Herb-Roasted Chicken with Potato, Onions, and Shallots
Monkey Bread
Mashed Potatoes with Gravy
New England Clam Chowder
Steamed Broccoli
Pasta
Chicken Pot Pie
Served with: Scagliola Primo Bacio, Moscato d'Asti 2011 (a white sparkling wine, my favorite!)
I shopped at both Shoprite and Trader Joe's for my ingredients. In determining that it was only going to be the two of us, I decided to forgo a turkey in favor of a smaller bird, the chicken. The one I picked up was around 3.8 lbs which made the total baking time 112 minutes. The menu above is pretty much the order that that I prepped and cooked things with the chicken taking the longest and the pasta and pot pie last.
Garlic Herb-Roasted Chicken with Potato, Onions, and Shallots
Ingredients:
- Whole roasting chicken (with gizzards removed)
- 20 cloves of garlic
- 2 medium onions
- Several red bliss potatoes
- 1 large shallot
- Herbs - salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary
- Butter (softened)
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees while you prep. I set my racks to be on the bottom two notches so that the chicken had enough room and so that it wouldn't burn as easily. The chicken I bought had gizzards included but separated out! Very nice. All I did was take a peek inside and clean out any extra bits I didn't want. Then I rinsed the chicken inside and out with cold water, setting it aside to dry.
Next, prep your veggies. I sliced the potatoes into wedges and cut large chunks of the onions for the veggies on the side. I reserved half an onion to stuff into the chicken. Slice the shallots into quarters, reserving two pieces to stuff. Then, peeled all of my garlic cloves and chopped off the ends. Layer the potatoes and onions over a foiled tray to make clean up easier.
For the chicken, I added the herbs first. Generously sprinkle salt and pepper (I used fresh ground) and rosemary and thyme (for me, both dried ones) along the insides. Then, I stuffed the onion half and two shallot quarters inside along with as many of the garlic cloves I could fit (the rest go with the veggies on the outside). Insert toothpicks at the end to close the seam.
Now for the skin of the chicken. I gently separated the skin from the meat and cut thin slices of butter to insert in-between. On the outside of the skin, I sprinkled the herbs all over. Make sure you cover the whole chicken so flip it over and get those herbs on. Place the chicken over the veggies to bake. I didn't tie anything up because my chicken was fairly small, but you can ties the legs and fold the wings if necessary.
Bake for 45 min + 7 per pound. My total baking time was 112 minutes. I set the timer and it was perfectly cooked and juicy after that amount of time. No more, no less. I let the chicken stay warm in the oven afterwards and it was still juicy. We ended up using the drier sections of the breast for a chicken pasta the next day.
Monkey Bread (30-45 minutes)
Monkey bread is easy and great for serving a large crowd. My boyfriend and I devoured at least 1/4 of it by ourselves Thanksgiving night. Mmm, so good!
Ingredients
- 2 cans of Pillsbury Grands (I used Homestyle Butter Tastin')
- Olive oil
- Herbs - garlic powder, oregano, basil, rosemary
- Grated cheese
If you have a bundt pan, use that. If not, I used a regular pie pan, covered it with foil, and crumpled up a foil ball for the middle to create my own doughnut. For each pre-sliced Grands biscuit, I cut it in half, rolled it into a ball and rolled the ball around in olive oil and herbs. I varied which herbs were used in each section, creating a monkey bread with two layers but many flavors. Baked it along with the chicken so I put foil over the top to prevent it from burning (the temp. for chicken was 100 degrees higher than baking the biscuits). I kept an eye on these, checked them out around 30 minutes and determined how much longer to let it sit. Then, once they were done, I set it aside and popped it back in the oven right before we sat down to eat to warm them. Because of the higher temperature I had the oven at, the bottoms of my bread were fairly burnt but still bearable.
Mashed Potatoes with Gravy
Ingredients
- Gold potatoes (peeled and cut into large chunks)
- 2 tbsp sour cream
- 1 tbsp milk (I use whole milk)
- 1 tbsp butter
- salt, pepper, and other seasonings to taste
Special Tools
I cut and peeled the potatoes first to speed up the boiling process. While you could just microwave the potatoes, I prefer to boil them in a pot of water. Supposedly, the moistness (obviously) is different than just microwaving it. Once everything is soft and you can stick a fork into the potato, you can drain the water and put your potatoes into a large bowl. I used my largest Pyrex glass storage container.
Add your milk, sour cream, and butter in and then get mashing. To get the consistency you like, add more milk and butter for creamier potatoes. Once you've got the right consistency, add your seasoning and mix it well. For this one, I only used salt and pepper because we were having gravy with it.
For my gravy, I have this container of chicken gravy powder. I heat up some water in a small saucepan and then add the powder in. Boil it over low heat until the powder breaks down and becomes gravy-like. Then, let it sit to thicken before serving. Of course, you can make gravy from scratch or use canned gravy as well.
For my other menu items, I simply boiled a box of bowtie pasta plain to serve with our roasted chicken and steamed some broccoli in a pot. I bought a Chicken Pot Pie from Trader Joe's and microwaved and baked it. And heated up a can of Progresso's New England Clam Chowder topped with some basil.
How did your holidays go? :)
For my other menu items, I simply boiled a box of bowtie pasta plain to serve with our roasted chicken and steamed some broccoli in a pot. I bought a Chicken Pot Pie from Trader Joe's and microwaved and baked it. And heated up a can of Progresso's New England Clam Chowder topped with some basil.
How did your holidays go? :)
No comments:
Post a Comment