Roast Chicken with Pan-Sauce Vinaigrette

The only time I have roasted a whole chicken, has been for the few of our blog recipes that have called for it. I am not sure why it doesn’t come to mind for me, especially since it is a pretty simple and easy way to to prepare chicken.

This one is a little different because the aromatics used to roast the chicken, also flavor the pan drippings which is used for the vinaigrette.

In the bottom of the Dutch oven, we mix some olive oil, cut carrot and shallot, and two sprigs each of thyme, rosemary, and sage. The chicken is rubbed in oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, stuffed with two more sprigs of each of the herbs, along with half of the lemon that is left from using the juice from the other half.

Chicken is placed in the pot with a cut half of a garlic head on each side…lemon juice and white wine are added. The pot is covered and cooked for 90 min without checking on it. Seriously so easy…and boy does it smell delicious while it is cooking!

When done, the chicken is transferred to cool while the pan drippings are used to create a vinaigrette. Only 6T are used as a base and then to that the roasted garlic, Dijon mustard, sherry vinegar, pepper, and some water are added. I tasted this and thought it was delicious…I was excited to try it all together.

I am not sure how things that smell so good and taste good on their own don’t work well in the finished product. I used the shredded chicken on a salad and used the dressing. For some reason it was rather bland…we added more dressing and decided it just didn’t work. We ate it, but the sharpness and flavor of the vinaigrette just didn’t shine though over the lettuce and chicken. I was disappointed because I thought I was on to something.

All good though…I shredded up the rest of the chicken and will use it in other meals. Just don’t think it ended up living up to the hype I was expecting while it cooked haha. 🤷‍♀️

Cottage Berry Cobbler

This was just plain delicious.

Easy enough to make whenever…and really with whatever fruit you prefer or season you find yourself in. Welcome anytime of the day..breakfast included, and really a dessert where the fruit is the star of the show.

A cobbler is an old fashion dessert made with a juicy fruit bottom and a biscuit of some sort on top. This particular recipe uses whatever combo, and amount, of mixed berries equaling 6 cups. I used 2 cups blueberries, 2 cups blackberries and 1 cup each of raspberries and halved strawberries. These get mixed with a a little sugar, flour, juice of a half a lemon and either fresh herbs or cinnamon, ginger or coriander… I chose cinnamon. This sits while you make the biscuits.

We have made a similar biscuit before with very few ingredients: flour, baking powder and soda, butter, milk, and cottage cheese. I was trying to decide if the name of the dessert was like a country “cottage” cobbler or because of the cottage cheese haha. The dough gets formed into a square, and then cut into smaller squares to place on top of the fruit mixture.

The biscuit dough is brushed with milk and then dusted with sanding sugar…always a favorite and never an option.

The dish is baked until golden and bubbly…and then allowed to rest before serving.

You can eat this warm, at room temp, or cold…with or without whipped cream or ice cream on top. We ate ours warm without anything on it and it was absolutely delicious…there was no need for anything else. This was a winner all the way around. I can see me making this again for sure…probably doubling the recipe next time because it doesn’t really make that much for a group, and it went really fast haha.

This one is a keeper!

Btw…tell me this wasn’t the cutest birthday gift from my kids…tons of them ready to go! Easy and cute for sending out the treats to them for tasting 😍

Rhubarb-Bottom, Strawberry-Top Tart

My tart was almost a Strawberry-Bottom, Strawberry-Top combo because I couldn’t find rhubarb anywhere..it took 3 stores to get it…and the last one, was going to be the last try haha. Funny thing is the crunchy rhubarb was a highlight for everyone so I am glad it worked out.

This tart had a couple of surprises. The crust was our usual sweet tart dough…fully baked and cooled. The surprises start to come when you prepare the next steps. The rhubarb is given a quick poaching in sugar water with a slice of lime and the pastry cream is given an additional add-in of puréed strawberries.

The assembly is pretty easy at this point. The rhubarb is placed on the crust and then the strawberry cream is smoothed over it. The final step being strawberries heaped on top. You can add the rhubarb poaching juice on top along with lime zest but my tart was not eaten right away and given out to a few people, so I didn’t add that…and it didn’t seem to make a difference.

Everyone LOVED this tart and that was something because my tart did not come out cleanly haha. The appearance was not ideal but my husband…first to try it, said it didn’t matter one bit. That it was just delicious…so I sent it off looking more like a parfait than a slice of a tart haha.

Everyone agreed.

Just delicious…they loved everything about it…the rhubarb crunch, the strawberry cream, the crust and the strawberries on top. I have a feeling I might be making this one again…and thankfully living in So Cal, we have strawberries pretty much all year long. One thing I will do next time is make sure my pan is extra buttered so I can get it out of the tart pan 👍😂

This one is a keeper!

Cheddar-Scallion Scones

I agree with Dorie…”this is a good-looking scone”! It does bake to an inviting golden color and is characteristically light and tender.

These are a nice variation for a breakfast or brunch from the traditional sweet scone. They are baked with cheddar, scallions, mustard powder, smoked paprika…and optional bacon which of course I added because why not 🤷‍♀️. I am not even a huge bacon fan, but it just seemed to go with the flavors. I didn’t fry up the bacon, but just used bacon bits and it seemed to work just fine.

The dough is patted into a rectangle and cut in half and then again into 14 rectangular scones. So these are different from the traditional, in both the flavor and looks!

Everyone enjoyed these…we had ours alongside a salad for dinner. I feel like the consensus was they were good, but a little dry…a little more biscuit-like. I am not sure I would make them again, but it is nice to have this recipe for adding something a little different to a brunch.

Lettuce Soup

I should start this out with my husband’s comment after his first bite:

“The croutons taste good”

…which was followed, after dowsing with Tabasco:

“Oh, now it tastes good…everything tastes great with enough Tabasco”

😂😂🤦‍♀️

Needless to say more…this was not a hit in our house…although apparently with enough Tabasco you could eat it. I honestly felt like I was creating “Stone Soup” from the children’s book…trying to create magic out of nothing.

I love a good salad…choose salad a lot of the time. I just think my lettuce will stay in the salad.

Dorie tells us this soup happened as a scramble to feed more people with what she had on hand. I am sure hers turned out more tasty…and somehow more puréed even though I did mine twice…once with the handheld and then with my food processor. I just couldn’t get it to look like hers in the cookbook.

In all honesty, I did think this would be something I would like…sautéed green onions, shallots, onion, garlic, celery, thyme, and parsley. Then simmered together with the chicken broth and then finely cut romaine and butter lettuce added in at the end to wilt before puréing. Seems a little weird, but we love everything in it, so I was giving it an open mind.

It just did not hit the mark with us…we will stick with lettuce in a salad 🤷‍♀️😂