Oven-Roasted Chicken Cacciatora, p. 202

On Saturday, Kathy and I made this recipe. After reading the ingredients, we realized Kathy needed to go out and buy just a few things--the chicken (key!), cacciatore (key, but not really?), and a pepper. When she was out, I turned on the oven , started the rice in the rice steamer, and started prepping the other ingredients. It took a little more than the stated 10 minutes. Kathy called from the grocery store and said she could buy bone-in, skin-on thighs for a lot of $$, or skinless, boneless thighs on sale. We opted for the latter. She came home with hard salami (an option for the cacciatore), the pepper, and 14 thigh pieces (lots!). I cleaned up the thighs a little more, and finished the sauce preparation by cutting up the peppers and salami. I used a jelly roll pan as you see in the first picture. I rolled up the thighs so they wouldn't cook too quickly and topped with the sauce. Popped it in the oven, basted after 30 minutes and you can see the result at about 40 minutes in the pan. I plated two thighs each on the rice, squeezed on some fresh lemon juice, and served with our favorite summer salad--whatever fresh veges we have on hand (from the choices of cucumber--English hot house in this case, tomatoes--our own home-grown yellow cherry tomatoes in this case, onion--red in this case, and pepper--none in this version), mixed with fresh lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. It was super tasty. The rice absorbed the liquid from the pan. Kathy thought we could have had even more vegetables and less chicken. I thought it was about right. I was worried about the fennel seed since I don't love that taste, but with only teaspoon, there seemed to be just a hint of that licorice flavor. We have a ton of fresh rosemary and sage right now, so it was fun to use that as well. Kathy is out of town, so I am going to have some leftovers tonight--I may update with a comment to let you know how it survived the fridge for two days. We froze two meals for the two of us as well, so this made a lot.

Comments: I would definitely make this again. Variations--for Jody, I think you could leave out the salami, or find a turkey salami. I actually didn't notice it very much. Maybe I would miss it if it wasn't there. For Elyn, leave out the salami, bake the topping about 25 minutes on its own in the jelly roll pan, then add a meaty white fish, like cod, and bake another 10-15 minutes. I want to try that next. We loved the topping and think it would work really well on fish. But you can't bake fish 40 minutes.