I am finally getting around to sharing the first completed recipe on my adventure. This recipe is from Real Simple: Meals Made Easy, the first section One Pot Meals. I am sharing my ingredient revisions, prices, and my husbands and my thoughts on the meal.
Roast Chicken and Vegetables
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| Ingredients getting ready to be cooked |
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| Leftovers, I of course forgot to take a picture when it was done because we were HUNGRY! |
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| Notes in cookbook so I remember my revisions and dates made. |
Ingredient Revisions-
Used Smaller 3lb chicken ($1.59 for the whole thing)
Regular salt, I don't have kosher salt and was trying to use as much as I had on hand
One lemon halved instead of 2 ($2.99, for a bag of 10, cost $.30)
1/8 tsp of each dry herb listed because I had those, I am starting to grow herbs in my kitchen to fix this.
1 1/2 tbs butter, I used salted because that is what I had on hand. 3tbs would have been too much!
1 medium yellow onion ($1.99 bag of 5, cost $.40) 3 was too many, we like onions but not that much!
10 Baby carrots cut up (I had the bag to snack on so I used them instead of buying a whole carrots)
1lb of mixed petite potatoes ($2.99 a bag for red, yukon, and purple potatoes)
3 tsp minced garlic, I keep a large jar in the fridge. I am waiting to dig up the fresh garlic I planted in my garden.
I spent $5.28 on ingredients that I didn't have already at home. I am figuring we will get 5-6 meals out of it. I like tasty meals that are healthy and cheap!
Ok done with the boring part! I used my
baker (thinking you could use any stoneware baker though) and cooked the chicken for 30min in the microwave with the breast side facing up uncovered. Then I covered it and let it sit about 10 minutes. Prep time was about 20 minutes and cook time 30 minutes plus sitting time another 10, total time 1 hour.
I served with some little dinner rolls to finish it off! Yum!
Meal Thoughts
Mine-Flavor was good, I think the fresh herbs would have been better but if I had fresh ones I would have only used 1/2 cup. The chicken was juicy and the potatoes/onions were cooked just right. I will cut up the carrots smaller because they were a little hard. I loved that I could adapt the recipe to cook in the microwave for 2 reasons. First its summer and its hot, the oven heats up the house. Second our oven is on the fritz and I didn't have to use it.
Husband-He likes anything with potatoes so we started off good. He had the same feeling with the carrots being a little hard but felt the flavor and seasonings was good. He also liked that it will be good for leftovers.
Overall thought was that we would have this again especially for the cost and it being a balanced meal. It was a kind of standard recipe that tasted good but didn't knock our socks off. Good start to new recipes though!
