Sweet Mustard and Herb Roasted Chicken
The Meal Planner


The combination of sweet brown sugar, punchy dijon mustard, tart lemon and fresh herbs makes a fantastic rub for chicken.  It comes together in seconds then you slather it all over a whole chicken and throw it in the oven and supper cooks itself.  Seriously SO easy! I like roasting two chickens at a time because I love having shredded chicken on hand as a starter for other recipes during the week.  One easy recipe turns into two or three easy recipes.

Gotta love that.


Recipe from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry
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Serves 4




1 4 lb whole roasting chicken
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp fresh rosemary, minced
1 tbsp fresh thyme, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Grated zest and juice of half a lemon

Move oven rack to bottom third of oven and preheat to 425 degrees.  Place a rack inside a small roasting pan and pour 1 cup of water in the bottom of the pan.

In a small bowl mix together mustard, brown sugar, fresh herbs, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper to make a paste.  Add the lemon zest and mix again.  Rub all over the chicken. Place the other half of the lemon inside the chicken and tie the legs together using kitchen string.  Place breast side down on the rack and roast uncovered for 30 minutes.  Remove chicken from oven and flip over.  Add a bit more water to the pan if it has evaporated.  Return to oven and roast for 35 to 40 minutes more depending on the size of the bird.  If chicken browns too quickly, cover loosely with foil.  When cooked, legs should move easily in sockets and the thigh juices should be clear (not pink).  A meat thermometer inserted into thigh (away from the bone) should read 170 degrees.

Remove chicken from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before carving. 

 Click here for printable version of Sweet Mustard and Herb Roasted Chicken
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RESULTS?
The rub on this chicken is so flavorful!  I love the combo of sweet with mustard and the freshness of the herbs.  It's possible that the roasted chicken skin is my favorite part, and it's also possible that I sort of kind of steal bites of it while I'm carving the chicken for my family's dinner.  Don't tell anyone.

 Meal Ideas:
 Leftover Ideas:
Strip all the meat off the bones, and use the carcass to make: Homemade Chicken Stock.  You can then make any number of homemade soups with it like: Creamy Summer Vegetable Soup.

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Baja Quesadillas
The Meal Planner

Updated from the archives. Originally posted Jan 24, 2009. 

Quesadillas are one of the quickest lunch or supper items to make and quite versatile. I've been crazy busy with wrapping up preschool, and I've been making quick meals like this when I'm strapped for time (and it's so simple I even had my husband whipping these up for us).  This version which doesn't use any salsa I discovered in my first year of college at Moxie's. I loved the smoky, rich BBQ flavor combined with the pops of sweet corn and cool sour cream. Luckily I perfected the recipe at home years ago because they have since changed the recipe on their menu. 

I prepare for a quick meal like this by either picking up a roasted deli chicken the day I buy my groceries, or I will schedule a roasted chicken on my menu plan (like this one or this one) to eat the first night and then use up the leftovers in this dish the following night.  When I buy whole chickens I get a better deal if I buy the packages with two or three chickens in it.  I'll bring that home and roast two chickens at a time, specifically to make recipes that call for shredded chicken.  I'll keep it simple and do a lemon herb one and slather one in BBQ sauce and then roast them at the same time.  You can make amazing soup this way and have a container of shredded chicken for quick meals like these full of flavor quesadillas.

With just a little forethought you can be eating a  fantastic and easy meal on a busy weeknight.

Recipe by Meal Planning 101
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Makes 6 quesadillas

2 cups cooked, shredded chicken
1 cup frozen corn
1 cup black beans, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp taco seasoning (homemade or store-bought)
1/3 cup water

6 large flour tortillas
6 tbsp your favorite BBQ sauce (we love Bullseye Grilled Onion and PC Smokin' Stampede Beer & Chipotle)
2 cups cheddar cheese, grated
Sour cream, for serving

In a large saute pan over medium heat dump in the chicken, corn, black beans, taco seasoning and water. Stir and let it cook down until most of the water has evaporated. Remove from heat.

Heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Spread a thin layer of butter over one side of the tortilla and put the butter side down into the hot pan. On one half of the tortilla, squirt about a tablespoon of BBQ sauce and top with a sixth of the chicken/bean/corn mixture.  Add a generous sprinkling of grated cheese (about 1/3 cup).  Fold the other half of the tortilla over all the filling and cook until the underside gets brown and crispy. Flip the quesadilla over and let cook until the other side is also brown and crispy. If your quesadilla is browning too quickly before all the cheese is melted, turn the heat down to medium.

Remove from pan, cut into wedges and serve with sour cream and extra BBQ sauce if desired.

Click here for printable version of Baja Quesadillas
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THE RESULTS?
These are pretty much the only quesadillas my husband and I make because we like them so much. I am a bit of a BBQ sauce snob when it comes to these though, and I think that ONLY Bullseye Grilled Onion BBQ Sauce will do (although in recent years I've discovered the Beer Chipotle one and love that too). Probably because the flavor so closely matches Moxie's original recipe. It's rich and deep flavor is perfect in my opinion.

This is also a really great way to use up leftover turkey from Thanksgiving or Christmas. The flavors are so different from holiday fare, its a nice change up for the palate.

