Fall Roasted Vegetable Medley

To take a break from my Portland re-caps (and there are more to come), I wanted to share a dish that I made on Monday night.  As I mentioned last week, the folks at Le Creuset very generously gifted me with my very first French oven.  I didn't get a chance to use it before I left for Portland so utilizing it was at the top of my priority list when I returned home.

On Monday morning, I took out two boneless chicken breasts out of the freezer and let it thaw in the fridge during the day.  I had a lot of great vegetables in the fridge, freezer and pantry that I wanted to utilize and decided to make a simple yet seasonal roasted vegetable medley to go along with my chicken.  After a long workout at the gym that evening, I was excited to get to my hands dirty in the kitchen.  Since Bret wouldn't be home until 8:30 PM, this would give me plenty of time to slowly prepare dinner and utilize my French oven.

First, I took out some Brussels sprouts out of the freezer.  I had purchased them last week at the farmers' market and put them in the freezer for future use.  I removed the outer leaves, gave the sprouts a quick rinse and let them thaw out while I prepared the rest of the ingredients.

I had the last of my sample dehydrated mushrooms (lobster and black trumpet mushrooms) in the pantry from Marx Foods and I decided to rehydrate them with a cup of hot chicken stock.  I put a dishtowel over the bowl and also set that aside.

I then halved and sliced one small zucchini that had been sitting in my fridge.

I also halved and sliced two medium white onions that I purchased from the farmers' market that day during lunch.  I had about six cloves of garlic left from a garlic bulb in the fridge and I also roughly chopped those up.

When I was done preparing my vegetables, I sprayed the French oven with cooking spray and also added a little olive oil to the bottom of the pot.  I warmed the pot up over the stove at medium heat while I got to work on my proteins.  I had four thick slices of smoked bacon in the fridge and I roughly chopped the bacon up.

I also trimmed and seasoned my now thawed chicken breasts with salt, pepper, herbs de Provence and cayenne.  

After all of this preparation, I was finally ready to get cooking!  I preheated the oven to 300 degrees while I dropped the chopped bacon in the pan and let the bacon slowly crisp up.

I kept an eye on the bacon and turned the pieces from time to time.  I wanted the bacon to start to crisp up but not cook all the way through.  When the bacon was ready, I removed it from the pan with a slotted spoon and set the bacon aside in a bowl.

Using the fat from the bacon along with the olive oil that I had previously added, I put my chicken breasts in the pan.  I didn't want to actually cook the chicken on the stove top but just give it a nice sear.  When the chicken was seared on one side, I turned it over and also added the chopped onions and garlic to the pan.  In addition to cooking the vegetables down a bit, I want to meld the onion and garlic flavor with the chicken breasts.  After the chicken breasts had been seared on all sides, I took them out of the pan and set it aside.

I returned my attention back to the onions and garlic in the French oven.  I seasoned the vegetables with salt, pepper, herbs de Provence and a healthy tablespoon of cayenne.  While I love roasted vegetables, I often find them to be bland so I like to add a little kick to it when I can.

I slowly added the zucchini, Brussels sprouts and back to the pan while repeatedly mixing the vegetables up.

I finally added the rehydrated mushrooms to the pan with the remaining chicken stock and gave everything a good stir.

I added the chicken breasts back into the pan and also added a small can of chopped tomatoes to add some color, sweetness and moisture to the dish.

I put the lid on the French oven and put it in the oven for thirty minutes.  After thirty minutes, I turned the chicken breasts over, covered it again and cooked it for another twenty minutes.  I checked the temperature of the chicken breasts and they were just a few degrees short of 170 degrees.  I turned the temperature of the oven up to 350 and put the pot back in the oven without the lid for another eight minutes.  I wasn't worried about overcooking the chicken, which would result in a very dry chicken, because there was a lot of moisture in my roasted vegetables.

Since the chicken breasts were thick, Bret and I decided to just split one.  We piled our plate full of the roasted vegetables, which turned into an almost ratatouille texture (in a really good way).  The chicken breast had a nice sear on the outside yet was still so moist.  But the vegetables, of course, stole the show!  The resulting sauce from the vegetables had such a sweet and smoky flavor yet had just a little bit of spice from the cayenne.  We couldn't help but feel really healthy while eating these hearty roasted vegetables.

