Olive You All

So tonight I really wanted to try to make a roasted chicken with olives. I had seen a recipe during one of my all night recipe searches. Which seem to happen basically every other night! But it seems that I couldn’t quite find what I was looking for. Some recipes I found just seemed to lack some ingredients or steps I thought should be there. Plus, I had seen a one-pan meal that involved potatoes, chicken and asparagus. On weeknights those are perfect! So I decided to combine these worlds and this is what I came up with!

Just an FYI a lot of recipes tell you to cut up a whole chicken. I pumped the breaks on that, not on a weeknight! I just bought a package of breasts, thighs and wings. If you can marinate the chicken overnight, if not just try to marinate it before you put the potatoes in:

½ cup of Olive Oil

1/3 cup of Balsamic Vinegar

1 Tsp of Dijon

1 package of cut up chicken

1 1/2lbs Fingerling or new potatoes halved

3 Tsp of butter cut up

Salt

Pepper

1lb of Asparagus trimmed (white parts off) and cut into about 2 inch pieces

2 lemons cut into wedges

Sprigs of thyme

5 cloves of garlic

 A little over a ½ lb of Mixed Olives.

(I like to visit the olive bar at the grocery store and grab green olives, along with kalamata olives.)

Directions

1.     Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Place potatoes and half the butter in a roasting pan; season with salt and pepper. Roast, tossing once, until potatoes are golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

2.     Rinse the chicken and pat it dry with a paper towel. Then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put it in a pyrex so you can pour the mixture below on it.

3.     In a small bowl, combine the vinaigrette (oil, balsamic, and Dijon mustard) with the lemon zest, olives, garlic, thyme, and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt. Pour the mixture over the chicken and turn to coat. Also pour over olives. Refrigerate, covered, for at least 1 hour or overnight.

4.     After the potatoes have roasted for 20 minutes then you can put the chicken, skin side up, on top of potatoes; pour the remaining mixture over it. Roast until chicken begins to brown, about 20 minutes.

5.     Lower heat to 375 degrees. Scatter asparagus, lemon, and thyme around chicken. Roast until asparagus is tender and chicken is opaque throughout, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve chicken, vegetables, and lemon drizzled with pan juice