Recipe Week! Day 3, "Fried" Chicken

So today is day 3 of recipe week, where I try to give you more easy recipes you can make at home.  Plus, you get a peek into dinners with the Hubby and me.  So far this week, I've made Gazpacho, as well as Orzo with Crazins and Pine Nuts.

But tonight, I am going to feature one dish, in a series of three meals. In past posts I have talked about Robin Miller, and how her recipe plans really helped me learn how to prepare meals, and make dinnertime feel managable.

I've talked a lot about how the process works, but I've never actually shown you how it's done.  So today, I thought I would demonstrate.  And Recipe Week seemed like a fitting time.  Robin is all about preparing parts of meals in advance, so dinner prep only gets easier as the week goes on.

So today I made her recipe "Fried" Chicken with Chive Garlic Mashed Potatoes.  But while I was preparing this meal, I also did some advance preparation for Pasta with Roasted Vegetables, which I will serve tomorrow.

I am going to break all the cooking down into three parts.  Parts [1] and [2] are for this evening.  Part [3] is for tomorrow.

So for [Part 1] Fried Chicken and [Part 2] my Potatoes, here's what I started with:

I started by preparing my chicken, by cleaning it, then brushing it with dijon mustard.

Next, get a big zip-top bag to prepare the "fried" crust mixture, a combination of: quick oats, garlic powder, onion powder, mustard powder, paprika, dried oregano, dried thyme, as well as salt and pepper.  Give the bag a good shake to coat the chicken.

I like to coat the chicken one-at-a-time.  I feel it's a bit easier to get it properly coated in the dry ingredients.

Put all the chicken on a baking sheet, and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, while the chicken is cooking, start the potatoes [Part 2].  Dice into 1-inch cubes.  Put potatoes in a pot of water.  Bring water to a boil, then cook for about 10 minutes.  You will know the potatoes are done, when they are nice and tender.

So now that I am waiting on tonight's dinner (the chicken is baking and the potatoes are boiling) - I might as well begin preparing some of the pieces for dinner tomorrow.

I am serving Pasta with Roasted Vegetables - so while my oven is hot and ready to go - I might as well save a step tomorrow, and roast the vegetable now [Part 3].

The pasta calls for roasted eggplant and artichokes.

So I started those.  In a medium bowl, combine olive oil, dried thyme and dried rosemary.

Next, chop the artichokes and eggplant into 1-inch cubes, and toss in the olive oil mixture.  Place on a baking sheet (with sides).  [You'll notice I am also roasting corn for a third meal.]

These need to bake for 20 minutes in a 400-degree oven.  Luckily - mine is already set and hot!

Now, back to tonight's meal.  Finish the potatoes by mashing with a fork, adding milk, minced garlic and chopped chives [Part 2].  Easy peasy.

And by now, everything in the oven should be just about done.  The chicken and the veggies should all be ready at about the same time.

Save the veggies in a container for tomorrow [Part 3].

But the chicken is hot, and ready to eat!  I added a side of peas (frozen peas, microwaved for 1 minute on high) to my "Fried" Chicken and Garlic Chive Mashed Potatoes [Parts 1 and 2].

So, although it seemed like a lot of steps, each part is really easy.  It doesn't take a lot of skill, or general cooking "know how."  I mean - you can shake up chicken in a bag, right?

The whole she-bang only took me about 45 minutes total.  But most of the steps over-lapped with "down time", while other things were in the oven.

So stay tuned for the pasta outcome tomorrow.  And if you want to check out these recipes, you can find them all here.