Bret and I split the other chicken breast for lunch and of course took lots of vegetables too.  We ended up having a lot more sauce and vegetables leftover so we found a way to utilize them for dinner the next night by pouring it over spicy seasoned rice mixed with smoked turkey sausage.

My first attempt at cooking with my new Le Creuset French oven was definitely a success.  I'm thinking that my next attempt may be jambalaya...but I'd love to hear some of your recipes if you'd like to share!


Do you own a Dutch oven?  What do you like to cook with it?


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Beet Green and Bacon Pizza

After working from home most of last week while battling a nasty cold, I ended up working pretty late on Friday to catch up and to clear some things off my desk before the long holiday weekend.  I had to pick up my best friend Samantha at South Station later in the evening and I wanted to make something quick and easy using the beet greens that I had in my fridge.  After some discussion with Bret, we settled on making a beet green pizza for dinner because we could use utilize a lot of leftover ingredients in our fridge and pantry.

The only thing that we needed was some pizza dough so I stopped by Whole Foods on my way home from work to pick up some up.  

Usually we like to plan ahead for pizza nights and pick some whole-wheat pizza dough from Flour but this pizza dough was just fine and would work in a pinch.  I generously dusted a cutting board with cornmeal flour and let the pizza dough sit out to bring it to room temperature while we got to work on the rest of the ingredients.

First, I rinsed and dried a handful of beet greens.  The first time that I cooked with beet greens, I found that they were a little wilted by the time I got to work on them.  So I have to thank my friend Robin for giving me the helpful hint to immediately cut off the beet greens when you purchase the beets and store the greens in a tight storage bag.  After a week in the fridge, the beet greens were still crisp and fresh.  I de-stemmed the leaves and got to work coarsely chopping up the beet greens.

Meanwhile Bret got to work slicing up a few strips of bacon.  When he was done slicing the bacon, he fried the pieces in a skillet.  When the chopped bacon was crispy, he placed them on a paper towel lined plate to let them cool and for the paper towel to soak up some of the bacon grease.

Using the remaining bacon fat, Bret sauteed up the chopped beet greens, along with four cloves of minced garlic.  When this was cooked down, we placed the bowl in the fridge to help cool the beet green and garlic mixture down.

Bret then got to work on the pizza dough.  We finally got to use our Chinese wooden rolling stick that we purchased at the suggestion of Chef Matt Barros from Myers & Chang.  This made all the difference as it helped us roll out a perfect pizza circle, which we hadn't be able to accomplish with a normal rolling pin.  While Bret worked on the pizza dough, I shredded about a quarter of a block of leftover Cabot's Seriously Sharp Cheddar Cheese. 

Then we were onto the fun part - putting together the pizza!  First we placed the tomato sauce on the pizza.  We decided to use a bottle of Bertolli Marinara with Burgundy Wine.  

I gently spooned some onto the pizza dough.

Next up was a layer of cheese, which was a combination of the Seriously Sharp cheddar and pre-shredded mild yellow cheddar cheese that we also had leftover in our fridge.

Then we added the sauteed beet green and garlic mixture and some more of the two cheeses.  

Finally we topped the pizza with the chopped bacon and the remaining shredded cheese.

We placed the pizza in the oven at 400 degrees for about fifteen minutes.  I wasn't familiar with this dough so I kept checking it intermittently to make sure that the pizza was cooking properly.  I didn't want under-cooked pizza dough but I also didn't want it to burn!

While the pizza was cooking, I put together a very simple side salad.  I had generously received a huge shipment that day of Olivia's Organics salads to try out and I couldn't wait to break into the Asian Salad Mix.

The Asian Salad contains a blend of spinach, red chard, mizuna, frisee, tango, and arugula.  I topped it with sliced cucumbers and gorgeous grape tomatoes.

By the time I was done prepping the salad and setting the table, the pizza was ready and it looked gorgeous!  I had to remind myself to stay patient while I let it to cool before slicing it up.

The pizza had some really fantastic flavors from the really lovely marinara sauce to the salty bacon and the garlicky beet greens.  Of course, I also loved the combination of textures from the gooey mixed cheddar cheese to the crispy bacon and the chewy pizza crust.  

And it was nice to have a simple salad to accompany the pizza, which was perfect for a hot Friday evening.

The beet green and bacon pizza was definitely the most interesting pizza I've ever made.  I'm happy to continue using my farmers market purchases in different ways.

What ingredients do you like to use when making homemade pizza?