Better than Rotisserie Chicken

This week after watching a new favorite cooking show, The Chew,we were inspired to try viewer Donna Giblin's recipe for Artichoke Chicken. Except that we didn't use artichocks or mushrooms so we are officially dubbing this the Philbrick's "Better than Rotisserie Chicken" because the sauce that is used reminds us of the chickens that you get at the grocery store...only so much better!

So off we went to the farmer's market that sets up every Wednesday here at our development's Community Center to find some fresh veggies to add to our one-pot chicken dinner. Since I'm not a fan of artichokes...I really wanted some fresh green beans to add to the dish since I love lemon juice on my beans and the zing in this sauce would have worked just as well. But there were no green beans so we grabbed some sweet vi-dalia onions and some sugar snap peas instead.

Gather your ingredients:

3-4 lbs. Chicken Pieces (on the bone is best ;)
1 medium onion (cut into chunks)
2 tablespoons Dijon style brown mustard
1 teaspoon fresh minced garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup red wine
1/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon dried tarragon
1-2 bay leaves
Dash each of Salt n'Pepper

Combine the olive oil, mustard, red wine, red wine vinegar, garlic, dried spices, salt and pepper in a glass jar and whisk or cover and shake until combined.

Clean and cut up your chicken pieces and place them inside a glass baking/casserole dish. Liberally coat the chicken with fresh ground sea salt and pepper, on both sides, and then add your chopped onions to the dish as well.

Pour the sauce over the chicken; throw in the bay leaves and throw the dish into a pre-heated, 350 degree oven. Note: the original recipe called for "skin-side up" for the legs and thigh pieces that were used. With chicken breast pieces, however, I prefer to place them into the pan "skin-side down" to keep the breast meat from drying out.

Bake uncovered for 1-1/2 hours, basting every 1/2 hour. If cooking chicken breasts...then for the last half hour, you can then turn the chicken breast "skin-side up" to brown the skin...if you so desire to eat it all nice and crispy ;}

On another note...when you remove your chicken from the oven...try NOT to check it by cutting open a breast...all the juices will run out and your chicken will dry up! After 1-1/2 hours of slow-roasting your chicken should be more than cooked to a safe temperature...unless you put them into the oven frozen solid. But if you are still concerned...then pull out a meat thermometer so that you can check the internal cooked temperature without drying out your meat.

It is always a good idea to let all of your meat rest for at least five minutesso that the juices don't run out when you cut into it anyhow. So while your meat is resting...you can prepare your other accouterments. For us it was simply steaming the fresh pea pods for three minutes...we love them when they are still snapping back at us ;}

This meal was delicious and fast and easy and I know that this will become one of our family favorites. I would love to try this out in a crock-pot to keep the kitchen cool this summer, especially since we do not eat the skin anyhow...we don't care if it doesn't crisp up in the crock-pot.

Also would love to try this with some new red potatoes...only then I plan on doubling the sauce so that we have plenty to smash up with the red potatoes...oh yeah!

Seriously good folks...hope you all have a chance to try it this weekend.

Fondly, Roberta