A Special Shabbos! (Chicken and herbs)

I laugh at myself when writing this cause it seems that every Shabbos is special lately, or I find some reason or other to convince myself this one is especially special!

I have two reasons for claiming this, one being that we were unable to have Shabbos at home as we spent the weekend away at a Guest House for Efi's birthday.  I missed Shabbos so much it is almost heart sore not being able to plan and cook for Shabbos in our home.  Secondly it was the last Shabbos for this Jewish Calendar.

So I decided that I wanted to do everything in my power to prepare the most most melt in your mouth, bring back memories, typical Jewish Israeli dishes. 

This proves to be very difficult in reality I am afraid! More so lately as besides that fact that I have a very demanding position and work under some stress, I have recently started a Internet marketing course through a local university that has proved to be quite time consuming with what little time I have left after I arrive home from a long day in the office. My gym workouts are suffering as a result too. Nonetheless, us women are able to multitask, not right?

I unfortunately should of prepared the stuffed grapevine leaves the night before, but this did not work out accordingly as planned. And so came Friday I worked ferociously in the kitchen. I am afraid that due being pressed for time I was unable to record step-by-step procedures of preparing the grape vine leaves, so I shall leave that for a future blog post when I am able to record it correctly since it does possess some challenges for the rookie as I discovered!

Now if you do not know already, Efi REALLY likes chicken! Any kind of chicken as long as it is chicken. Therefore I am constantly looking for different ways to prepare a whole chicken, chicken pieces, chicken breasts either grilled, baked, fried, steamed (you get the picture).

For this Shabbos I had cut chicken pieces that I decided I was going to prepare in my 30cm Casserole Dish.

Whole chicken either left whole or cut up, skinned or left on as you prefer

1 onion

1 leek

Tblsp fresh rosemary, chopped

Tblsp fresh parsley, chopped

3 carrots

1-2 stalks of celery

Brown the onion and leek and add your chicken to brown. Throw in your vegetables and herbs, cover and bake in the oven for approximately 30mins. Turn and toss, season with salt and pepper and return back to the oven but this time to grill for approximately 15mins. Your herby chicken is ready!

I served this with sweet potatoes that were brushed with olive oil and grilled for approximately 30-45mins, the stuffed grape vine leaves, which I will leave for another post and an Israeli salad.

Good Shabbos and Shabbat Shalom!