One Pot Chicken Roast

My grandmother calls my style of cooking "masak terjun", which loosely translated means I toss anything I have at hand into my dishes. This is fine with me, and I've started naming dishes "spaghetti terjun", "dhal terjun", "roast terjun", "cake terjun", anything terjun LOL. Terjun, literally translated means "dive".

Here's another dish that I've made frequently ever since my uni days, inspired by a picture I saw in a cookbook when I was in school. I'll call it One Pot Chicken Roast for the purposes of this recipe post, however, friends can refer to it as Chicken Terjun hahahaha

Every single time I make this dish, it turns out tasting different. I have yet to recreate the same dish twice, as my measurements are never accurate, my ingredients differ, and my cooking style changes too. Last weekend, I made it for my extended family's Sunday dinner (a new thing we're trying to institutionalise as family tradition), and while I usually pop the chicken in the air fryer for a bit before roasting, I got a bit lazy this time around. It still turned out quite well (I like to think), so I'll attempt to get the recipe right while it's still fresh.

One Pot Chicken Roast

• 8 potatoes, cut into quarters
• 8-10 assorted chicken cuts (I had thighs and wings)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil 
• Sea salt flakes (or normal table salt is fine)
• Crushed black pepper
• 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, off the stalk
• A packet (say 400g?) cherry tomatoes, mixed colours, sliced in half
• 1 lemon
• Red wine vinegar

1. Boil the potatoes in salted water
2. While the potatoes cook, preheat the oven to 200C, prep the chicken by rubbing down with salt, pepper, and olive oil
3. Once the taters are cooked, pop them into a skillet/baking tray, toss the tomatoes in, squeeze the lemon juice, pour with roughly 2 tbsp red wine vinegar, and give it a few glugs of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, rosemary leaves, then toss with your hands to make sure all that goodness gets everywhere
4. Pop in the oven for 40-50 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through
5. Serve hot! 

It's a quick dinner recipe, and the taste is explosive! Great for a lazy weekend meal that packs a punch.

Lots of love,
Nabs

I'm not cool

Hey you,

Let me tell you a little something about me: I'm a loner; I'm not popular, but I have a solid group of really good people I call friends. I love reading and writing fiction, and sometimes... I may have issues distinguishing between fantasy and reality. I like dorky things like my talking, prophetic Yoda doll (I call it doll, it's probably called an action figure or whatever), my Mr Potatohead, the handmade Ron Weasley amigurumi that I got from Jan, working for hours on ridiculous photomanipulation projects for my friends on SnitchSeeker, HA! Snitchseeker, and only I know how much longer that list goes on.

My idea of a well spent weekend involves sitting in my various super comfortable pajamas, reading great fantasy/sci-fi novels, watching episode after episode of whatever I may have stored on my hard-drive, and sitting next to the pool/beach/large body of water for hours on end with a glass of ice-cold Malibu/pineapple.

I don't do too well in loud, dark, crowded spaces. I never know where to put my hands, and that said, I get all light-headed when I stand for too long. When going out, I'm always more comfortable in pub-style settings, where they play good, familiar music, decent steady lighting fixtures, and I can have decent conversations with my friends that I'll remember fondly on Tuesday morning as something that may have profoundly altered the way I look at things.

I've only ever been in two proper romantic relationships in my life, both of them in my early 20s, and within 3 years. Before that I was too shy to talk to people, and since them I've been too afraid. So here I am now, a baker, a writer, a reader, a collector of nonsensical information, and a blogger. It has taken me 2 years to finally like myself again, and now that I'm actually quite happy and comfortable with myself... with knowing who I am, what I like, and what I want, I've been told it's time to drop the wall and just be happy.

Here's how I define myself: I'm comfort food.

Very much like this recipe! HAHA see what I did there?!

Quick Lemon Spaghetti 

• A normal sized pack of dried spaghetti
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, chopped/crushed
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 tbsp butter
• A cup of chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• The zest of 1 lemon
• Optional: Chopped chicken breast fillets for some protein
• Salt and pepper 

1. Prepare the spaghetti noodles as per instructions, when it's ready, drain the water and set aside in a small amount of leftover water (my friend Jessica told me to drop butter into the still hot pasta and let it ooze through) 
2. Heat the olive oil and butter in a saucepan until the butter has melted, then toss in the chopped/crushed garlic and cook until the delicious aroma of garlic fills the air
3. Pour the olive oil/garlic mixture over the pasta and toss with all remaining ingredients 
4. Optional chicken: You can either grill the chicken separately (season with salt and pepper, squeeze some lemon juice over it and grill on high heat), or fry the chicken in the olive oil when the garlic has softened and infused the oil

I'm starting to really have an issue with my camera, lighting, and setting area. There's a spare room in the back of the house that we use for storage, but after this recent failed attempt at taking pictures of my foodscapades I'm seriously considering turning the room into a working studio area.

First things first: Make space. Which I'll do... this weekend... maybe. Knowing my ridiculous procrastinating ways, that may take a while. Then I need to find some decent light fixtures to replace my old ones (I still mourn those lights...), an umbrella stand, new tripod cos my old one broke into three pieces, and maybe read my camera manual! LOL

Anyway, please don't let that horrible picture put you off the recipe. It really is amazing, hope you give it a shot on one of these busy weekdays. x Nabs