Roasted Chicken and Veggies

Hi lovelies!

I'm back in action, and have been missing cooking so much, I leaped at it as soon as I got home, with a veggie packed roast on Sunday for lunch. After consuming my body weight in pizza, pasta and bread while we were away, I was craving veggies like nobody's business! So on Sunday, we had the hubby's (!) cousin over for lunch, and I had yet to shower. So I tossed some veggies, herbs and chicken pieces in the oven, and an hour later, voila! We had a delicious lunch! YAY!

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Don't you just love non-involvement meals? I love that about oven-cooked meals, there's no stirring, adding, fiddling and fussing. Just put it all in, and wait (go have a shower, as I did!), and when you return, you have a lovely meal just waiting to be served - what bliss!

This may seem to be a very simple meal, and a recipe isn't really necessary, however, I know I've had trouble roasting things before (too much oil, too little heat, etc.), and I decided to share this for the uninitiated. This isn't foodie delight, but it is an enormously satisfying meal, without the guilt of a big, rich meaty meal. Unless you serve sticky toffee pudding after... which I may or may not have done...

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Roasted Chicken and Veggies

Ingredients:
1 pack chicken thighs & drummers (or whatever pieces you like)
1 pack roasting veggies or some peeled and roughly chopped butternut, bell peppers, red onion, baby marrows, baby carrots, broccoli, etc. (forgive me, it was just a day after we got home, and chop, chop, chop sounded like hell)
1 tsp Kara's Greek Herbs
1 tsp dried parsley
Splash of white wine (I had some slightly sweet wine in the fridge - Delheim Spatzendreck)
Splash of white balsamic with thyme
Sprinkle of olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste.

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Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. Heat a heavy bottomed pan on the stove, with just a small spray of oil. Place chicken pieces in in batches, skin side down, to brown, turning to brown both sides. Don't turn the chicken too often, what you want is that browned taste and to seal the chicken. Remove to plate, and repeat until all chicken is browned on all sides.
3. Spray an oven dish with oil (Spray & Cook is what I use), and put the veggies in. Sprinkle the herbs over the veggies, and splash some of the wine and balsamic in. You don't need a lot, just a bit to help the food not to dry out.
4. Sprinkle some olive oil over the veggies, and toss it all about to coat everything in all the delicious herbs and liquids.
5. Place the browned chicken pieces in among the veggies, with the skin side up.
6. Pop into the oven, and take out to stir the veggies every 20 minutes or so. At the first stir, turn the chicken pieces over and cook that way for a while, and 20 minutes before the end, turn them back over.
7. Remove from the oven when you pierce the fattest part of the chicken pieces (so for me, it was the thighs), and the juice runs clear. The veggies should be lovely and roasted by this stage anyway.

Serve with rice, mashed or roasted potatoes, or baby potatoes in garlic and butter, as I did. This flavourful veggie-fest will warm your heart, and give you lots of your necessary 5-a-day!

Enjoy!

PS. I never bought that camera I promised I would, and our point n shoot is full of holiday snaps. Soon, my lovelies, soon! In the interim, other peoples photos will need to do - much lovelier than that I can come up with!