2-22-11 Another Easy Dinner

Tonight I prepared a beautiful dinner with little effort, and it was pleasing for everyone who ate it. I made tomato basil chicken, balsamic roasted veggies, and rice.
The recipe for the tomato basil chicken comes from Susie Fishbein's cookbook Kosher by Design Short on Time. If you do not own this book, I highly recommend buying it right now! I have made over half of the recipes in it, and love the results everytime.  Every recipe has a picture, and they are all pretty easy recipes.
Here is the recipe:

Tomato Basil Chicken- this is my adaptation, serves 4
1 chicken, cut up in 8 pieces
1 large beefsteak tomato, or 2 roma tomatoes, chopped into large chunks
1/2 C. Wish-Bone Italian dressing, regular or robust
1/4 C. fresh basil leaves
2 cloves garlic
3 sun dried tomatoes, from a jar packed in oil

Preheat oven to 350 F.***if you are marinating (see below), skip this step

 Place chicken in a single layer skin side up into a baking dish, set aside. (this step can be done up to a day in advance, marinating the chicken this way will be very tasty, just pull out of fridge, and place into oven)

Place the tomato chunks, wishbone dressing, basil, garlic, and sun dried tomatoes in a food processor, and pulse to puree and emulsify. Can also use a hand immersion blender but be prepared to work extra hard.

Pour tomato puree over chicken evenly.
***optional, after pouring dressing over chicken, cover with plastic wrap and marinate in fridge up to 24 hours, marinating the chicken this way will be very tasty, just pull out of fridge, and place into preheated oven when ready to cook)

Bake uncovered 1 hour and 30 minutes or until chicken is fully cooked and no longer pink. Meat thermometer should read 180 F, when inserted into the thickest part of the thigh.

Here is the recipe for the
Balsamic Roasted Veggies:
2 T. balsamic vinegar
1 t. dijon mustard
1/4 C. olive oil
1/2 t. dried basil
1/4 t. dried thyme
1 yellow squash, sliced in 1/4 slices
1 zucchini, sliced in 1/4 inch slices
1 bunch broccoli, cut into florets
1 handful baby carrots
kosher salt

Preheat oven to 450 F. In a small bowl mix together balsamic, dijon, olive, basil, and  thyme. Place veggies on baking sheet, and toss with balsamic mixture. Sprinkle lightly with kosher salt, and fresh cracked black pepper.
Roast for 30 minutes, shaking the pan around every so often to make sure one area is not getting overly burnt.

The rice I made was from a Near East box. I don't use this very often, but my son loved it when I made it last Shabbat, so I decided to make it again.

Overall, my dinner was a success! Yay!

Pin It