Tag: root vegetables

Weekend Finds 2:16:14

It’s time for weekend finds! It has been a quite a week – the snow melted, I made a trip to the coast with friends where I baked some delicious food (more testing and then a recipe to come). And then… it was Valentine’s Day. We visited Expatriate after I got off of work, which I had been wanting to try for a long time! And now I’m baking for Carmelle’s birthday – details in find #1!

1. Ice cream cake

Ice Cream Cake on Weekend Finds // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Ice Cream Cake! Photo from Not Without Salt

I’m making ice cream cake for my roommate’s birthday tonight! Her birthday was on Friday, but today was the first day I’ve had to bake her something. We’re going to the Amos Lee concert tonight with her (her boyfriend got her tickets for Christmas, and I got Jonah tickets for his birthday), so we’ll eat it after listening to an evening of sweet crooning. It’s kind of a mixture of a bunch of recipes, including chocolate wafers from Smitten Kitchen and fudge sauce and assembly tips from Not Without Salt.

2. Interview with Rachel Cole

Rachel Cole Interview from The Kitchn on Weekend Finds // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Rachel Cole Interview from The Kitchn

I’ve never heard of Rachel Cole before, but after reading this interview with her on The Kitchn, I am loving what she has to say about food and eating. I particularly like what she says about having your compass needle point towards pleasure, fear of food, and the importance of fresh food.

3. Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix

Homemade Cocoa Mix from Food 52 on Weekend Finds // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Homemade Cocoa Mix from Food 52

I love hot cocoa, and I love the convenience of hot cocoa packets, but I don’t love that I don’t always know what the ingredients listed on the packets are. I am really into making this homemade cocoa mix, especially to go with the vanilla marshmallows I got for Christmas!

4. Miso Roasted Vegetables

Miso Roasted Vegetables from Food 52 on Weekend Finds // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
Miso Roasted Vegetables from Food 52

More, I say, more! Remember when I told you about those miso and harissa roasted vegetables? And how amazing they are? This seems like another great recipe to try, and I love the addition of the maple syrup and rice vinegar.

5. DIY Puff Pastry

DIY Puff Pastry from Food 52 on Weekend Finds // Serious Crust by Annie Fassler
DIY Puff Pastry from Food 52

Ok, so making your own puff pastry takes a lot of time, many hours of rolling and chilling and rolling and chilling, but wouldn’t it be cool to make it yourself instead of buying it at the store in the freezer aisle?! I don’t know when exactly I’m going to try this puff pastry recipe, but I’m going to try it, darn it!

Whole Roasted Chicken with Veggies

Whole Roasted Chicken with Veggies
Whole Roasted Chicken with Veggies

Whole Roasted Chicken with Veggies

You may have noticed that roasted chicken was one of our previous blog posts, but this time its different.  There’s a couple different veggies, but the biggest difference is that I roasted an entire chicken!  I was excited and a little scared to do this.  I’ve seen my mom take apart a chicken many times – but for the most part Annie and I buy chicken parts as we need them; thighs and breasts mostly.

I bought a whole free-range fryer chicken at the store, after learning that the only differences between the fryer and roaster birds are their size – in other words, you can roast a fryer or fry a roaster.  For the most part, I followed a recipe from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc cookbook, although I tragically left out onions.  You can use any combination of root vegetables you want – I used leeks, carrots and potatoes.  The best thing about the Ad Hoc cookbook is that it has some great How-To’s with pictures for cutting and trussing a chicken.  For this recipe, I learned how to truss (tie up) a chicken!  Here’s a video of Thomas Keller himself trussing one up, although he does it in a more fancy way in this video than shows in the book.

We ate this last night for dinner, its a great winter-time meal-in-a-dish, and it makes lots of leftovers!

Whole Roasted Chicken with Root Vegetables

Ingredients

1 small whole chicken (smaller the tastier, mine was 4 lbs.)
2 leeks
3-4 carrots
8 golf-ball sized potatoes
1/4 cup oil (canola, olive)
6 garlic gloves, crushed and peeled
6 thyme sprigs
Herb butter (we used leftover herb butter we had from the salmon)
salt and pepper

Instructions

Let the chicken sit out for 1-2 hours to come to room temperature.  Remove anything that’s still in the cavity (neck, heart, etc) and season the cavity with salt and pepper, 3 of the garlic gloves, and 3 thyme sprigs.  Cut out the wishbone for better carving later (good luck, I completely failed at this.  Look up some videos online).  Truss the chicken.

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Cut the green tops of the leeks and trim the root end.  Slice them in half lengthwise and wash.  Cut the potatoes in half.  Cut the carrots in half lengthwise and cut into smaller sticks.  Combine all the root vegetables in a large mixing bowl with the remaining 3 garlic gloves and remaining 3 thyme sprigs, plus the oil and season with salt + pepper.

Lay out the veggies in a large baking dish, making a nest in the middle in which to nestle the chicken.  Place the trussed chicken in the bed of veggies, and rub/pour the herb butter on top of the chicken.

Bake for 25 minutes, then turn the heat down to 400 and bake for another 45 minutes. The internal temp of the bird should reach 160 degrees when its done…I had to put it in a bit longer.