Baked Chicken with Garlic Coated Potatoes and Beet Salad

This year I am all about the beets at the green market. For some reason I just can't get enough of them, and they have moved from being a small player in a green beans and radish saute to the main attraction, as you can see above. Beets, red onions and celery marinated in a blood orange vinaigrette make a beautiful salad. The only thing that would make it better would be some toasted walnuts scattered across the top.

New potatoes made their first appearance this week so I grabbed a box each of the smallest pinks and purples I could find. A quick stop at the Apple Market for a quartered chicken and I had the makings of a mighty fine meal.

Earlier this week there was no knitting class, so one of my students graciously hosted a knit-night at her house. I'm sad to report that there was no knitting done, but it was a fun night nonetheless. I made an olive-walnut dip from a recipe I got from Lynda (yes Lynda, I finally made it!) that used fresh thyme, oregano and sage, so I had leftovers of all three and I wanted to find uses for them. I've actually been using a lot of thyme lately so I had plenty of ideas, but I rarely have sage and oregano on hand.
The most obvious use for all three was the chicken. I had already started using thyme on it, which is heavenly with dried marjoram. This time I did not use the marjoram; instead I used equal parts of the thyme, sage and oregano. I also peeled and dropped about 15 whole cloves of garlic around the chicken, and then mashed them and added them to the potatoes with Sonoma Garlic and Basil Dipping Oil. They keep coming up with more flavors, and like a sucker I keep buying them. (Have I mentioned that I have also been eating a lot of corn on the cob? It's scrumptious with the lemon-infused oil.)

The beet salad is still a work in progress. I hope they stay in season long enough for me to perfect it.

I have, however, managed to perfect a method for baked chicken that comes out tender, moist, and mighty tasty every time (or at least the three times I have made it within the past couple of months).

Home Cookin Chapter: My Recipes

BAKED CHICKEN WITH HERBS

1 large onion, cut into eight wedges
1 chicken, cut into 8 pieces
Salt and pepper to taste
fresh or dried thyme, dried marjoram, or any other fresh or dried herbs you have on hand
1 tsp garlic powder
olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Arrange onion pieces in 9 x 13" baking dish. Place chicken, skin side up, on top of the onions. Rub with olive oil, then season with salt, pepper and garlic powder, then sprinkle the thyme, marjoram, and any other herbs you wish to use on top.

Cover with tin foil and bake for one to one-and-a-half hours, removing foil for last half hour.

Let sit for 15 minutes before serving.

Servings: 4

Exported from Home Cookin 5.6 (www.mountain-software.com)