Summertime...and the Livin' is Easy

Its not that I haven't been cooking this summer.

In fact, I have week's worth of back posts to add here between now and September!

Being on the lam of this blog was both good and bad. I am having an amazing summer and the days have been filled all the goodness that is summer. However, I am disappointed in myself for not sharing all the good summer eats with everyone.

I sense that fall is in the air as the sun goes down a little sooner and the vegetables in the garden have all peaked for the most part. The air was cooler here in New York this weekend, so I took advantage of that and decided to throw together a summertime roast of chicken and vegetables on this lazy Sunday.

This is definitely one of those Mark Bittman recipes where you can interchange the vegetables and herbs depending on what you have in your summer garden. I have so much oregano that I am definitely going to be drying a good deal of it once summer ends. Rosemary would also work nice with this dish, as would dill.

Greek Style Roasted Chicken

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons olive oil

juice of one lemon

1 pound of chicken thighs

1 onion, cut into thick slices

1 green pepper, cut into strips

handful of baby carrots

6 baby red bliss potatoes, scrubbed

1 clove of garlic, whole pieces peeled

1 lemon, sliced

fresh springs of oregano

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 300 degrees

- Salt and pepper the chicken and vegetables

- Combine all ingredients in a bowl except the lemon wedges and mix

- Place ingredients on a shallow roasting pan and cover with lemon wedges

- Cook for 3o minutes - take pan out and discard any watery juices

- Cook for another 30 minutes or until vegetables are fork tender and the onions have started to caramelize

- You can take the whole roasted garlic cloves and spread it on bread to have with the dish