…and a Bonus

Isn’t that a beautiful dish?

Lovely to look at, easy to prepare and it tastes good. What more could one want?

I got it from The Wednesday Chef who got it from Bon Apitite’s 50th Anniversary Cookbook via the LA Times. The Wednesday Chef calls it Barbara Fairchild’s Spicy Roast Chicken.
I made it the day I read about it, couldn’t be easier.
Take cherry tomatoes, toss them with olive oil, crushed red pepper, garlic and rosemary. Put your bone-in chicken breasts in a shallow casserole dish, pour over the tomato mixture and bake.

That’s good. Yum.

Soup for Lunch
But the unexpected bonus came days later, when I asked myself the musical question, “What’s for lunch?”

I could open a can of soup. I thought I wanted soup, San Francisco had been going through a weeks long chilly spell and I needed the warmth of soup.

I scanned the refrigerator for leftovers and found the end of that bone-in chicken breast that had been braised with cherry tomatoes, including 4 or 5 tomatoes. Also found a little container of tatsoi leaves left over from the last congee and half of a red onion. Looked like the makings for soup.

I chopped the onion and put that on to melt in some olive oil. Meanwhile I diced a potato into a small dice, threw that in with the onions and gave it a stir. I poured in a can of chicken broth and while that was coming up to a boil, picked the chicken, not much meat on them bones.

Once the soup got to boiling, I threw in the chicken bits, tatsoi leaves and cherry tomatoes, added salt and pepper and a little hot sauce and simmered for about 5 minutes.

That’s good. Yum again.

This is the first in an occasional series of Good Eatin’, kind of a sidebar usually involving leftovers (LO), where I will describe an easily put together meal that we enjoyed very recently, maybe yesterday.

Good Eatin’
The spareribs have been wrapped in foil in the refrigerator for over a week. I got the Winter Ribs recipe from Mark Bittman in the New York Times recently, planned for leftovers and now they await.

Spareribs
Pop into preheated Toaster Oven at 350 ° for 15 minutes. About halfway through warming, slather with bottled BBQ sauce of choice.

Carrots
I have a bunch of baby carrots. Trim and wash. These are way too little to peel. In a saucepan, put in juice of a small orange, (actually, I had a tangelo) some white wine (or vermouth or water), a teaspoon of Honey Dijon, and a pat of butter. Bring to a boil, add the carrots and simmer, covered for about 4 minutes—until carrots are tender, but not mushy. Plate the ribs and carrots, reduce the remaining pan liquid to 2 or 3 tablespoons and pour over carrots.

Romaine
Split and trim a head of romaine. Slather on creamy dressing (I had Marie’s Chunky Blue Cheese in the refrigerator).

Now, that’s Good Eatin’.