Chicken with Potatoes, Onions, and Carrots

This is a dish my grandmother invented, and to me it is wonderful Fall/Winter comfort food.  It makes the house smell amazing.  This is a meal that almost begs for some kind of apple-y dessert after.  I also like it because it bakes in one dish, which makes for easy clean up.  The potatoes also reheat pretty well, which is very rare with potatoes. 

Ingredients:

• 3-4 Bone-in Chicken breast cut in half
• 4 medium potatoes, cut in half length wise and thinly sliced
• 4-6 medium carrots cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 to 1 1/2 medium onion sliced in half and then thinly sliced
• 1 8 oz can plain tomato sauce
• About 2 T chopped fresh Italian parsley
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Romano cheese (or Parmesan if you prefer) for sprinkling over
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil, to taste

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• In a large roasting pan, place the chicken on the bottom, add the onions around and then the potatoes on top.  Coat everything with olive oil and sprinkle
• with salt and pepper.
• Roast in the oven for 10 minutes, then remove pan and add carrots and the can of tomato sauce.  Mix everything around.
• Bake for another 1/2 hour and then remove pan.  Stir the veggies and add Romano (or Parmesan) cheese.
• Raise oven temp to 400 and return the pan to oven.  Roast for another 10-15 minutes, or until chicken is done.
• If you don't have bone-in chicken breasts, you can use boneless chicken breasts, just add them in during the last step, when you raise the oven temp to 400.  Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, but make sure to coat it in the pan juices to make it flavorful.

Meatloaf: Oh What's in a Name?

Meatloaf is one of those unfortunately named foods where the name doesn't do the food justice.  When you tell someone "oh, I just had the best meatloaf" they kind of look at you like, "do you realize that you think a loaf of meat is delicious?".  But when you think about it, how different is meatloaf from hamburgers?  There is more flavor in meatloaf and you can eat it in winter.  This recipe is again from my mom, she interpreted it from Mario Batali, but so loosely that it's more like Mario Batali inspired her creativity.  Taking a tip from my mom, she also makes individual meatloaves, genius, right?  Her thinking is that everyone likes the crispy edges, so if you make them mini, then everyone gets the crispy part.  So with meatloaf this delicious, Spencer and I spend every meatloaf dinner trying to come up with a better name for this under appreciated food.  So far nothing seems better, but try it any way; it will forever change your opinion on meatloaf.  And if you have a better name, please let me know!

2lbs ground beef (or turkey, if you want)
2 cups bread crumbs
1 cup Romano or Parmesan cheese (just not the processed Kraft kind, but good Parmesan)
2/3 cup finely chopped onion (optional delicious extra: saute in 2 T butter, but I'm usually too lazy to do this)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp thyme leaves
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
mix together, then add to the other ingredients:
2 eggs
1 Tbs Dijon mustard
1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
1/2 C ketchup

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix together all of the ingredients using your hands and form into 12 small loaves.  Place the loaves on an aluminum foil lined pan sprayed with cooking spray.  Top each loaf with 1 tbs of ketchup and bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

These reheat or freeze and reheat very well, so yay for leftovers!