Lemon Chicken With Roasted Beets And Quick Polenta

Another underwhelming meal from the week of under $50. (http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500172_162-6910676.html )  Not bad really, but not a wow either.  The chicken was pretty good.  The beets never made it to the plate; Forty minutes to cook my foot!  After the 40 minutes, they were still very hard, so we kept cooking them until they were fork tender, which was an hour after we had finished eating.  I will eat them with lunch or add them to dinner tomorrow.  I added a salad instead.  I made the mistake of using a bottled dressing,  I bought a bottle in what can only be a fit of madness.  I saw green goddess dressing and thought yum and that is a bit of work to make, why not.  I will tell you why not; it will make a great salad taste flat.  We all ate the salad, but it lost something in the process of dressing rather than gaining.  I couldn't find instant polenta at the store so I made the basic polenta recipe I found on line instead and added some chives from our garden and shredded up some leftover guyere in it as well.  I liked it the best of everything on the plate.


Lemon Chicken With Roasted Beets And Quick Polenta

One 3 pound chicken,cut -into 10 pieces
 4    garlic cloves,smashed
1    lemon cut into quarters
1 t  oregano
1 T  olive oil
2 bn beets,scrubbed clean
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper

METHOD:
Preheat oven to 450F.
On a large baking sheet, toss chicken with garlic, oregano, olive oil,
and lemons, squeezing the juice from each quarter.
Roast until chicken is golden and cooked through, about 30 minutes.
Drizzle beets with oil. Wrap in aluminum foil and bake at 450F (in the
same oven as the chicken) for about 40 minutes, until fork tender. When
cool enough to handle, remove peels and cut into slices. Season with
salt and pepper and serve.

Quick Polenta
4 cups water
1 cup instant polenta
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Salt and pepper
Bring water to a boil. Whisk in polenta and reduce heat to low. Stir
occasionally, until thickened, about 3 minutes. Add butter, salt and
pepper. Any herb or cheese can be added as well. (I like fresh chives
or rosemary.)


Basic Polenta

6 c  water
2 t  salt
1 3/4 c  yellow cornmeal
3 T  unsalted butter
Bring 6 cups of water to a boil in a heavy large saucepan. Add 2
teaspoons of salt. Gradually whisk in the cornmeal. Reduce the heat to
low and cook until the mixture thickens and the cornmeal is tender,
stirring often, about 15 minutes. Turn off the heat. Add the butter,
and stir until melted.