Sunday night, Chicken dinner.  They
just go together nicely.  A one pan dish that is easily assembled.  Baked for an hour or so, and dinner is served.
Great way to start the week off, or end your weekend.  We lost one of our cats yesterday, our 19 year old.  So today
among all the other things we had to do, we also went to adopt another cat.  Well we came home with two, Otis and
Suzie.  Right now the're up in our bedroom away from the rest of the house so they can acclamate to their new
surroundings. When we came home we were hungry and I had to think about dinner.  The idea of a one pan/pot
dish sounded good and I had bought a nice pack of natural chicken breasts on the bone yesterday.  There were
3 breasts in the pack.  I cut each breast into thirds, rinsed them with some salt and water, then patted them dry
with paper towels.(I seem to be doing that alot!).
Ok...now what?  This was purely a quick judgement call.  I had 10 yukon gold baby potatoes, baby carrots,
onions, and celery. Nice roasting/baking items for a chicken dish, but how to season them??  The first spice
jar I spotted was my ground coriander.  This is a great spice for those of you who have never used it.  It is
exotic yet is a background type of spice.  It's not the first taste that hits you, it's a warm almost citrusy flavor that
just helps with flavoring anything you use it on.  I then built on that flavor profile with 1 tsp. of fennel seeds and
3 small bay leaves.  Add to that 2 cloves of garlic, sliced, and 1 onion, diced, 1 cup of baby carrots, chopped,
and 1 cup of celery and celery leaves, diced small.  Rub 1 tsp. of ground coriander, 1 tsp. of kosher salt,
1/2 tsp. of black pepper, and the fennel seeds into the chicken.  Place all of the ingredients into a roasting pan and
pre-heat the oven to 375.  Drizzle 1/8 cup of olive oil over the ingredients in the pan.

  Sprinkle another tsp. of
salt over pan.  Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes.  Then remove the cover and bake for additional 40 min.
or until the skin has browned and crisped nicely and the vegetables and potatoes are done.  Let it rest for
a few minutes before serving.  This makes 4 nice servings, you can also add a like amount of dark meat
and double the rest of the recipe.  Just use a larger pan.  Serve with a salad and some good bread.



When your pan looks like this you are done.  The covered then open baking of this dish helps to create a
nice pan juice that is just screaming for a good piece of bread to be dunked into.  It also is a nice light
jus that you spoon over your serving portions.  So instead of reaching for the oregano, or thyme, or
paprika go to the store and start buying some different spices.  I would say fennel seed (a staple in
my kitchen) and coriander are a nice place to start and this dish will introduce you into a different
world of aromatics to spice up your meals with. 

  The carrots and onions caramelize, the potatoes crisp and
brown, the celery melts...and the chicken is moist and fragrant....