OVERCOME YOUR FEAR OF BEING ROASTED (VEGGIES) BY YOUR GUY!

DIFFICULTY LEVEL: OY!

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Get over your fear of rejection at the dining table. If you want to make a nice dinner, make something that is tried and true! Chicken and veggies.

Nowadays, you can steam them, wok them, microwave them, grill them. Perhaps the most overlooked easy and elegant way of making vegetables is giving them the old "roast."

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• Bag of Baby Zucchini
• Bag of Baby Carrots
• Package of Chicken (cutlets or tenders)
• Salt and Pepper
• Chopped, Crushed or Minced Garlic
• Canola oil (spray like Pam)

Cut your baby veggies in halves. Spray your Pam on a tin-foiled baking tray and lay out the carrots and zucchini face up. Salt and pepper with a heavy hand. Set the oven at 410 and put them in before the oven is preheated.

In a hot pan, spray with Pam and toss in your chicken. I prefer tenders (easier to make sure they fully cook) but you can use cutlets. While cooking in the pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper and a teaspoon of crushed garlic. The easiest way to "make" this is buying it in a jar from the grocery store. Smear the garlic over the chicken as it browns on both sides. Spray some oil in a pyrex dish and throw in the browned chicken. If they are almost done, cover with tine foil. Put that in the oven on the unused rack.

By this time, the veggies have been in the oven for about 15 minutes. Pump up the oven to 430 and keep everything in there for another 15 minutes.


How to Plate: The veggies are that unexpected, beautiful element in the dish. Alternate the carrots and zucchini (see my pic above) and stack. You can either plate the chicken and veggies apart or place the chicken above the roasted delights.

If you are having a dinner party and are serving the vegetables on their own platter, stack them as high as they can go!