Today, when I needed a dinner idea, I looked into my cabinets, fridge and freezer at all the random ingredients left over from huge holiday feasts. There were all sorts of nuts, dried fruit, broths, etc., and then I spotted a lone bag of pearl onions in the freezer. With my building block in mind, I went to the computer and searched "pearl onions" on Epicurious. I found many recipes that were fantastic Thanksgiving sides, too little too late. I finally found a winner, only to read the recipe and find it contained no pearl onions. Oh well, I was won over by Herb-Basted Chicken with Pearl Barley, Bacon, and Root Vegetable Pilaf. This was intriguing to me, I don't think I had ever eaten barley in anything but Campbell's Beef and Barley Soup.
Surprisingly, I had many ingredients on hand. I only needed to pick up the barley, carrots, butternut squash, and the chicken. For some inexplicable reason, Harris Teeter didn't have bone in chicken breasts with skin. I improvised and bought a whole chicken cut up. I figured my husband and I would have the breasts and the kids could eat the thighs.
Preparation was easy. Thankfully I have the best sous chef around, my husband! Look at this fantastic prep work.
The only issue I take with the recipe as written is the cooking time once the chicken goes in the oven. I would advise 30-40 minutes and not 20 minutes. With this adjustment, the finished product was beautiful and delicious.
Amazingly, no complaints from the kids!
This is definitely a dish that I will make again.
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Love the picture of Dylan. Did you get pre-cubed butternut squash? I tend to steer clear of the winter squashes because I hate cutting them, I know lazy...
ReplyDeleteIt looks really good. I wish I had such an accomplished sous chef!
Yes, the squash was precut into chunks and my sous chef diced it!
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