Cooking: Chicken With Vegetables

I'm not an intuitive cook, so I use recipes religiously. This is why I sometimes amaze myself by coming up with great meals "all on my own."

On Sundays, I try and push the boat out and try new things. Yesterday, I tried "Braised Chicken With Roasted Vegetables," a recipe I found in the NYTimes Magazine. It didn't work out too well. It took forever to make and tasted a lot like stewed chicken with a lot of stewed vegetables. In short: chicken stew. Not bad, but after all the fancy steps I had to take, not what I was hoping for.

If I had to do it over again: I'd add some salt and pepper to the veggies. Doing so just on the chicken pieces is not enough. In the final hour, I'd add some potatoes. I wouldn't put broth half-way up the chicken thigh pieces—I'd put it just up TO the chicken thigh pieces. Otherwise, too much broth—it's good broth, but everything else (chicken, veggies) tastes like broth too.

Two New Things

By doing this recipe, though, I did quarter my own chicken for the first time. Not as hard as I thought it would be, and not as gross as I thought it would be. But I sure did get to know that chicken.

I also used my new Le Cruset pot for this recipe. Nice.