It was a laid-back Sunday. My girlfriend (The Spoon) was catching up on some work at the office, and I (The Dish) had been planning dinner and also cleaning up the apartment. I needed a recipe for dinner that would give us some sustenance, not make the Spoon have a huge allergic reaction, and wouldn’t take too much effort. I decided on a couple dishes that could be considered modern twists on classic TV dinners. (We watched the season finale to Torchwood tonight!)
I made skillet chicken with sweet potatoes and roasted broccoli. (It cost under 8 dollars to make, and that’s with high food prices here on the West Coast!)
The chicken recipe is from Canadian Living magazine, and it’s a one-pot dish. The directions were easy to follow, and the dish, easy to make. I liked that there wasn’t a lot of prep work *and* that the vegetable prep work could be accomplished while the chicken was cooking. Bonus: the apartment smelled like heaven cooking this dish.
Here are the ingredients (and see the full recipe here):
8 bone-in skinless chicken thighs 1/2 tsp (2 mL) salt 1/2 tsp (2 mL) pepper 2 tsp (10 mL) canola oil 2 onions, sliced 2 garlic cloves, minced 1/2 tsp (2 mL) dried thyme 1 tbsp (15 mL) all-purpose flour 1 cup (250 mL) apple cider or apple juice 2 sweet potatoes 1 tbsp (15 mL) chopped fresh parsley
As you see above, the original chicken recipe does contain a tbsp flour for thickening the sauce. Tonight I relied on a wee dab of corn starch to thicken the sauce (I have no wheat flour around), but I’m on the lookout for other thickeners that are wheat *and* corn free. Next time I’m going to try potato starch so that the dish contains no trace of allergens. (Before I came along The Spoon was ALWAYS eating foods she was allergic to, despite knowing that she shouldn’t. It’s my goal to support her in better eating habits.) I also used boneless and skinless thighs.
Since broccoli was on sale at the store, I paired the chicken recipe with roasted broccoli, a simple recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. The recipe calls to season the broccoli with salt, pepper, and SUGAR! Well, that just sounded delish, and it was! The broccoli only took a few minutes for prep work so there was plenty of time to start the broccoli and get it in the oven while the chicken and sweet potatoes were simmering. I even had some time to clean up my kitchen and to sit down to work on my blog entry!
Here are the ingredients (and go here for the instructions):
1 large head broccoli (about 1 3/4 pounds) 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1/2teaspoon table salt 1/2teaspoon sugar Ground black pepper Lemon wedges for serving
Rating of dishes
The Spoon said, ”The broccoli is good. It’s crispier than if you steam it.” And ”this chicken dish would be great for dinner on an brisk evening in September.” [Errr. Currently, we are having a September heat wave.]
I really like the sweet potato (and I used sweet potato NOT a yam), but The Spoon wasn’t a fan of the sweet potato, although she did like the onions and the chicken and the yummy light sauce that everything melded in. We both preferred the roasted broccoli to steamed broccoli. I’m thinking that this roasting trick may come in handy for faux-chinese food later on.
Chicken and sweet potato rating: 3.5 spoons (I gave it 4, she gave it 3)
Broccoli rating: 4.5 spoons (from each of us)
Torchwood season rating: I liked the fact that the season had a compelling focus on the notion of life and death. The line between life and death was explicitly represented as dynamic and determined by the state. However, as The Spoon noted to me, the writing wasn’t consistent, some parts were just all “oh, get it over with already,” and the season had far less alien-content than one would like from a Doctor Who spin-off. By the way, when did Jack become gay? He was queer in previous seasons. Was this a change made to suit an American-audience?