Sheet-Pan Supper: Balsamic Chicken with Baby Potatoes and Mushrooms

This recipe, we are told, is a quick one to put together and to cook. It is very similar to dishes I would make for dinner so I knew we would like this one.

I used bone-in chicken breasts for this recipe. The chicken is coated in oil, balsamic, salt, and pepper and then sprigs of the rosemary and thyme are tucked under each piece. Although the chicken looked perfectly roasted, I had trouble getting it thoroughly cooked at such a high temperature. That would need some tweaking.

The vegetables are a mixture of mushrooms, potatoes, and onions or shallots tossed with garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, oil, and balsamic. I was wondering how the mushrooms would do cooking at 450 degrees for close to an hour. I was tempted to add them in closer to the finish time…but so glad I did not and followed the recipe as stated. What came out of the oven was such an amazing tasting, caramelized mushroom I couldn’t believe it. Yes, the other veggies were delicious, but the mushrooms were transformed! We couldn’t get enough of them!

This dish smelled so good while it was cooking, I couldn’t wait to taste it. Honestly, we didn’t think the chicken picked up much flavor, but the vegetables certainly did. I think if I was to make this again it would be the vegetables I would repeat! 😃

Lavender-White Chocolate Pots de Crème

I feel like I should have added some purple food coloring to this because no one would know this is lavender flavored from the looks of it haha. Those yolks have a strong influence on the overall look!

My family and friends have loved all of these variations of the custard cups we have made and this one was no different…they loved it.

I really enjoyed using the lavender and steeping it in the cream and milk. It is one of my favorite scents and I could really smell it. I don’t think the flavor came through very strongly though in the actual custard…maybe that is a good thing but no one could really pinpoint a flavor, just saying they loved it.

I am so glad I bought these ramekins a while back…we have sure used them!

This one is a keeper!

Chickpea-Tahini Salad

I knew this one was going to be a stretch for us…not huge chickpea fans 😳. I made half a batch so we could participate…because you just never know.

I did like the flavor of the dressing…all of the herbs, seasoning, and spice really played well together. I told my husband I thought he would really like it…and once again he said it reminded him of the shrimp taco chipotle sauce haha. Can you sense a theme…that recipe is a favorite in our house haha.

My husband summed it up like this…visually not really appealing but he thought it was delicious! A friend of mine also had some and said she really like it and thought adding tomato and cucumber would be great. It seems to be if you like chick peas, this recipe would be customizable to what you enjoy.

Although we enjoyed the experience, I don’t think I would be making this one again. 😃

Carrément Chocolat, The Simple Loaf

A few observations/things I learned on this bake

• Although this is called a simple loaf, I would argue it is more than simple with it sugar-syrup soaking and homemade salted chocolate chunks…it may be easy but seems very gourmet
• Carrément is when something is completely, absolutely itself
• Fleur de Sel is a sea salt from the marshes in Guérande France, easily found at the store and truly elevates whatever it touches..and I am wondering how I didn’t have this before!
• Making salted chocolate is easy and as Dorie told us, a gift…chopping it when frozen is not
• You can make a cake in a food processor…this was processed for 6 min

This was fun…for being a chocolate cake, it had me buying and doing things I haven’t done before, which I always enjoy. I had to bake this cake longer than was listed and my only complaint would be, the chocolate chunks didn’t stay evenly mixed through the batter. I would say a lot of mine sank to the bottom, which was fine when you had a bite from the bottom, but not so much when it was from the top. As my husband put it, the bottom half of the cake was a 10, and the top a 6 😂😂.

Regardless of the evenness of the chocolate, everyone loved this cake and said it was delicious..and I am loving my new salt…had it on avocado toast and it was amazing 😍

This is definitely a keeper and will be made again.