Friday, June 26, 2009

Roasted Chicken with Summer Vegetables- Peach and Blackberry Crumble

This is a Sunday dinner recipe from this past week as well! We washed our pizza down with a fantastic bottle of Pinot Noir that our friends Tripp and Luci brought over- it was from the Willamette Valley however the name is escaping me... We were then ready for the main course. I had three chicken breasts still on the bone with skin- the ideal scenario for roasting. They were HUGE so I actually cut them in half. To go with the chicken, I cleaned sliced one fennel bulb, two zucchini, 1 bunch of asparagus, 1 red onion, and about 12 or so new potatoes (quartered). I also halved a whole head of garlic and threw it in as well. The purple and green theme was really pretty actually! I put the vegetables in a dish, keeping each vegetable in its own pile. I made a marinade earlier in the day- about 1/3 cup olive oil, juice of 1 lemon, 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar, 1 sliced shallot, 1 minced clove of garlic, 1/2 tsp or so each of fresh thyme and rosemary, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, and a squeeze of honey. I put about half of the marinade in a large ziplock bag with the chicken (added a few whole springs of fresh thyme), and I poured the other half over the vegetables in a dish. I let it sit about an hour or so- wouldn't go longer than 2 hours given that the acid could start to cook the chicken. As I put the appetizers out-I put the potatoes, fennel and onion in a roasting pan and into the oven at 400 degrees, set the timer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, I gave the vegetables a shuffle around, pushed them to the outsides of the pan and then added my chicken breast halves- pouring the marinade left over in the bag over the top- back into the oven for 15 more minutes. Next, I added the asparagus and zucchini to the pan- back into the oven for another 15 minutes or so. My pan was a bit small once I had everything in, so I didn't get quite the carmelization that I would have liked. I think the crowded pan resulted in excess steam. Nonetheless, turned out pretty well! For dessert- we had a fresh peach and blackberry crumble which was also tasty. I think I've already ranted about fruit crumbles/cobblers in the summer recently so I won't go crazy here- but my one tid-bit would be that I use Ina Garten's struesel topping recipe and it is THE BEST. I use the one from her peach and raspberry crumble recipe: Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, salt, oats, and the cold diced butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the butter is pea-sized and the mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle the streusel evenly on top of the fruit. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes until the top is browned and crisp and the juices are bubbly. Serve hot or warm, with desired accompaniments. (Mayfield Vanilla Ice cream is our fave) For the fruit, I always just eye ball it- add some sugar, flour, lemon zest and juice (Ina likes orange). Its hard to mess up. (Don't cut your peaches too small or they turn to mush.) Again, the ticket is the topping! It was the perfect ending to a perfect Sunday!

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