Baked Chicken with Summer Vegetables and Croutons
I love the Farmer’s Market. Have I told you this before? Well, I do. I love the Farmer’s Market. In the fall and winter, you get apples, butternut squash, and sweet potatoes. In the summer, you get everything you could ever want – berries, peaches, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, fresh herbs.
This dish isn’t fancy. It just tastes good, because it highlights the summer market’s best picks with very simple ingredients. The chicken, cooked slowly, stays soft and releases a broth that flavors the vegetables. Crusty croutons soak up all the juices. *sigh* It’s beautiful.
The trick to the flavor and moistness of the chicken is the marination. I use this trick for all kinds of chicken – for grilling, flouring or breading and pan-frying, or baking, like this.
Here you go:
Baked Chicken with Summer Vegetables and Croutons
1/2 chicken, skinless, cut into pieces
Ranch or Ceasar dressing, to marinate
1/2 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole
1 zucchini, sliced into half-moons
1 roma tomato, sliced
1 carrot, chopped
A handful of mushrooms, diced
Salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, fresh or dried herbs
Olive oil
Marinating: In a bowl or ziptop bag, place chicken and pour dressing over it. Add black pepper. Turn to coat, add dressing more if necessary. There should be a good coating on the pieces and maybe still a little pool on the bottom of the bowl. Marinate in the fridge overnight. The dressing tenderizes the chicken and keeps it moist while cooking.
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Lightly oil a small oven-safe casserole dish. Place all the vegetables in and sprinkle with any herbs, salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder. Add a bit more olive oil (because it tastes good) and mix it up with your hands to coat.
3. Arrange the pieces of chicken on top of the vegetables and pour any dressing still in the bowl on top of the pieces. Add some black pepper on top of the chicken pieces.
4. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. For the last few minutes, remove the foil so that the chicken can brown to your liking.
To serve: Put a layer of crusty croutons on the bottom of a bowl. (Remember what I said about them not being fancy? I made it out of cubed pieces of sliced bread, which I toasted in the oven with the chicken. Not fancy.) Using a ladle, pour some of the broth over the croutons, then scoop the vegetables on top. Arrange the chicken on top of the vegetables and top with a little bit of grated cheese.