The holidays are over and it’s back to business as usual in our house. No more splurging on party food while embracing the Scarlett O’Hara calorie theory, “I’ll think about it tomorrow.” To avoid mid-winter boredom, I’m trying to expand our repertoire of week night dinners – translate- something quick to put together, not expensive, ingredients mostly on hand, everybody eats all ingredients involved, AND, of course, it must be delicious or what’s the point.
For Christmas I got a
cute little cookbook called, I “heart”
Trader Joe’s. (Do you think keyboards will someday have little heart
symbols?) Trader Joe’s is fun; I like to go there, but admittedly do not regularly
stock the pantry with lots of their convenience products. Instead, I gravitate
toward the good produce, unusual crackers, decadent chocolates, and the
irrestable Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper Soup.
I read the cookbook like we all read cookbooks- looking for good ideas that
can be revamped into menus that fit our families. One recipe I fo
und was for a
chicken dish that sort of reminded me of a dinner my roommates and I used to
make in college. Back in those days, we thought the recipe was really the
height of sophistication. It involved mustard and honey and some dried herbs.
We called it chicken from France, and pretended that it was Julia Child’s
recipe. It wasn’t, but guys liked it plus we could pool our money and
collectively afford the ingredients to feed a small crowd. This recipe in the Trader
Joe’s cookbook called for mustard, maple syrup and vinegar; that sounded like a
good place to begin. I changed the amount of mustard and syrup, used a milder
mustard, added garlic, rosemary plus a touch of garlic salt and cayenne pepper
- the result was just plain yummy. Maybe we were on to something in college
after all. On the side, we had rice with lentils – French lentils so the
package proclaimed – and roasted broccoli and tomatoes. It was perfect in all required
week night categories. The chicken took about 5 minutes total prep time,
chicken thighs are one of the cheapest meats in the grocery, we always have
mustard and syrup on hand, and well, this doesn’t make me look good, I just
sort of didn’t mention the mustard to my husband. He thinks he doesn’t like it,
but I was hoping, and it proved true, that the syrup would mellow out the
mustard. Try Maple and Mustard Glazed Chicken out for a week night dinner. Call
it Chicken from France and see if anyone dares to question you after one bite!
Maple and Mustard Glazed Chicken
(Chicken from France)
Ingredients
1 package skinless, boneless chicken thighs (usually 5 or 6 per box)
1/3 cup mustard, what ever you have on hand
1/3-cup maple syrup (not the fake kind)
1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar (sort of a mild flavor, you could substitute another vinegar if you don’t have it)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped (it really is good but dried will work, use ½ as much)
½ to 1 tsp garlic salt
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
Directions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Spray a casserole dish large enough to hold the chicken with cooking spray.
In a small bowl, mix together mustard, maple syrup, vinegar, garlic, and rosemary.
Add chicken to the casserole and sprinkle with garlic salt and pepper.
Pour sauce over chicken.
Bake for about 45 minutes, spooning sauce over the chicken a couple of times during baking.
Be sure to serve chicken with the delicious sauce. Oh la la!
