Rosemary Thyme Chicken

The kitchen is my favorite room. It's where I spend the most of my time, making the food that fuels our bodies (or scrubbing it down). It's also where I de-stress, relax, and am able to clear my mind of the worries of the day. But when time is short and schedules are demanding, there are times when a non-fussy, healthy dinner is needed. So this is what I came up with. Brent loved it! It's really filling, too. We're usually all about 2nds but neither Brent nor I could go back for more. Or maybe it was just that our 1st plates were pretty full already.

Prep time: it took me 45 minutes, but I was also doing other things. If you are in a hurry and only doing this, you could probably cut it down to 30 minutes. All it is is cutting up veggies and seasoning everything.

Cook time: 1 hour

Cost: I purchased a whole, cut up, bone-in, skin-on chicken from Kroger for 1.49/lb. It was a 5 pound chicken, so it only cost $7.50. We had some of the veggies at home already, so including if I bought those with everything else I'm guessing all in all we probably spent $30 on this meal. And it could feed an army. Or my family of 2 for at least 3 days.

Servings: Brent loves, loves, loves leftovers, so I usually make huge quantities at one time and then we eat leftovers for a few days. Like with this recipe, we have a large (did I say large? I meant to say gigantic) container filled to the brim with leftovers. So for this, I'll tell you how much I put in there, but you can play with it all you'd like (i.e. different veggies and different amounts - pretty much whatever you have on hand).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut up veggies in a casserole dish, keeping the pieces pretty big. (I used three whole carrots (we like carrots pretty good), 1.5 onions (I probably would have put more, but that's all we had), a whole 8 oz container of uncut mushrooms, 3 pounds of red potatoes, fresh green beans, and a red bell pepper.) Drizzle with EVOO, then season with salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme. Toss around so the veggies are coated in the oil and seasonings. Rub oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme all over chicken (make sure to get the back and sides). (I went a little crazy and added a little Parmesan cheese and garlic powder to the chicken, too.) Place chicken skin side up on top of veggies. Put in oven for 1 hour. That's it - you're done! And before you know it, it's dinner time!

I love bread, so I finished the meal off with a fresh baked rosemary bread I picked up from Kroger. So good!