Dinner: One Pan Chicken & Veggies

My baking and foods section is now primarily dominated by Battle of Ingredients and Goodfood recaps and that is generally the moments in life I try new things. But, this past weekend was my husband’s birthday so since we’ve had a lot of expenses (and I did buy him more than usual Boxing Day hauls), I took it simple and took care of all the cooking this weekend. We did have some other experiences where we had to finish up leftovers from the week and went out with friends, but I ended up trying out three new recipes and this first one was a simple and efficient dinner meal: One Pan Chicken & Veggies.

One Pan Chicken & Veggies

Original recipe used as guidance via Pinterest: https://natashaskitchen.com/2015/11/23/one-pan-chicken-and-vegetables-recipe/

Ingredients

3 pieces boneless chicken thighs, sliced in thirds
1 tsp Piri Piri spices
1.5 lbs baby potatoes, halved
1 lb Nantes carrots, halved lengthwise
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt and pepper

How to make it

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. In a medium sized bowl, mix the chicken thighs with the piri piri spices. Cover and put in the fridge to marinate while preparing the vegetables.
3. Take a large cookie sheet and line with aluminum foil (or parchment paper and if you don’t mind the mix, you can just grease the pan with oil). Combine veggies in a medium (or large) bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper and toss. You can also toss in the lined cookie sheet with your hands, its your preference and saves on an extra bowl to wash. Pour the veggies into the cookie sheet, parting them in half so the middle third of the pan is reserved for the chicken.
4. Take the chicken from out of the fridge and place it down the center of the cookie sheet in the reserved place mentioned before.
5. Bake for 20 minutes, then take it out to turn the veggies and the chicken and put back for another 10 to 15 minutes. Make sure your chicken is cooked through, to be sure the internal temperature should reach 165F and juices run clear.

We definitely changed up the recipe from the original quite a bit. I needed a recipe really to figure out around what temperature to bake the whole pan at and for how long. Chicken is one of the meats you can’t eat raw so that was pretty important. This is a very simple meal and you can switch the spices around to what you like and use whatever veggies you like. In my opinion, potatoes and carrots are pretty tough to cook through so other veggies should turn it decent. We also make zucchini in a pan on the side as well since we needed to it those. It saves on dishes and is a simple preparation and cooking method which leaves time to take care of the dishes you worked with during the time (unless you have a dishwasher) and do other things during the wait time. I don’t think its necessary to turn the veggies and the chicken but I wanted to make sure that it would cook well on both sides. The chicken turns out very tender and not dry at all. I honestly improv-ed a lot of the dish so the spices and S&P quantity in the ingredient list might be a little off.

Have you tried One-Pan meals?
What do you like to cook?

YUL EAT Festival 2016

This past weekend in Montreal was not only Labour Day but also YUL EAT Festival. Luckily, I arrived back in Montreal on Saturday so I met up with my girl friends and crew on Labour Day for a nice outing.

Labour Day weekend was fabulous weather. It was sunny and hot. The end result was a huge sunburn since I was ridiculous silly and forgot to put on sunscreen. However, it is the first time I’ve been to the festival and I was really excited to check it out! We did a once over the whole place to get an idea of what food trucks and restaurants were there and their menu.  In the first round, we also had lots of samples from grilled cheese sandwich to sorbet to yogurt to hummus and sparkling water and there was even red wine to taste for free. Some stalls gave our samples and it was really cool.

The menus there were also pretty fantastic. I ended up sharing the food with one of girl friends. It is the way to go in order to try more food.

The first place we tried was Piri Piri. It is a Portuguese restaurant and we got the Grilled Chicken Sandwich.

While we got that, our friends got this Salmon Tartare from another restaurant. I think it was Le Pois Penche which I actually did a restaurant post before for MTL a Table two yeara ago. You can find it HERE.

After that, the heat was murderous and we skipped ahead to dessert with a 100% natural popsicle from a lady on a bicycle pulling her icebox. Her company is called Pops Art. We got the mango-strawberry flavour and it was delicious and refreshing but there are many other flavors as well.

The flavors on the cars read one with another strawberry combo, I think its banana. And theres one with lime and another with honeydew melon.

This was our little refresher while waiting for Taverne Gaspar’s Ribs-Dog to be ready.

Look at that little deliciousness. It was good for sure. I opted out of the cheese on top because of dairy allergies as usual. Its a cool idea. I love ribs so it worked well for my taste.

I feel like the rest of my friends got some food that I didn’t take pictures of. Heat makes me lazy and tired. We eventually sat down by the waterfront near the clock tower and a cute little event called the Waiter Race started.

Three restaurants participated in this relay race of sorts. Each waiter in the team had to run through certain obstacles like up a short flight of stairs and then hopscoth and dig through through a cup of objects and pull out the penny.

After this event, we found a Le Lemon booth which was pretty much pure unsweetened lemonade.

After that, my friend got a dessert after a short walk. Its a lemon coconut tart.

We ended up taking a walk around Old Montreal afterwards: Bonsecours Market, St. Paul Street and eventually ended up at a Starbucks to hydrate and rest before grabbing a dinner beforw heading home.

Before we end this post, here is a lovely shot of Old Montreal and the Clock Tower by the waterfront.

Delicious food, great company, lovely weather and a fantastic sunburn and a lot of quality time with aloe lotion was all worth it and awesome. Next year, I’m going to try to make it to the Rib Fest.

Don’t fret though! I have a few events and festivals I plan on checking out before the end of the year: food and wine!!