A lesson for Laura

I’ve made this chicken and vegetables recipe a few other times in recent years and I’ve always spit in the face of the recipe by cooking it MY way, in a dutch oven.

I sent the recipe to my mom a few weeks ago, because it is majorly delicious.

“Did you cook it on the broiler pan like the recipe says? You said you cooked it in a Le Creuset.”

I replied that yes, I did it my own way and didn’t use a broiler pan because it seemed weird and I was lazy. The next day my mom raved about the recipe, which I expected, but also the broiler pan method. “It was perfection.”

Sunday, when I was planning my weekly menu, I still fully intended to cook the recipe my way. Then, in a mother-knows-best-moment, I reconsidered, got out the old broiler pan, and gave the original recipe the benefit of the doubt.

Oh, my stars, is this good.

The lesson here isn’t never to change up a recipe — in fact, some of the modifications I made before I made again (adding carrots, onions, and thyme). But I suppose there is something to trusting in others who have surely tested this recipe 10 times over before me (aka, the test kitchen at Cooking Light).

Lesson learned.

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon salt, divided
• 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon dried poultry seasoning
• 1 (3 1/2-pound) roasting chicken or a full chicken cut up (that’s what I did)
• Cooking spray
• 12 ounces red potatoes, cut into wedges
• 1 1/2 cups cubed peeled butternut squash (about 8 ounces)
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped into 2 inch pieces
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• Fresh thyme

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. Combine garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and poultry seasoning in a small bowl. Remove and discard giblets and neck from chicken. Starting at neck cavity, loosen skin from breast and drumsticks by inserting fingers, gently pushing between skin and meat. [If using a whole cut up chicken, just rub underneath the skin of each piece.] Lift wing tips up and over back; tuck under chicken. Rub garlic mixture under loosened skin. Place chicken, breast side up, on rack of a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. [Cut up chicken goes skin side up.] Place rack in broiler pan that is lined with foil.
3. Combine potatoes, squash, carrots, onions, butter, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Remove the thyme leaves from about 5 sprigs of thyme and combine with mixture. Arrange vegetable mixture around chicken. Bake at 400° for 1 hour or until a thermometer inserted into meaty part of thigh registers 165°. Let stand 10 minutes. Discard skin.