Maple Chicken and Sweet Potato

Yesterday I made a fairly easy Maple-Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes.  Now the sweet potatoes were delicious, but I felt like the chicken was a bit dry and over-cooked.  This may be because I did not brine the chicken or because my pieces were smaller than in the recipe (I didn't use a whole chicken).  I bought a pack of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and used 1 and one half pieces for this recipe and I'll use the other half Tuesday.  Also, for Kristian and Stephanie.. just in case, when you brine a chicken or pork chop, it is when you let is sit in salty/seasoned water for about 6-12 hours, depending on how much time you have or how thick your meat is.  Now, brining is super important for baked chickens as it gives it more flavor and makes it SO much juicier, but I just forgot this time...

Anyways, Caleb LOVED the dish (it was a one baking dish meal, which made for super nice clean up).  So as long as he liked it, that is really the only reason I cook.  Thus, if he's happy, I'm happy.  Now, to start the dish I cut up the chicken and sweet potato, and at the grocery store I found the biggest sweet potato I've ever seen! Here is Hercules with the sweet potato... It was bigger than his head!!! So I cut this sucker up, and of course we have left overs since that massive baby ended up being more than the chicken.

Once I cut it up with the chicken I add that and oil and salt and pepper to the mix and mix well.  Then I put it in the over (covered, even though it didn't say to). Then I realize... I've forgot the onion! I don't know how that happen, but I just mix it in there a bit (after burning my wrist).  Oh, and I add fresh sprigs of thyme YUM!.  So this thing baked for over an hour, which was nice because all I had to do was make the breaded zucchini fries and the onion sauce.

Important tip for cutting/making zucchini fries: allow it to sit in a colander for about an hour with salt on it! This allows the moisture to get out! Well how neat is that!  Now this is one of Caleb's favorite sides, and "very addicting" as he says.  Also,  this time I made extra sauce so he could use them on sandwiches this week.  So after 15 minutes of flour, egg, bread crumbs, I had finally finished all those little fries.  And they came out beautifully as usual! Ignore the fact that they are on aluminum and not on a pretty plate... But they were delicious! I definitely recommend this recipe because it is so good, well not very easy, but the hardest part is breading them, which is not hard, just time consuming. Also, to make the sweet onion sauce requires you to caramelize onions, which took me 40 minutes because I did not want them to burn so I kept the heat on low... But it is sooo good and so worth the time!

So we finally got to eat the chicken and sweet potatoes, and of course Caleb probably ate way too much, but hey, that usually means "I done good".  We had only a couple of pieces of sweet potato left over so that is good.

However, I don't know that I'll be making this again any time soon.  As good as it was, I just didn't like the sweetness of the chicken.  So it was good we had the salty/spicy zucchini fries (spicy because I added red pepper flakes).  But hey, like I said, at least Caleb liked it.

So then comes the very best part of the meal... DESSERT! I made s'mores croissants! Now these babies are awesome. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love anything s'mores, and these are no exception.  They are gooey and yummy and Caleb and I ate them all up... because well, sad thing is, they suck left over.  Last time I made them I brought one to work for breakfast, and YUCK! They tasted like croissant sandwiches... for breakfast, is not very good at all.  But fresh out of the oven.. YUMMY! You can see the marshmallowy goodness oozing out, and that makes my mouth water just looking at them.  Granted, I probably over stuffed them, since the picture had about half of the chocolate and marshmallow as mine did, but that's just the kind of s'mores girl I am.   So EVERYONE should make these, they are easy and cheap and I was able to buy the small tin of croissants that come with only 4 in them, could it be any easier? Till next time, bloggers.