Illustration from Public Domain Clip Art
O frabjous day! Calloh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.”
O fortunate, o happy days
When a new household takes its birth
And rolls on it’s harmonious way
Among the myriad homes on earth!”
With Best Wishes to Rich and Karen for many, many happy anniversaries and a lifetime of love …
I’m one of those people inclined to celebrate anything. I’d celebrate as simple a thing as the day of the week. So, when the six month mark of my son and daughter-in-law’s wedding arrived, I had to make something of it. Dinner is always good, eh?
I had a dinner in mind that would take a fair amount of time:
Artichokes
Dinner Salad, Pollo Rustico (Country Chicken), Italian bread
Ice Cream with a fruit topping
Decaf Espresso
Well, as luck would have it, I ran into one hitch after another all day. I got started so late that I had to modify the menu. I ended up doing a simple salad with balsamic dressing, Pollo Rustico, and lemon-poppyseed cake (store bought and not gluten-free) topped with blackberries macerated in white wine and topped with mascarpone cheese. I bought a red wine from Chile to go with dinner. Red because the entré is Sicilian. Chilean because it was recommend by the staff at Whole Foods.
Pollo Rustico is easy to prepare (no special skills needed), light, colorful, and chock full of tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, onion, garlic, rosemary and white wine. You can mop up the juices with a good store-bought artisan loaf or a homemade gluten-free loaf. There are no grains used in this dish, so it is naturally gluten-free for those with celiac disease or wheat-and-gluten sensitivity.
Pollo Rustico, Gluten-Free
The recipe
Serves 3-4
- 4 chicken breasts, boned and skinned
- 2 small Italian eggplant
- 4 medium-sized zucchini
- 1 large red onion
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 small can of crushed Italian plum tomatoes
- 1 cup of white wine
- 2 sprigs of rosemary, snip each sprig into two pieces
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- Pecorino Romano, freshly grated
Oil a baking pan and preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
Prepare the eggplant by peeling and cutting it into cubes. Put the cubes on a plate, sprinkle with salt, and cover with another plate. This will “sweat” out the bitter juices. It takes about half-an-hour.
While the eggplant is sitting, slice the zucchini, peel and dice the onion, peel and mince the garlic and mince the parsley.
Rinse the eggplant. Put the vegetables and parsley together in a bowl along with the canned tomatoes. Sprinkle with olive oil and mix well.
Rinse the chicken breasts and lay them in the roasting pan. Place a sprig of rosemary on top of each. Pour the vegetables over. Cover with parchment paper and then foil. Bake for approximately 45 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. Remove the rosemary. Arrange the chicken on a platter with the veggies over and around it. Lightly sprinkly the dish with some more olive oil. Serve hot with grated cheese.
