Surprise Dinner Party!

We'd been trying to connect with our good friends the Whites for awhile now and schedules just weren't working.  Finally, about 11am on Wednesday  Brent wanted to know if they could come over for dinner that evening.  Awesome on the one hand, as I was excited to see them, but a bit daunting on the other as I'd need to come up with something to feed them.  They are close friends and I'm sure would have been cool with PBJ, but that isn't really how I roll so I turned to the internet and my pantry stash and came up with the below meal.

Thomas Keller's Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables - Courtesy of the Amateur Gourmet  I, of course, didn't quite have all the vegetables called for, but I subbed in some Parsnips (yes, I randomly had those in my fridge) for the leeks, turnips and rutabagas and upped the amount of the other vegetables so it was close.  I also subbed standard potatoes cut into golf ball sized chunks for red skinned ones.  I had been very tempted to go with the Zuni Cafe Roasted Chicken found both on Smitten Kitchen and Orangette, but lacked the day of prep time. I did do the pre-seasoning a few hours in advance and added the herbs from our garden as suggested.  Perhaps I will get to try the full Zuni version another time, but admittedly don't roast chicken that much.

So that took care of the meat and vegetables, so I went in search of a starch.  Some time ago, I'd made the Pioneer Woman's cornbread from her cookbook and we'd frozen it for future stuffing.  This got me searching for other bread we had around and a passable recipe to use for some stuffing (I love stuffing!).   As I was already on the Amateur Gourmet site and vaguely remember he does a lot of Thanksgiving recipes I dug around and found this, which precisely suited my situation. I, of course, chopped up my celery a bit more and added garlic, because I love garlic.  I also added a bit of dried sage and parsley.  (I also contemplated this recipe and used it as a bit of a guide, but cut the butter down by ALOT by subbing in chicken stock for most of the liquid).

Verdict: The chicken was good, but the vegetables were phenomenal.  By far my favorite part of the dinner.  Granted, all the butter and fat dripping on them certainly helped, but roasting just gives them such a delightful flavor, so very tasty.  The chicken was pretty good and had some nice flavors as well. It didn't completely knock my socks off, but good. B ate a lot of the chicken despite initially rejecting, which I consider a very good thing.  The stuffing was OK, a bit more butter than I like and I prefer mine a bit wetter somehow.  Anyway, it was fine in a pinch, but not quite as good as Thanksgiving.

Overall, it turned out really well and I did rather enjoy the challenge.  Who knows, maybe we'll try that again soon.  It definitely demonstrated how my keeping some staples set up in my pantry/freezer can be a big bonus.  The reviews were generally positive too which adds to the happy take away.  We finished the evening with White Chocolate chip fudge cookies from The All-American Cookie Book that I, admittedly, made a couple days ago.  They are a bit dry now, but when gallantly served to each guest by an enthusiastic three-year old a very welcome treat!