Baked Chicken with Potatoes, Onions, and Garlic

I was so excited to finally cook a proper dinner that I thought I wouldn't be able to decide what to make. But, I have been craving roast chicken recently, and autumn is the perfect time of year for lovely roast dinners. There was a one pan chicken dinner in Everyday Food a few months ago would do nicely.

I had a whole chicken cut up in the freezer, so I thawed that out. Put it in a pan with one cut up red onion (in big pieces, like eighths), a quartered lemon, about a pound of halved or quartered (depending on their size) white new potatoes, six springs of thyme, and a head of garlic broken up into cloves but not peeled. Drizzle with 3/4 cup olive oil and 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (whisked together). Salt and pepper, then roast for 50 minutes.

The recipe called to roast it 450, but that was too high for my oven. I ended up around 375. I suppose it actually could have been 450 in real temperature - I suspect that my oven runs hot, but I keep forgetting to check it. Also, my roasting pan was a little too big. I needed 12x16 but only had a bit smaller and a bit larger than that. I settled on the larger one, but some stuff on the edges burned. I think it was too exposed to the heat.

Overall, this was really great. The potatoes (especially the ones that burned a little on the outside actually) were delicious - soft and creamy in the middle and crispy on the outside. The chicken was juicy, and the garlic was sooo good. I actually just ate a couple of cloves of it, but I love roasted garlic. It was good to squeeze out the cloves from the peel and spread it on some bread.

I also had made Paula Deen's marinated tomatoes, which are really easy and tasty. I make them quite a lot actually, they're really good for company because you can do them early in the day and just put them out to get to room temperature.