The Easy Bake Oven is Heating Up

I just had to search "vintage easy bake oven" to find the one I had. Effffff.

 L recently received a play kitchen and she is LOVING it. It reminds me about how much I loved my Easy Bake Oven and my most treasured play iron and ironing board. Yes, that's right... I used to pretend iron. I'm not sure what insights that provides into my psyche, but I loved it. A lot. So there you go. Apparently some babies like to cook and clean.

While ironing is cool, chess, apparently, is not.

RT's First Ironing Board. I don't own one now, so this would be my last one as well.

 Now I have a real life oven and I made a pledge to get to know my oven better this winter. Even though it's eighty something degrees today, I am prepping for having a warm oven making my kitchen nice and toasty in the cooler months. I stumbled upon a simple roasted chicken and vegetables recipe on a blog (Life as Ashlet) I found through the Writer's Workshop. On Saturday I was wandering through the Urban Harvest Farmer's Market and picked up a frozen whole chicken and some root veggies to take home. 

Our week got a little topsy turvey, and I forgot the take the chicken out of the freezer, but we already had some boneless, skinless chicken thighs in the fridge for L. So I got home yesterday, hung out with L, sent her to bed and got to chopping.

Chicken, Sweet Potatoes, Onions, Celery, Garlic, Carrots, and EV Olive Oil. That's it.

 Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Take your chicken out to bring it to room temperature and clean your veggies and then chop them into uniform - "ish" pieces.

Combine all of your veggies and season with salt & pepper. You can also add in rosemary or parsley or whatever floats your boat. 

 I took out the thighs and placed them on top of the veggies, then sprinkled them with salt and fresh cracked pepper.

 

Then I popped it in the oven for 45 minutes. The magic of this is that the cooking juices from the chicken drip down into the vegetables and give it fabulous flavor and juicy chicken cooking goodness. That's a thing. Promise. Forty five minutes later, the chicken looks like this:

And then also like this:

Let it sit for ten minutes for all of the juicy juices to do their thang. The blog suggested the following veggies as options for roasting: pearl onions, butternut squash, brussels sprouts, fingerling potatoes, asparagus, green beans, or turnips.

So I know I throw around the word "easy" a lot. Because of this issue, and this recipe, I now need to find a word for something that is easier than easy. The Internet gave me some suggestions and I have chosen the word "effortless" to describe this. Seriously.... wash, chop, combine, sprinkle, top, sprinkle, place, bake, remove, set. Those are the steps you take and you not only have a complete dinner of chicken, starches, and veggies, you also have a world of leftovers. Landon loved this. It reminded me of chicken soup, but in a pan. This is definitely an effortless (see what I did there?) and tasty meal that you could do once a week and recreate in different ways. I'm already looking forward to trying this out again with a whole butchered chicken and some different vegetables. 

Increase the Ov Love in your life. Get after it!

-RT

Recipe Review: Roasted Butternut Squash and Shallot Soup

My finger is on the mend, but don't think S has heard his share of complaints on that subject yet. I almost lost a finger. Almost is a very vague word. 

Today I have a great Roasted Butternut Squash and Shallot Soup recipe from Cooking Light for you. This soup was quick (in a sense), cost effective, full of fresh flavor, and really easy. Secret best friends club promise. 

Once upon a time we had a butternut squash. I can't remember what it's original purpose was, but there it was on my counter. So S thought, "let's probably cook it before it goes bad." He is the CFO of the family. He took an inventory of the ingredients we had around the house and I got an email the next day that said "please buy four shallots and some ginger." Done. 

Cooking Light professional photo for your viewing pleasure.

 First things first. Preheat the oven to 375. Then we peeled, chopped, and deseeded the butternut squash. 

Slices

Chunks

 Next we peeled a section of the ginger and cut it into think slices.

Then we peeled the shallots and cut them in halves.

 Finally we combined everything in a baking dish with salt, pepper, and EV Olive Oil. Did I already say this was easy? It is. Put them in the oven for 45 minutes, then allow them to cool for ten minutes. Now this recipe seemed fast to me because the actual active cooking time is minimal. Baking in the oven time is more "watch Revenge on the DVR for the third time" time.

The final magical ingredients include: Chicken Stock, Sour Cream, & Pepper. The Sour Cream is a personal touch. We skipped the chives in the original recipe. Mainly because no one told me we needed chives... hmmmmm. That no one sure is funny about ingredients. If anyone ever asks you why you should buy an entire bundle of chives (or green onions, or saffron threads, etc) for just a few bowls of soup, just tell them: because it's a recipe and that's how you follow it. And also because I said so.

The roast pan came out of the oven looking full of deliciousness. 

Our blender kind of started creating chemical smoke last time I was trying to make a big vat of green jalapeno cilantro dip. I don't like things that make smoke and smell like chemicals. So instead of following the recipe's original technique, we simply put the broth and the veggies straight into a stock pot and mixed it with a hand blender. HAND BLENDER LOVERS UNITE. If I can find a way to use my hand blender, it is going to be used. 

Step 1 old friend

After blending the ingredients you put them on the stove over medium heat for 5 minutes to warm everything evenly. Then you are good to go. 

We were kind of concerned that this soup would be missing the creaminess that we were craving, but it was completely creamy and very velvety. See what I did there?

I felt like it would be a nice compliment to add a dolup of sour cream (or creme fraiche if you have that) on top with the cracked pepper. I was right. It was a wonderful compliment to the flavor of the soup. We ate it with some crusty whole grain baguettes.

While my photo is less impressive, it was more delicious. According to me.

This was a nice light soup that had all of the make ups of a soup laced with cream and fat and cream. The flavor of the ginger really comes through and give you a wonderful experience with the soft texture and the aromas. I'm getting serious about this. The bread helped to make it a little more hearty for dinner, but it would be a wonderful soup to have around for any meal, first or second course, or snack. It would also make a great early baby food or in our case a late one. Landon really loved it.

If anyone makes it with chives, let me know how that goes. For now I'll stick with the sour cream or greek yogurt. 

-RT

Roasted Butternut Squash and Shallot Soup
from Cooking Light Magazine


Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 2/3 cup soup and 1 teaspoon chives)

Ingredients:
4 cups (1-inch) cubed peeled butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 large shallots, peeled and halved
1 (1/2-inch) piece peeled fresh ginger, thinly sliced
2 1/2 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons (1-inch) slices fresh chives
Cracked black pepper (optional)

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 375°.

2. Combine first 5 ingredients in a roasting pan or jelly-roll pan; toss well. Bake at 375° for 50 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Cool 10 minutes.

3. Place half of squash mixture and half of broth in a blender. Remove center piece of blender lid (to allow steam to escape); secure blender lid on blender. Place a clean towel over opening in blender lid (to avoid splatters). Blend until smooth. Pour into a large saucepan. Repeat procedure with remaining squash mixture and broth. Cook over medium heat 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Top with chives and pepper, if desired.