Maple Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes

Maple Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes

from Real Simple

Ingredients

• 1 3 1/2- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces
• 1 yellow onion, cut into 1-inch wedges
• 2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 tablespoons maple syrup
• 6 sprigs fresh thyme

Directions

1. Heat oven to 400° F.
2. Rinse the chicken and pat it dry. Arrange the chicken, onion, and sweet potatoes in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Drizzle the oil over the chicken and vegetables and season with the salt and pepper. Toss to coat. Drizzle with the maple syrup and top with the sprigs of thyme.
3. Roast, stirring the vegetables once, until the chicken is cooked through, about 1 hour, 15 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Serves: 4 |  Calories:  625 |  Fat: 34.5g |  Protein: 56.66g | Carbs 19g

Picture from Carrots n' Cake

The other day, Tina posted a recipe she found from Real Simple.  She made a Tuna Pasta recipe that looked good and it looked like a cool website so I checked it out and found the above recipe. I knew I wanted to try it!

I stopped at the store to get the few ingredients I needed. The recipe said it took over an hour to cook so I hurriedly cut the onions and sweet potatoes and washed the chicken.

The prep for dinner was super easy and fast. I chopped everything and arranged it in a roasting pan.

I did not use as much as the recipe called for. And I also made the chicken breast pieces smaller (which bit me in the butt later).

I tried to make the sweet potato chunks all the same size but later I realized I did not make them all the same size (therefore they weren’t all totally done).

I drizzled olive oil on the veggies, used salt and pepper and then mixed them all together to coat.

I did the same with the chicken pieces.

Then I drizzled the maple syrup on the whole thing and mixed it all together.

Michael was a little wary about the whole maple syrup thing (he doesn’t like sweet stuff). I wasn’t too nervous because I assumed the syrup would bake off and turn into sugar. I was right the dish didn’t taste like maple syrup at all.

I added the 6 sprigs of fresh Thyme and popped it in the oven to bake for an hour. I checked on it twice during that time. The whole house smelled WONDERFUL. It smelled like roasting vegetables and thyme. Yum. I finished watching “It’s Complicated” (good movie). And I made Michael and I salads while we waited for dinner to cook.

Finally dinner was ready! The vegetables were absolutely amazing. I loved the flavor. Roasting is my new favorite way to do veggies (of course it would be because it’s drenched in oil lol).

I baked it for 50 minutes even though it called for 1:15 in the oven. I checked on it at 50 minutes and the chicken was done. In fact, since I used smaller pieces of chicken it cooked a lot faster than I realized.

The result? The flavors were great but the chicken was a bit overdone. But then that’s always the case with chicken it seems. It’s such a hard protein to cook correctly!

I would most definitely make this recipe again. In fact I might even throw in some carrots too. It was delicious and so easy to make. Now that I know that smaller chicken pieces will cook faster I’ll bake it half the time and check it.

QUESTION: What’s your favorite recipe you’ve tried lately?