Tuesday night dinner

a city kitchen was in full force last night creating a tuesday night meal for two, on the menu: Ina Garten's Roasted Chicken, Sweet Potatoes with Scallions and Roasted Asparagus with Lemon and Garlic. Each individual dish is not very complicated on it's own but timing each piece together in a small city kitchen can be a challenge, see how the meal unfolded below.

Cook times:

Roasted chicken: 1 hr 15 minutes

Sweet Potatoes: 20 minutes

Asparagus: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

Chicken:

1 small whole chicken (for two I cooked a 2.8 pound chicken, the ingredients below are based on this size)

1 large spanish onion

1 lemon

1/2 head of garlic

Kitchen twine

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup dry white wine

1/4 cup chicken stock

1/2 tablespoon all-purpose flour

salt

pepper

• 
  
• Asparagus:
• 1 bunch of fresh asparagus
• 3 thin lemon slices
• 6 garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• salt and pepper

Sweet Potatoes:

2 medium sized sweet potatoes

3 scallions, sliced thinly

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

Step one: Prep! Before doing anything pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.

For this particular meal I started with the chicken, whenever I am preparing raw fish or uncooked meat I always prefer to prepare it first and then sanitize all tools/work space before moving on to other parts of the meal.

Chicken prep; chop lemon into 6 pieces, chop onion into 1/4 inch pieces and put to the side, cut garlic head in half. Remove all chicken giblets (if applicable, this is the worst part I promise!). Place the chicken in a  Pyrex dish, (I used an 11 x 14), Clean out the cavity and wash the whole chicken with warm water. Pat dry and liberally season the cavity with salt and pepper. Place, 2 lemon pieces, 2 onion pieces and garlic in the cavity and tie legs together with kitchen twine. Place the remainder of the lemon and onion pieces in a mixing bowl and mix with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper, place mixture around the chicken in the Pyrex dish.

Roast in oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

You now have approximately 55 minutes to prep and cook the side dishes. Let's begin with the Sweet Potato...

Boil water in a medium sized pot with a pinch of salt. Peel and wash the sweet potatoes. Place on cutting board and cut into 1/4 inch slices. 

Place sweet potato pieces into boiling water and cook for 20 minutes. Cut 4 scallion stalks into thin slices, heat small frying pan with 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil. 

Place scallions into pan and saute for 10 minutes, stirring constantly, remove from pan. Strain the sweet potatoes, place back in pot and mash.

Cover both the sweet potatoes and scallions, you know have 25 minutes to prep and cook the asparagus. Here we go...Wash the asparagus bunch, and cut off the bottoms (I always cut of the white part completely). Place in an 11 x 14 Pyrex dish. Mix well with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. Place (very thin!) lemon slices and 6 garlic cloves evenly around the dish. Place in oven and cook for 20 minutes. Your asparagus should be timed to be ready when the chicken is ready, remove from oven and cover.

When 1 hour and 15 minutes is up, your chicken is ready, remove chicken from the dish and place on cutting board, cover with tin foil and let sit for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, place Pyrex dish with liquid, onions, lemon and garlic on top of the stove. Turn the burner to medium. Add white wine, flour and chicken broth and cook while scraping up the brown bits for approximately 5 minutes. 

At this time, add the scallions along with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper to the sweet potatoes and stir well, cover.

10 minutes has passed... your chicken is ready to carve and your meal is ready to be served, I always love to pour the gravy over the entire meal it is delicious!! Enjoy!!