Pantry Collective

Do you love roasted chicken? Crispy, flavorful, sinful skin with succulent, tender meat below… maybe some roasted vegetables and potatoes that have (also sinfully) soaked up some of the delicious chicken fat? Have I got a recipe for you. I mentioned on Wednesday that I recently purchased a 6qt Lodge enameled cast iron dutch oven. I drooled over it for a few weeks and finally bought it thanks to two $25 amazon.com coupons I got with some reward points I earned through Chase Leisure Rewards. It came in record time (2 days, even with “super saver shipping”!) and I was eager to try it out, so I made sure that the meal I made that weekend would put it to good use. I was not disappointed. I’m sure this would have come out fine in my usual roasting pan, but I’m going to pretend that it was that much more delicious having been made in my pretty new kitchen toy. So there.

This chicken recipe is a mish-mash of a couple different recipes I found online. I wanted a balsamic glazed chicken with splash of citrus, preferably orange. I wanted it to be crispy on the outside and delicious inside (best achieved, in my opinion, with a high-temp roasting method). I googled and googled and eventually cobbled this recipe together. It was excellent, and it looked so pretty plated on a big serving platter we got as a wedding present. It’s a great dish to serve guests, because it comes out looking so beautiful, and the flavor is excellent. When I make it again, I’ll increase the number of carrots - they were so good, coated in that balsamic glaze!

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Isn’t this photo pretty? Thanks to my lovely husband for taking all the photos on this blog.

Our friend Gino came over for dinner this past Saturday. He’s cooked for us so many times in recent months that I really wanted to make something delicious to return the favor. I’ve recently rediscovered balsamic vinegar and have been eating it on everything lately, so I used that as a starting point. It’s also starting to feel spring-y here in Chicago, but there’s still a chill in the air, so I wanted something both light and comforting. I eventually decided on a salad of mixed spring greens with orange segments, toasted pecans, red onion, and a citrus balsamic vinaigrette to start, and a balsamic glazed roasted chicken, which I made in my brand new kitchen toy, a 6qt Lodge enameled dutch oven. Shiny!

My favorite produce market had a huge tub of greens for $2, so even after the big bowl of salad I made, I had probably 2/3 of the tub left. Luckily, the salad works really well with some leftover shredded chicken thrown in!

The recipe for the chicken will be up later this week.

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I recently had a Lean Cuisine for lunch, Salmon with Orzo something-or-other. I didn’t like the salmon much at all, but it reminded me that I should make orzo more often. I love pasta, and the small, rice-like shape of orzo lends itself well to being mixed with lots of veggies and a bit of chicken. I think. What do I know about proper use of various pasta shapes? What I do know is that this dish was really tasty. Spicy, garlicky, full of veggies, and really satisfying. There’s no cream or anything in the dish, but it comes out tasting somewhat creamy, which is really nice. You could also add some chopped tomatoes, or any other veggie you think would work. I’ll bet this would be really good with shrimp, too. You can also eat it cold, as a pasta salad.

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Last month’s Real Simple had a few really yummy looking recipes. Earlier this week I made Chicken with Tarragon and Leeks, and a couple of days later I tried their recipe for Mediterranean Salad With Chickpea Patties. I decided to stick the whole thing, salad and all, inside a low-calorie flatbread and grill it like a panini, rather than serve pita chips on the side.

The first day I made this recipe, I found the chickpea mixture to be a little crumbly. We had some trouble flipping the patties without destroying their shape. Once we got them inside the flatbread with all the greens and tomatoes and red onions, and that delicious lemon-yogurt dressing, they tasted great. But there were no photos because they simply weren’t pretty enough to document! When I made the second batch last night, I mashed the mixture up a little more with a fork (since my wimpy little 3-cup food processor didn’t do a great job pureeing it the first time around) and added a tablespoon or two of water - just enough to make the mixture actually stick together. The results were infinitely better. It’s a pretty light meal, so last night I made some lemon-parsely couscous as a side dish.

The patties are reminiscent of falafel, but not as heavily fried and therefore not as bad for you. The seasonings were really good, especially in the dressing, which was so delicious I could eat it everyday. Yumm!

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Leeks are such a great vegetable. We never used them in my house growing up, so I didn’t know much about them until I tried a recipe for Potato Leek Soup a couple of years ago. Now when I see a recipe that includes leeks I am automatically drawn to it. They have such a nice, smooth onion flavor! The leeks in this recipe soften up quite a bit and have a delicious, creamy, buttery texture. I almost wish there were more of them in the dish, they were that good. I don’t see any reason why another leek or two would hurt the flavor at all!

Tarragon is a pretty strong herb, and if you use too much it will overpower everything else in the dish. The light sprinkling of chopped fresh tarragon on top of this creamy wine sauce really compliments the flavors in this easy slow cooker meal. Just start with a little and add to taste.

As usual, I made a few changes from the original recipe. I used fat free half and half instead of heavy cream (one, I already have fat free half and half in the fridge, and two, although heavy cream is yummy, it doesn’t agree with my waistline). I also used chicken breast strips instead of chicken thighs, for similar reasons. I think chicken thighs would be really yummy, but the breast meat worked just fine and is quite a bit leaner.

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