Weekly Menu 6

VEW

Roast Chicken with Apple Cauliflower Soup

2 Kinds of Pizza: Barbeque Chicken Pizza with Roasted Yellow Peppers

Spicy Sausage and Goat Cheese Pizza with Roasted Peppers and Rosemary

Spicy Sausage and Wild Mushroom Pappardelle, Green Salad, Sour Dough Bread

Day 1
I am a big fan of roasting whole chickens and I have made a variety of different recipes to that end. Chickens stuffed with lemons, herbs, apples. Chickens simmered in broth and then roasted; chickens rubbed in herbs and slathered in butter. The following recipe is my favorite—the trick is that you do nothing. It sounds too good to be true but trust me. Or trust Thomas Keller because it is his recipe, his favorite roast chicken and he is a master. You rinse and pat dry a chicken. Salt and pepper the cavity, truss the bird (find trussing how-to here) and sprinkle with kosher salt. Roast at 450 for about 50 minutes and then you’re done. Keller gives some ideas on what to do after that, but that’s all I do and it is awesome every time. You really won’t believe doing nothing could taste so good.

Apple Cauliflower Soup
The soup is something I just made up tonight as I was waiting for the chicken to cook. I would like to work on this recipe more because it’s pretty good, but who knows when that will happen so for now, here it is:
Chop up 2 peeled apples ( I used Golden Delicious, but I think something more akin to a Granny Smith would work better) and put in a pot to simmer with 1 can chicken broth. Cut up 3 shallots and caramelize in a pan with 1 T butter, 1 t fresh thyme, minced and a little olive oil. Steam 1 head of cauliflower (this will take about 20 minutes). Add the onion mixture and the cauliflower (along with up to ½ C of the water used to steam it) to the pot of apples and stock, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Blend until smooth and return to pot. Add 1/4 C light cream, 2T butter, salt and white pepper to taste (it requires about a teaspoon of salt if you’re using low sodium stock). Serve warm. (Makes about 4 servings)

Day 2
I have always been a believer that chicken doesn’t go on real pizza, but my husband has always liked barbeque chicken pizza so I finally gave it a try and I really like it. Here’s our easy (dare I say low-brow?) take on it. On a premade pizza crust such as Mama Maria’s, spread purchased barbeque sauce. Add shredded chicken (I just boil boneless, skinless chicken breasts until cooked and then shred them). Roast some cut up yellow peppers drizzled with olive oil at 400 until the skins are just starting to char, then add them to the pizza. Top with sliced jack cheese and bake until cheese melts. Top with fresh cilantro.

For the sausage pizza, remove the casings from spicy Italian sausage and crumble in a pan to brown. I made a quick sauce of tomato paste, salt, fresh rosemary minced, dried oregano, pepper and olive oil all to taste, and spread it on the crust sparingly. Top with sausage, more of the roasted peppers from above, dollops of goat cheese and a few slices of jack cheese. When it comes out of the oven, top with fresh flat leaf parsely if you’re so inclined…

Day 3
This is a recipe from Jamie Oliver’s The Naked Chef Takes Off cookbook. As such it was simple and fast yet good. My husband made the pappardelle from scratch which automatically takes any pasta dish up about 5 notches. Here is a similar recipe, just add in the sausage.

Green Salad
I get really tired of salads, but they are a good idea so I try to come up with interesting combinations so as not to bore myself. For this one I used a combination of greens I had in the fridge and added in a lot of herbs—fresh parsely, basil, mint—but you can use whatever you have around. Adding in about ¼ C of each herb really imparts a great flavor that is a much needed change from the typical salad. I dress it with whatever kind of vinaigrette suits my fancy…just pick an oil and then pick a vinegar and toss as little sea salt on top.