Rachel Ray is one of my favorite food TV personalities. I used to DVR 30-Minute Meals to make sure I could watch them when I hit up the elliptical for some cardio. I love the concept! I love her stories! But I don’t normally like her food. Womp, womp. For the most part, we found her dishes to be bland or rather boring.
I’ve given up on most of her dishes, but one keeps plaguing me. It’s a meatless, stuffed poblano meal that tastes amazing, but always burns us out. In my quest to add more meatless meals to our rotation, I decided to resurrect that oldie, which sent me to Rachel’s page on the Food Network site. Since I was already there, I perused the top rated dishes and this one piqued my interest.
I’m a huge fan of roast chicken because of the simplicity factor, but it’s reserved for weekends because of the lengthy roasting time. Rachel’s Garlic Roast Chicken offered a speedy alternative and the potential for weeknight roast chicken.
I’m not going to lie. I was skeptical. I didn’t want to assume the worst, but Rachel had failed me before. This time, however, she hit it out of the park. The chicken cooked perfectly and stayed moist. The rosemary, lemon and garlic were nice additions, but it would be very easy to play with the seasonings and serve this many different ways. The prep is so simple, that it leaves plenty of time to give a little love to some side dishes.
Maybe Rachel deserves another shot in my kitchen.
Quick Roast Chicken
Slightly modified from Rachel Ray
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into large chunks
4 garlic cloves
1 lemon
1 ½ Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
½ cup dry white wine
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut chicken breasts into large chunks and place in a 9×13 baking dish. Mince garlic and sprinkle over chicken. Zest lemon over chicken and add olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper. Toss the chicken to coat it well. Roast for 20 minutes.
Juice lemon and combine with white wine. Add to the chicken and stir. Return the chicken to the oven and turn the oven off. Let stand for 5 minutes. Divide the chicken among two shallow dishes and spoon pan juices over the chicken.
5 comments