Apple Carrot Rosemary Chicken

Last night I peered into the fridge to see dwindling supplies, I was at a loss as to what to make for dinner once again.

Depressingly I thought, well there is brown rice and frozen chicken thighs. It'll be plain but healthy. So I started the rice in my rice cooker and put the chicken in to defrost. Then I thought - I'll just clip a little rosemary from my garden for flavor. I arranged the thawed chicken in a foil lined roasting pan and tucked the rosemary around it and popped it in the oven.

Back to the fridge to pull out the last remaining veggies in the house- mini carrots, which are always good with ranch. But the baby doesn't do so well with hard carrots... so I threw them in on top of the chicken. Then I noticed a half an apple in the fridge and another rolling around in the drawer- apples go great with rosemary! So I sliced those up and threw them on top of the carrots. Then I pulled the foil up around the whole mess. It smelled great.

After the chicken was done cooking, the apples and veggies were still a little crisp, since they came to the party late- so I pulled all the meat off the bone and mixed it in with the rice to stay warm while the rest finished cooking. There were a lot of drippings (even chickens have the fat thigh problem, I guess) so I decided to mix in some flour and the last individual apple sauce to make a sort of gravy. A little milk to thin it out and voila- dinner was served.

It was delicious. Since I didn't measure anything I have no idea how much I used so it's hard to create a recipe- but I have learned that being creative with what you have on hand makes for better meals than following a recipe that you have to go buy ingredients to complete.

Hubby said I was a bit like Steve Martin from the Jerk:

"We only have chicken and rice for dinner."

"Oh and some rosemary, but that's all -chicken, rice and rosemary..."

"and carrots. But that's all chicken, rice, rosemary and carrots..."

"but that's ALL! Except for some apples... so chicken, rice, rosemary, carrots, apples, and gravy. But that's it."

And it was it, and it was easy and it was healthy.