And what's with the name "Baja" you ask? I don't know. It just sounds good doesn't it? And besides...that's what Moxie's called it.

Meal Ideas:

Leftover Ideas:

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Cookbook Review: Everyday Food - Great Food Fast
The Meal Planner


It's getting a little ridiculous how long I have been taking to do a cookbook review, and I apologize to those of you who have totally lost interest.  I had it in my mind, that to truly review a cookbook I needed to test a wide variety of recipes (at least 8-10) from different sections of the book to get a real sense if the cookbook is a keeper or not.  While I do still feel this is totally valid, it's unnecessary for me to post every. single. one. of those recipes for you.  Next cookbook review will be a little different.  In the mean time, let me tell you how much I LOVE  Everyday Food: Great Food Fast.



If you've never heard of it, the book comes from the kitchens of Martha Stewart Living and the recipes  are meant to be fast, easy and simple.   They are definitely that.  Most recipes run around the 20-30 minute mark to prepare, while a few others are up to an hour (a lot of that is hands off cooking time).  A bonus is that each recipe has a statement of the total prep time needed as well as the total cooking time.  As I tested the recipes, I made sure to keep track if my preparation time was accurate to the cookbook and I was pleasantly surprised that it was.  The ingredients are easy to find in regular grocery stores, and the ingredient lists for the recipes are short (which I never realized how much I loved until this book) making the recipes simple to prepare, but still able to deliver flavor.  

Each recipe has a concise description of what it is, and some have suggestions for what to serve with the dish along with page numbers of where to find it, like the Lemon-Parsley Pork Chops suggested to be served with Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes.  Both recipes were excellent and tasted wonderful together.  As a meal planner, I loved that the guesswork was taken out of the equation for me.  It made my meal planning that much quicker and easier.

A feature I found interesting, but may not be everyone's cup of tea, was the organization of the recipes by season: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.  The point of this is because there are different produce in season at different times of the year as well as most people like to cook differently throughout the year like grilling in summer, soups and stews in winter, etc.  Again this helped with meal planning since I knew in the spring that the stores would be bursting with fresh asparagus, peas, beans, etc, and all I had to do was flip to the Spring section to find inspiration waiting (like delicious Roasted Asparagus with Parmesan).  This does mean that you may have difficulty finding recipes if you are specifically looking for Chicken dishes, or Soups or something since they are interspersed throughout the cookbook.  Even though the recipes are separated by season in Martha's introduction she points out that "because the ingredients are readily available, you can really try any recipe on almost any day." 

 For the most part that was true for me, with the exception being the Spaghetti with Three-Tomato Sauce.  The three tomatoes being fresh, canned, and sun-dried this totally didn't work for our family as I made it in the middle of winter.  There was no richness or sweetness, just acidic tomato flavor. I won't write off the recipe just yet though, because I think it could be pretty spectacular with sweet garden fresh tomatoes in the summer time.

 Most of the recipes I tested were incredible, with winners like Indian-Spiced Chicken Burgers with a cumin yogurt sauce served in pitas, Favorite Turkey Burgers, Salmon with Hoisin Glaze, and Chicken in Mustard Cream Sauce with Sauteed Mushrooms in Thyme on the side.  I really loved every one of those recipes.  Another lovely one I tried was the Braised Chicken in Mushrooms which was as simple as browning some chicken breasts and mushrooms with garlic, adding some wine and chicken stock and covering with a lid to let braise.  It was so simple yet the flavors were homey and comforting.  

The only recipes that fell flat for me were the Spaghetti with Three-Tomato Sauce being too acidic with not enough flavor, and the Mushroom Ragout with Pasta.  I can't even say what we didn't really like about that dish, other than the mushrooms are never able to brown in this dish, which maybe causes them to miss out on some depth of flavor.  
After trying a wide variety of main dishes from pork to chicken to seafood and a range of side dishes, I thought I better also try a salad, as well as a dessert to really round out my experience with this book.  The Spinach Salad with Dried Cherries had a nice bit of texture from the thinly sliced purple onion and raw pumpkin seeds, and great sweetness from the dried fruit.  The dressing counter-balances the sweet cherries with a tart vinegar-mustard dressing.  I also whipped up some Glazed Lemon Cakes which my guests swooned over when I served them with tea one evening.

I know that a lot of people look for not only great photography, but for each recipe to be accompanied by a photo.  That's hard to come by, but I'm happy to say this book serves that up for you.  EVERY recipe has a full page photo (although some of the side dishes are 4 photos to a page) helping you to drool and salivate and earmark recipes to try as well as reference what the finished product should look like.

There are many things to love about this cookbook, but the flavor of the food is definitely the reason you should love it the most.  It's so dang good!  After testing 13 recipes and loving all but 2, I'm confident in the quality and flavor delivered.  We've found some new family favorites in here and I have a TON more recipes bookmarked to try!  I still salivate when I flip through the pages of this book.  I currently don't own this cookbook, but it's on my "must buy" list.  I have borrowed it from the library 3 times, only to renew it and renew it until my renews are maxed out and the book is overdue.

I just can't part with it.

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