Roast Chicken with Carrots, Parsnips and Potatoes

As you can see I am a little behind on posting since the New Year.  I'm not really sure how it is already January 12th, the last two weeks seem like a complete blur.  It's hard to believe my new nephew is already a month old today!

Earlier this week I made Roast Chicken with Carrots, Parsnips and Potoates for dinner. It was really quite delicious! I must thank my mom for getting everything together and putting it in the oven for me so we could eat at a reasonable hour. I made this with the intent of having the Chicken and Vegetables for dinner one night and making Chicken soup with the extra meat later in the week.

Ingredients
Whole Chicken
3 parsnips
3 large carrots
10 small red potatoes

In a Dutch oven, place sliced carrots, sliced parsnips and whole baby red potatoes.  Drizzle the vegetables with about one tablespoon of olive oil and season with a little salt and pepper.  Place the whole chicken on top of the vegetables. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and some fresh rosemary leaves.  I had my mom add two bone in chicken breasts so that I had extra meat to make chicken soup later in the week.  She tucked them in under the chicken so they didn't dry out.  My chicken was right about 3 lbs so if you have a larger chicken you don't need the extra meat.

Cook on 350 degrees until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 165 degrees.  It took about 2 hours for my chicken to be ready.

This meal was rated 4.5 asparagus spears

Day 3: Holiday Dinner Party

Last night I had a small gathering for my mom's birthday, Becky & Thierry, Megan & Pat and my parents all came over to celebrate.  We had a great time and I hope everyone enjoyed the food.

Menu

Appetizers
Assorted Cheeses and Crackers
Marinated Olives
Meatballs

Main Course
Arugula Orange Salad with Pomegranate White Wine Vinaigrette
Beef Tenderloin
Pan-Seared Scallops with Black Grapes and Almonds
Mashed Parsnips and Potatoes
Roasted Asparagus

Dessert
Chocolate Cake

My sister Becky brought the appetizers; the cheese tray consisted of Midnight Moon, 15 Year Aged Cheddar and Camembert.  The meatballs are a great appetizer and are super easy to make. You take a 12 oz. bottle of chili sauce and a 12 oz jar of grape jelly and heat them in a pan on low (stirring frequently) until combined.  You then take a package of frozen cocktail meatballs and add them to the mixture, coating them evenly.  You can either continue to cook then in the pot or move them to a crock pot to heat them through.



Arugula Orange Salad with Pomegranate
White Wine Vinaigrette

 I have made this salad for Christmas a couple of times and I absolutely love it.  Not only does it look great on a plate because of all the colors but it tastes great. The only thing that is rather time consuming is de-seeding the pomegranate, it's also quite messy.  In case you have never cut a pomegranate before this link has very helpful instructions with how to cut and de-seed a pomegranate.

The beef tenderloin was prepared the same way I have made it in the past; check out the post called Good Food, Great Friends from July for the details on how to make the marinade.  I have also made the Scallops before, although since Champagne grapes are not in season this time of year I had to go with the Black grapes. I didn't photograph them last night but you can check out my post called Pan-Seared Scallops with Champagne Grapes from August when I made them for the first time.  The only thing I was disappointed about with this recipe last night was the coloring of the sauce; it was a purple-gray.  I can only assume this was from the different type of grape I used.  The scallops still had great flavor.



Mashed Parsnip and Potato

 I found the mashed parsnip and potato recipe on the food network website; it's a Tyler Florence recipe.  Any recipe I have ever made of his has been delicious so I figured I couldn't go wrong with this, and I was right, it was delicious.  I ended up making this a couple hours ahead of time and then moved it to a casserole dish with a lid.  About 45 minutes before dinner I put it in the oven to heat it back through. It turned out great.  One note I would make is to be sure the parsnips are really tender when you start mashing as I had a couple pieces I had to pull out because they wouldn't mash. I didn't have a food mill so I handed mashed them and then used a hand mixer.

As far as the asparagus goes I placed them in a single layer on a baking sheet. I drizzled the asparagus with olive oil and seasoned them with salt and pepper.  Place in oven on 475 for about 15 minutes.

My sister, Megan, brought the cake...it was divine.  She got it a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting from Standard Market; we will definitely be getting some bakery items from there in the future.  I let Stella have a couple small licks of the frosting last night and she must have really like it because today she was pointing at the counter saying "pie" over and over again until I gave her a little lick. 

Happy Birthday Mom!  I hope you had a great night!



This meal was rated 3.5 asparagus spears



Parsnip and Potato Soup with Roasted Pear Puree

Last week I had intended on making Rachael Ray's Pear and Parsnip Bisque from her October Everyday with Rachael Ray magazine.  But I realized I had forgotten to pick up heavy cream at the store so my plan was foiled. But I did remember the parsnips that trip to the store so I needed to figure out something to do with them.  Rather than venturing to the store again I decided I would make something using ingredients I had on hand.  I also came across a recipe on epicurious last week when I was in search of recipes using bosc pears that sounded delicious, Mashed Potatoes and Turnips with Roasted Pear Puree. Since I didn't have the complete ingredients to make each of these spearately, I came up with my own recipe which was inspired by both of these recipes.

Ingredients
1lb parsnips, peeled and cubed
5 medium sized yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cubed
3.5 cups of chicken broth
2 shallots, chopped
1/4 cup soy creamer

In a Dutch oven I heated 1 tablespoon of olive oil and unsalted butter and then added the shallots. Cook the shallots until they soften up a bit.  Add the parsnips and potatoes, season with salt and pepper. Add the chicken broth.  Cook until the potatoes and parsnip soften up, they should be able to be cut with a fork.  Add 1/4 cup of soy creamer and begin to puree the soup with a hand blender   until it is smooth.  If you are not happy with the consistency you can always add a bit more broth to thin it out a little more.

For the roasted pear puree I followed the instructions from the second epicurious recipe but tapered the amounts back a bit.  The taste of the puree ended up being quite delicious, however I was a little disappointed in the coloring, I was hoping for something a little richer looking.  I think next time around I would roast the pears in a pyrex or corningware dish rather than on a cookie sheet with a baking mat.  I found that the juices just cooked to the pan so I wasn't able to use as much of the juice as I would have liked.

5 bosc pears, peeled, cored and cut into large chunks
2.5 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons honey

I roasted these for about an hour in total, 30 minutes on each side and then added them to the blender and pureed. I did add a splash of apple juice to the roasted pear puree when I was blending it.

To serve, add a couple ladles of the soup to a bowl and then swirl in a little of the roasted pear puree. Salt and pepper to taste. I also garnished with a little chopped green onion.