Roasted Chicken & Artichokes

Simplicity in cooking is not a trade off for complexity in flavor. I find that many recipes that promote ease and efficiency also lack dimension and freshness. The short-cut / semi-homemade approach to cooking can be a huge time saver, but the canned, boxed and frozen elements often dominate the list of ingredients and overwhelm the flavor of the few fresh components. I absolutely think that semi-homemade cooking has its place on the weekly dinner roster, but I also think that you can achieve simplicity in the kitchen through the *right* combination of prepackaged and fresh ingredients. In my book, the trick is to be sure that your recipe includes more fresh foods than canned, boxed and frozen goods. Take the short-cuts where you can, but keep the primary flavors coming from the fresh side of the grocery aisle.

And on the topic of short-cuts, I am a huge fan of one-dish dinners. Such a fan, in fact, that I intend to make it one of the many points of focus of this weblog. We're evolving! To kick things off on the one-dish meal front, and to bring things back to the short-cut cooking side of things, I was thrilled to find this one-dish meal of roasted chicken and artichokes. A whole chicken (sectioned) and fresh sweet bell peppers are combined with canned artichoke hearts and jarred green olives for an incredibly easy and remarkably robust dinner. One kitchen time-saver: use whole peeled garlic cloves and whole peeled shallots from your grocer in lieu of bulk items.

*ROASTED CHICKEN & ARTICHOKES* (adapted from Martha Stewart Living, April 2002)
Yields 6 servings
Ingredients
One whole chicken, cut into serving pieces
Coarse salt and ground pepper, to taste
3 T olive oil
1 lemon
6 large garlic cloves
6 large shallots, peeled and halved
2 sweet bell peppers (red, yellow or orange), seeded and cut into large strips
2 cans whole artichoke hearts
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup large green olives, pitted

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Season chicken with salt and pepper and rub with one tablespoon olive oil. Place chicken in a large, shallow roasting pan and set aside. With a vegetable peeler, zest lemon into long strips and squeeze juice from lemon into a small bowl.

In a medium bowl, combine lemon zest, garlic, shallots, bell peppers, and artichoke hearts with two tablespoons olive oil and salt and pepper, to taste. Arrange mixture around chicken in roasting pan and roast until chicken is brown, about 40 minutes.

Remove roasting pan from oven and add reserved lemon juice along with white wine and green olives, stirring slightly. Return to oven for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until liquid thickens slightly.  Remove from oven and serve hot. Delish!