Blood Orange & Rosemary Roasted Chicken With White Wine Pan Gravy

Rambling alert.

My ghetto Safeway that I reference all the time is closing its doors on the 31st of this month.  I'm in denial.  That's a BIG deal for this mom.  I've been walking to that grocery store since The Kid was in diapers.

I know a lot of stay at home moms run around all week with their kids.  I'm not one of them.  If we can't walk to it, we don't go.  I took the girls to Home Depot on Monday and it was weird to leave the house in the car on a weekday.

The point of my story is, I haven't put together a meal plan for the week.  I generally do my "big" grocery shopping at Winco and then fill in with runs to Safeway.  It's too depressing to go in there and see all the empty shelves, so I just haven't been in the mood.

Which leads to last night.  So far, dinner has involved me rummaging through the fridge, freezer, and cupboards and putting together something based on what's in the house.  Which is sort of fun, if you have time to do that.

Here's what we had on hand:

We had bow tie pasta the night before.  I had cooked a whole pound and only used half, so I used the other half as a side tonight.  I had pesto in the freezer from my mom.  I had a bag of bread sticks in the freezer.  I had some chicken thighs and legs in the freezer.  I had a blood orange, a half a red onion, garlic, and an open bottle of white wine in the fridge.  I had some sprigs of rosemary I swiped from the neighbor's yard.  I had some romaine lettuce, croutons, a block of parmesan and a bottle of creamy caeser dressing.  Dinner was born.

This is a, use what you have, kind of dinner.  Dig through your kitchen and substitute anything you want.

This is how ours came together:

Season your chicken with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  

Brown it on all sides in olive oil, in batches if necessary.  

Remove from the pan.  

Throw in half a sliced onion, four sliced garlic cloves and four smashed garlic cloves.  

Cook until softened.  

Add sliced blood oranges.  Or regular oranges.  Or lemons.  Or anything citrus.  Or nothing.  

Sprinkle in some chopped rosemary.  Or use whatever fresh or dried herbs you have. 

Deglaze pan with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of white wine.  

 Put your chicken back in the pan.  

 Throw in a whole sprig of rosemary for good luck.

 Cover it and bake at 375 for 30 minutes.  

Uncover, crank the heat to 425 and bake another 15 minutes.

Add some pasta, a salad and some bread and there's dinner.

In lieu of the pasta, you could nestle some cubed potatoes down in with the chicken before popping it in the oven.

Mmmmm, potatoes.

Here's dinner on my plate:

Good stuff, kids.