Kitch n Therapy

I love Jamie Oliver’s food revolution!  This is a dish that can be thrown together in minutes, and lovely when served.  It gets my 2017 award for the best new recipe!

Ingredients

My personal favorite recipe from 2017

Courtesy of Genius Recipes from Food52.

This summery chicken-tomato-mélange’s miraculous qualities have all the hallmarks of a braise—the fall-apart tenderness and well-developed, concentrated sauce—without having to sear anything first or spatter your stovetop or do much at all. You truly can throw everything into the pot in the time it takes the oven to heat, and the simplicity of the technique—snuggle in pan, roast—is fairly un-stumpable, and will expand and contract to fit any size vessel you have. Recipe adapted slightly from Jamie Oliver.

Serves 4

• 4 higher-welfare chicken leg quarters
• Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 1 big bunch fresh basil, leaves picked, stalks finely chopped
• 2 big handfuls red and yellow cherry tomatoes and ripe plum or beefsteak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes halved, plum tomatoes quartered
• 1 whole bulb garlic, broken into cloves
• 1 fresh red chile, finely chopped, or a big pinch of dried chile flakes
• Olive oil
• One 14.5-ounce/410 g can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed (optional)
• 2 handfuls new potatoes, scrubbed (optional)

1. Heat your oven to 350°F (180°C). Season your chicken pieces all over with salt and pepper and put them into a snug-fitting pan in one layer, skin side up. Throw in all the basil leaves and stalks, then chuck in your tomatoes. Scatter the garlic cloves into the pan with the chopped chile and drizzle over some olive oil. Mix around a bit, pushing the tomatoes underneath. Place in the oven, uncovered, for 1 1/2 hours, turning any of the exposed tomatoes halfway through, until the chicken skin is crisp and the meat is falling off the bone. If after an hour or so the skin isn’t crisping to your liking, you can turn up the heat and switch to convection, or just blast it under the broiler for a bit at the end, rotating the pan occasionally and watching closely, until you get the skin as brown as you like. Just don’t let the sauce simmer too vigorously or the meat might toughen up.
2. If you fancy, you can add some drained cannelini beans or some sliced new potatoes to the pan along with the chicken. Or you can serve the chicken with some simple mashed potato. Squeeze the garlic out of the skins before serving. You could even make it part of a pasta dish—remove the chicken meat from the bone and shred it, then toss into a bowl of linguini or spaghetti and serve at once.

This is one of the easiest methods for preparing a delicious Risotto.  Trust the directions because this is a Ina Garten method, and she is the guru of perfect recipes!

Serves 4 to 6 depending on size of servings

Total time for preparation is 1 hour, including cooking time.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups Arborio Rice

5 cups of simmering chicken stock, divided (watch the salt content of store bought stock)

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup dry white wine

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 cup frozen peas

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Place the rice and 4 cups of chicken stock in a dutch oven, such as Le Creuset.  Cover and bake for 45 minutes, until most of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is al dente.  Remove from the oven, add remaining cup of stock, the Parmesan, wine, butter, salt, and pepper, and stir vigorously for 2 – 4 minutes, until the rice is thick and creamy.  Add the peas and stir until heated through.  Serve hot.