recipe time

Today I went and hung drywall while it stormed mightily outside. L has to go deliver newspapers tonight, so I made her a good dinner (breakfast?) from a recipe I have been wanting to try all week. What you see above is roast chicken with brown rice, oven roasted beets and shallots topped with walnuts and goat cheese, all served on a bed of baby spinach. And complicated as it sounds, it wasn't that bad to put together.

Recipe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

1 tiny chicken (mine was 4 pounds)
handful of whole garlic cloves, peeled
2 tablespoons of mayonnaise
ground sage.

rinse the chicken and pat dry. dust the garlic cloves with the sage and put in the bird's cavity. don't stitch shut - just fold the skin flap back over the opening to keep them from escaping.
Mix the mayo with more of the sage (a half teaspoon, maybe?) and salt and pepper if desired. I also usually add a tiny bit of summer savory, too. Paint it on the bird, tuck his wings so they don't burn and put him in the oven. Turn the heat back to 325.

Immediately get to work on the beets:

Peel and dice three large-ish beets (baseball sized). Toss with olive oil, and a little salt and pepper and put in a shallow baking pan. I used my regular brownie pan. I also sliced up a half-dozen shallots that I had around that were looking like they wouldn't last much longer before they went weird. I tossed them with the beets and stuck them in the oven next to the chicken. They need to roast for nearly an hour or until they are fork tender.

While that's doing its thing in the oven, prepare the brown rice according to the directions on the bag. Ours said to boil the water then add the rice, cover and simmer for 45 minutes.

When all of that is done cooking, take the bird and the beets out of the oven to rest for a few minutes. Remove the rice from the heat so it doesn't burn. Line your plates with a layer of baby spinach leaves. Scoop the beets on the spinach, and top with walnuts and little bits of goat cheese.
Place the rice on the spinach as well, and then the chicken. Because the bird was so tiny, I gave us each a full breast and wing portion. Thigh quarters make better leftovers anyway.

Oh, I put some of the garlic cloves on the plate, but for garnish only. They were still more firm than I wanted to bite into. Wow. But the chicken tasted yummy and was super moist.

That's it. Nothing fancy. Nothing weird. Hardly any spices. But what an elegant meal! (And I saved the beet greens to have tomorrow with my lunch leftovers!