Andrew's going-away dinner

This dinner is from a few weeks ago. The night before the dear husband took off for a week-long conference trip, I cooked up something special for our last dinner together.

The menu:

Roasted chicken with peach chutney that I canned in the summer

Chili potatoes

Roasted squash with butter and brown sugar

The finished plate:

For the potatoes, I was improving on the recipe I used for Christmas dinner, which included zucchini in the sauté. I didn't like the way the zucchini was skillet-blackened by the time the potatoes were golden brown, so I took them out. Also, I needed to use up some purple Peruvian potatoes from the last farmer's market, so into the sauté they went.

The recipe:

Chili Potatoes

2 pounds potatoes, peeled

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp chili pepper flakes

salt and pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes whole in salted water, drain and cool. When cool enough to touch, cut potatoes into small chunks. Heat vegetable oil in a large pan, toss in chili pepper flakes, then sauté potatoes until they are golden on all sides. Season to taste.

With the chicken, I dried it off before roasting in the hopes that it would not spit so much as it baked in a hot oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. I salted it only a little on the skin and inside the cavity for seasoning and roasted it on a rack inside the pot I usually use for chickens. Most of the flavor in this dish comes from the peach chutney. I roasted it approximately one hour, until the meat thermometer read 170 degrees Fahrenheit.

The peach chutney recipe is in the Bernardin company’s Guide to Home Preserving. The peaches are from this summer’s local farmer’s markets. This was a fantastic year for peaches, so I bought 6 to 8 pounds of them every week and made lots of preserves to hang onto the peaches for a few more months. For this dinner, I heated the chutney on the stove before pouring over the plated chicken pieces.

The squash baked at the same temperature for the same amount of time as the chicken, on a pan underneath it in the oven. I brushed a little oil on it to keep the exposed squash parts moister.

Sweet Roasted Squash

One large winter squash

2 Tbsp brown sugar per pound of roasted squash

1 Tbsp butter per pound of roasted squash

salt and pepper to taste

Cut squash open and scoop out seeds. Brush cut sides with oil. Roast at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until tender, about one hour. Scoop squash out of its skin and mash it. Mix with butter and brown sugar. Season with salt and pepper.