I’m back. I’m sorry to leave you in the middle of the meal planning but life got in the way—that pesky life. So where was I? Meal Planning Day Four was leftovers. Technically, I was in Pasadena having fancy pizza with Bethany and friends but Toby was at home having leftovers for me.
Meal Planning Day Five was Roman-Style Chicken (ala Giada) with oven-baked potatoes and onions. I love Everyday Italian with Giada. I watched her show once and thought, I could do that. So I did. It’s never happened again. But then, I don’t get much time to watch television anymore.
Below is my trailer-park version of her fabulous recipes.
I make the potatoes first because they take longer to cook. This time I decided to make sweet potatoes with my potatoes. Are they yams or sweet potatoes? I always get them mixed up. They call them one thing in the store, another on the internet. I think we should just call them “swams.” You know which ones I mean. They are reddish purple on the outside and orange on the inside. They cook up to be nice and sweet and not dry or mealy like the white ones.
Ingredients:
Directions:
- Blanch your little cippolini onions in boiling water for one minute. Let them cool under cold running water, then peel and cut the ends off.
- Peel and chop up the swams and potatoes into bite size pieces. Sometimes I cut them up to look like french fries, sometimes I don’t. You just want them thin enough to cook evenly. I probably loaded up my pan too much in the photo above.
- Toss swams and potatoes and onions in a bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper so that all pieces are coated with oil.
- Spread evenly on a tinfoil-lined cookie sheet. I spray the tinfoil with cooking spray because even though these puppies are dripping with olive oil, they still stick sometimes! What is up with that?!!
- Bake at 400 F for 45 minutes or until cooked through.
- Empty into a serving dish and you’re done!
I like cooking cippolini onions because it gives me an excuse to use this neato strainer when I blanch them. I got it cheap from the Chinese market. Sometimes I can’t find little cippolini onions. I’ve tried regular boiled onions and they were a pain. It’s really not that big of a deal if you leave them out.
Onward with the Roman-Style Chicken!
Ingredients:
Directions:
- Season chicken with pepper and salt.
- Brown chicken lightly on both sides in olive oil in a pan. Remove and set aside.
- In the same pan add peppers and bacon. Cook until bacon is crispy (ish) and peppers are browned.
- Add garlic and cook for 1 minute.
- Add tomatoes (with juice), wine and herbs.
- Return chicken to pan. Add stock and bring mixture to a boil.
- Reduce heat and simmer until chicken is done. About 20-30 minutes.
Her recipe says to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan but I’ve never had that… I may be missing something in this part of the recipe but it still tastes good.
Serve with potatoes and a green salad and enjoy!
Upcoming: Day six is leftovers again and day seven is lasagna but I’m taking a rain check on the lasagna because I made a quick trip out to the sticks instead. Next week perhaps!