Recipe: Easy Salsa Chicken with Roasted Vegetables

OR:  A CHICKEN FAIRYTALE

Once upon a time, in a tiny kingdom near the sea, a Food-Adventuress named Lorenita realized she had nothing to eat.

Feeling particularly lazy that day, Lorenita didn't want to go to the store, didn't have too much in her pantry or fridge and she had all this parsley that was about to go bad ....  So she remembered that her Salvadoran people make quick blended sauces to cook with all the time and she thought, why not?

Here's what she did:

Ingredients:
100g Tomato paste
One medium onion -- raw, but you could saute/roast it.
2-3 garlic cloves -- raw, but you could saute/roast it.
One big bunch of flat leaf parsley  -- or you could used cilantro (a.k.a coriander, a.k.a dhanya)
Approximately 2 cups (500ml) of water

Approximately 8 chicken pieces

Root vegetable, cubed (pumpkin, potatoes, butternut squash ...)
Salt and pepper, to taste

Dump first 5 ingredients in a blender and whizz till very smooth:

(This made more salsa than needed, so freeze the leftovers.  Very good to add to a soup or stew.) 

Roast chicken pieces in the oven at 400F (200C), simply rubbed with a bit of salt and pepper and olive oil.  Once the chicken has some good color,  add the root vegetable of your choice and enough salsa to cover veg and chicken about 1/2 of the way up ...

Put it back in the oven and bake another 30 minutes or so till the chicken is done and the vegetable is tender.  Turn the chicken once, 15 minutes in:

When he came home, Lorenita's partner-in-crime, a Bone-Pirate-Extraordinaire said it was scrumptious.  The chicken was super flavorful and was lovely with the slightly charred & sweet pumpkin and the nice contrast of plain rice. 

So thus it was that Lorenita, the Food-Adventuress and her Bone-Pirate-Prince rubbed their bellies in satisfaction and went to sleep happily in their one-room kingdom by the sea.

The End.