Weeknight Dinner: One-Pot Chicken with Mushrooms and Squash

We've been busy here. Three of the four kids have started skiing and we've been going once a week to take advantage of the fleetingly snow covered hills in our neck of the woods. Due to the ski shop-esque amounts of ski equipment and paraphernalia we now own, I've had to take some time to clean out clothing and closets and storage areas. Finally organising our mudroom closet was extremely satisfying though and I'm now pleasantly surprised at how neat at least one (albeit small) part of my house looks.

In the meantime, I've been ignoring my little bloggie here and I've been to miss the harsh white glow of the laptop screen burning into my retinas late at night. So today I made an effort to get a blog post in and intentionally kept the camera handy in the hopes that my dinner recipe tonight would be a keeper.

(Jump to the recipe...)

Our winter CSA box (Round the Bend Farm) contained mushrooms this week and I wanted to use them while they were still crisp and sweet. I also had a butternut squash from our last box and some leftover sage from the holidays, so the choice was clear that we were having some kind of poultry for dinner.

Soon after I started cutting and chopping,  I realized that I was missing a crucial ingredient  in my mise en place. So I had to retake the picture with the vital ingredient in its place of honour (bottom right).

There's nothing mind-blowing about the flavours here, but it is a quick, easy and flavourful dinner that was easily prepared, from raw ingredients to plate, in just about an hour. So definitely blog-worthy, in my opinion.

Our butcher (Micatoni's) is great and pre-cut the chicken into eight pieces for me - not having to deal with raw meat definitely makes meal prep a pleasure! If you can't get a chicken cut into pieces and are unwilling to do it yourself (cutting up a chicken is not so bad, come on try it), you could always make this meal with a four chicken legs or breasts on the bone.

I soon had my daughter whining for dinner, as the smells of garlic and chicken frying wafted through the house.

Luckily, the active cooking time on this meal (and many of the meals that I make nowadays) is pretty minimal and I was able to get everything browned off and onto the stove before the imminent three year-old hangry melt-down.

I served this with some rice. It would have been equally great with noodles or pasta or bread or dumplings... Anything really. I had the approval of three out of four kids and the last child did eventually come around after trying the dreaded vegetables and deciding that only the mushrooms were really offensive. To be fair, I remember the juiciness and toothsomeness of mushrooms, which I love now, were childhood dreads of mine as well.

Anyway, here's the recipe for those of you who are okay with over-juicy mushrooms...

~^*^~^*^~^*^~^*^~^*^~^*^~^*^~^*^~^*^~^*^~^*^~^*^~^*^~

One-Pot Chicken with Mushrooms and Squash Yield: 6 Servings

1 three to four pound chicken, cut into eight pieces

1 small butternut squash, cubed
1 small clove garlic, smashed and peeled

8-12 ounces button mushrooms, cut in half

2 cups chicken stock (I used some homemade turkey stock)

1 cup white wine

2 sprigs sage

1 cup frozen peas

1-2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper, to taste

1. Heat a dutch oven/heavy pot over medium heat. Add some olive oil and canola oil. Brown chicken in batches. Salt and pepper the chicken as you are browning it. Remove browned pieces to a plate for now.
2. Add butternut squash and garlic to the pot and let them brown briefly. Add the mushrooms and brown then briefly as well. Salt lightly. 
3. Return the chicken and any juices that may have accumulated back to the pot. Top with stock and wine and sage. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover and simmer for about 30 minutes or until the chicken is done.
4. Add the peas and butter. Simmer uncovered for another 5 minutes. 
5. Serve with your choice of sauce absorbing medium.