Roasted Garlic and Olive Oil Vegetables with Lemon Chicken

I wanted to cook for my husband to surprise him when he got home from work. I have had a fridge stocked up on awesome vegetables I needed to use up, and couldn't make my mind up on what to make. I want to try zuchinni pasta, carrot and zuchinni fries, but ended up working off of a recipe for roasted Greek potatoes, because they sounded so good. I opted to add zucchini, carrots, and yellow squash as well.
My little surprise dinner was ruined when right when my husband arrived home, I sliced my hand open with one of the knives. Fortunately it was a superficial cut and I'm fine, but I was slightly annoyed nonetheless. Lesson learned: dry the squash off a bit before cutting so it doesn't slip out of your hand.

After cleaning up and having my husband help me cut up the small amount of squash that was left, I put the vegetables in a small casserole dish I had sprayed olive oil in. I love all that color!

Then I added the seasonings and water and baked them in the oven for about 50 minutes. They may have needed longer because I was also using the oven to cook chicken and was opening it quite a bit.

I started on the chicken next, and set them up on tin foil. I added oregano, rosemary, lemon juice, and garlic powder because of previous successes with those seasonings.

don't usually cook chicken at 420 degrees, so I decided to fold the foil over to keep the moisture in.

I baked them for 25 minutes then removed them from the foil.

The results were mixed. As I mentioned. The vegetables took longer than expected (mainly the potatoes and carrots) but were pretty great once finished. My husband said he'd like to try more spices or a different seasoning next time because they tasted too much like vegetables. All in all I really enjoyed them and would make them again for sure. It's hard not to enjoy something with so many great and healthy vegetables in it. Now the chicken was ok - you could definitely taste the lemon in the seasoning and they weren't too dried out. They were a little tough, so next time I'll cook the meat a different way while using the oven at a high temperature. The flavor was great though. Lemon juice is working out well with everything.

Roasted Vegetables Recipe

Ingredients:

1 large potato
1 yellow squash
2 zucchinis
4 carrots
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon oregano
2-3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper

Instructions:

Heat oven to 420 degrees F. Cut carrots, zucchini, potatoes, and squash into small chunks. Spray a casserole dish with olive oil or butter cooking spray and add vegetables. Add water, olive oil, garlic, oregano, lemon juice, salt, and pepper, then mix. Place in oven and cook for 40 minutes, stirring halfway through.

Chicken Recipe

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons rosemary
2 teaspoons oregano
2 teaspoons lemon juice
4 teaspoons minced garlic

Instructions:

Lay chicken on tin foil. Coat both sides with olive oil, then sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon rosemary, 1/2 teaspoon oregano, 1 teaspoon lemon juice, and 1 teaspoon garlic powder on each side of the two chicken breasts. Close the tin foil around the chicken and bake at 420 degrees F for 20 minutes.