It’s a 2-in-1 Anniversary Special!
I teased the chicken breasts a few days ago on social media. They looked pretty amazing in the prep stage, and I’ve gotta say, the final product did not disappoint.
So, the other day was my 16th Wedding Anniversary. As we’ve just relocated to a new city and I have ZERO idea of the restaurant scene in town I decided to just whip up something special at home. Now, one of the first meals that’s every really left my Wife speechless was a trip to the local Greek restaurant about 14 years and 2 cities ago (Spiro’s in Lloydminster btw. The dry ribs are things of legend). That is where she discovered Chicken Philadelphia. I didn’t have seafood on hand (not my thing) so I did some google digging and found something similar and fish-free.
I’ll just go right ahead and say it. “Wow”. I wound up making a couple small substitutions from the recipe. I didn’t have quite enough cream cheese on hand, so I wound up doing an equal parts mixture of cream cheese and feta (workable as the spice combo and spinach is in that ‘greek’ realm and I knew what I’d be pairing the protein with). I also didn’t have red pepper flakes handy so I subbed in a pinch of powdered cayenne for the ‘heat’.
Now, for the side dish…nothing makes a meal feel more special than some fancy potatoes. I’ll share out the best mashed potato recipe you’ll ever try one day, but until then…this next option ranks pretty high on the list.
I had all the ingredients on hand except for lemons and again, some RealLemon subs in just fine on that front. Don’t skimp on the chicken broth. The liquid will cook off, as it does, it soaks in through the spuds leaving behind pure flavour. Delicious. This one is going into the rotation.
On the whole, everything worked out fine. Here’s the only issue I ran into. With 2 separate dishes requiring the oven at 2 separate temperatures…my problem-solving mind thought, “hey, why not just split the difference?”. I picked a temp in between, and as the potatoes would be roasting at a lower than called for temperature, I added about 20% more time on the clock. What I neglected to account for was not just extra time due to temperature, but extra time due to the chicken being cooked at the same time. While it might seem that an oven at 390 is an oven at 390…not all things are equal when you start changing variables. Rack placement, number of items in the oven, they will all play a factor and need to be considered. If I were to tackle this one again, I’d leave the chicken in for about another 5-7 minutes and the potatoes for another solid 30 minutes – I don’t think the extra time would hurt them, in fact, with the amount of liquid and flavour happening – the longer the better.
All that said, the flavours and the pairing of these 2 recipes just ‘worked’ together quite well. These are both definite ‘keepers’.
Happy Anniversary indeed!
-g
Dad's Turn To Cook 