Oven lovin'

TheCookingShow's Blog

There is a great German word, "Eintopf." It means "one pot."

Surely someone must have a word for "one oven."

I love it when I can pile the whole dinner into the oven!

That is what I did last night. I made a Martha Stewart Everyday Food one-oven dinner with roasted cauliflower and roast spatchcocked chicken. Spatchcocked is a great term. Today we are all about great words and terms! It means you cut the chicken along the backbone, open it like a book and flatten it out. It is easy to do once you try it.

Then you chop up a half a cabbage into wedges and strew it around the chicken. I used half of a Savoy cabbage I got at the Clinton-Bailey Market. You put it all in the oven at 450 degrees.

After a while you take the sheet out, kind of baste the cabbage in the chicken juices, and add an apple or two chopped into wedges.

Meanwhile you roast a tray full of cauliflower florets on the rack underneath.

That was what Martha Stewart suggested in her dear departed Everyday Food, October 2008. Does anyone else miss this magazine? I do. Figures, the one cooking magazine I kind of liked, and it goes blooey. You pile the whole dinner into the oven and then you walk away.

Of course, you know me, I had to improve on Martha Stewart.

For one thing I made a spice rub and slathered it all over the chicken, under the skin and everything.

For another, well, I admit it, the picture above does not show the whole picture. Originally I had the racks configured in such a way so that I was able to bake a loaf of rye bread, wedged in over the chicken. The oven temp had to go down to 375 degrees when I added the bread.

 Et voila!

The rye bread will be a story for another day. For now, the moral of the story is:

There is always more room in the oven!