FIRST KITCHEN BLOGS

Yes we live in Minneapolis and our city was just voted the healthiest city by the American College of Sports Medicine.  Many factors gave us this best rating such as our overall good health, education, income, and a higher percentage of physical activity. These are things your would expect to be evaluated, but there are several other factors I find interesting and reason to be proud of us and our city. 

For example, we have a higher percentage of city land in parks, more people bike and walk to work, more dog parks and more tennis courts.   

A couple additional factors near and dear to our hearts- there are more farmers markets and more people eating the recommended 5 or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily. 

So take advantage of our long awaited warm weather and get out and stroll your local farmers market. Get creative with the early produce.  One of the things I just made was my version of Cobb salad with freshly picked leaf lettuce.

I added fresh corn cut from the cob, blue cheese, crisp bacon, grape tomatoes, avocado, hard cooked egg and a little sliced Italian ham.  Yummm!

To get step-by-step directions for making Cobb Salad -including how to cook a hard-boiled egg-check out the lunch section of our First Kitchen DVD.

I hate to say this but summer is officially over.  As the weather starts to cool, I start thinking about what to cook for dinner that doesn’t go on the grill.

I ran across a roasted chicken recipe in this month’s Bon appetit that I modified to make it simpler, but still very tasty and healthy.  This version uses not only vegetables of the season, but also a lot of fresh herbs.  (Those herbs that we’re still growing, but will soon be nipped by the frost- at least in our part of the country.)

While this recipe takes a bit longer to make than putting something on the grill, it is easy to make. Using whole chicken is quite inexpensive and you will most likely have chicken left over for sandwiches or salads.  Now that’s a real budget stretcher! 

Roasted Chicken and Seasonal Vegetables

1 whole chicken (approximately 3 pounds)

Lemon pepper

3-4 cups seasonal vegetables, peeled and cut into small chunks or wedges, such as:

     Hubbard or acorn squash

     Small yellow beets

     Parsnips

Fresh sage leaves plus 1 tablespoon chopped sage (divided)

Fresh thyme sprigs plus 2 teaspoons chopped thyme (divided)

Fresh rosemary sprigs plus 2 teaspoons chopped rosemary (divided)

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt |

Pepper

Heat oven to 450 degrees.

Place a couple fresh sage leaves and thyme and rosemary sprigs under the skin of each chicken breast half and some of each in the chicken cavity; sprinkle chicken with lemon pepper.

Place cut up vegetables in the baking pan and toss with chopped herbs and olive oil; sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Place chicken in pan and surround with the vegetables.

Bake chicken and vegetables about 20 minutes.  Reduce heat to 375 degrees and bake another 50 minutes, turning vegetables occasionally. 

(Note: Chicken is done when the thigh temperature reached 165 degrees. The easiest way to check is to use an instant read thermometer.)

Adapted from Roast Chicken recipe October, 2010 Bon Appétit