tomato love and dilled chicken stew

so i found out a couple days ago that i got a full-tuition scholarship for this coming school year (!!!), and celebrated by cooking for the entire evening. i had chicken thighs that i needed to use, and i was envisioning chicken in a dill cream sauce as i walked over to star. i also wanted to try slow-roasting tomatoes – where slow means 6-8 hours slow.

the chicken with its dill cream sauce turned into something completely different, but the slow-roasted tomatoes looked like this coming out of the oven. the darker flecks are thyme, except around the edges of the tomato where it has caramelized. carrien and i plan to eat these on sandwiches or pasta. they smell wonderful when they come out of the oven, too – they actually smell like caramelized tomatoes.

the chicken with dill started out innocently enough – i bought onions, dill, thyme, celery, mushrooms, chicken stock, and some cream to go with the chicken. i intended to have chicken thighs, tender so the meat falls off the bone, with a thickish, chicken-based cream sauce with lots of onions and dill. so a cream sauce like that would generally be white, right? i don’t know why i was in the mood for white food at the time, but it turns out that the browning of the chicken thighs at the beginning of the whole thing caused it to turn brown. this wasn’t a problem, just surprising. i had cooked the vegetables in the rendered chicken fat, and then added the chicken broth and chicken thighs back in (classic braise-style), and i wanted the chicken to be more tender than it was in the chicken cacciatore, so i cooked it for a while. i’m not exactly sure how long it was, but it was probably about 2 hours, boiling away in the chicken-y sauce. i also wanted a sauce with some heft to it, so i let it simmer until the sauce reduced by a few cups. turns out, when you cook chicken that long in a more watery sauce, it falls off the bone for you. so i took all the bones up and the whole thing became a stew. where’s the cream, you ask? i added it at the end with some sour cream and let the whole thing simmer a little bit more, to thicken it. i had also made some rice as the chicken cooked, and i had just started thinking about what size tupperware each one would need when i realized that i should just mix them. so there you have it – not what i was expecting, but equally good, if not better.

dilled creamy chicken and rice stew

3 1/2 lbs chicken thighs (about 8), patted dry and dredged in flour
1/2 bunch of dill, leaves picked off stems and chopped fine
2 large onions, sliced into thin strips, about 1/4″x1 1/2″
2 packages mushrooms, sliced thick
1 can chicken stock
1/2 bunch celery, sliced
sour cream and heavy cream
1 1/2c (dry) short-grain rice, cooked

1. heat 4T butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. brown the chicken thighs on each side, until crispy on both sides. remove chicken thighs to a plate, and pull off skin and discard.

2. add onions to the skillet and reduce heat to medium. use a wooden spoon to scrape up browned bits off the bottom of the skillet. cook onions until translucent, then add celery. add half of dill and stir. let cook 10 minutes, then add mushrooms. cook 5 minutes, then add broth.

3. add chicken back into skillet (transfer to larger pot if necessary) and add remaining dill. add water if chicken isn’t covered by liquid. let simmer until meat falls off the bone, about 2 hours. remove bones and cartilage and shred the remaining meat.

4. add cream (heavy and sour) to the mixture until it reaches the desired consistency, about 1 cup of cream total. add rice and stir. remove from heat and serve.

[serves 8-10]

oven-roasted tomatoes

4 lbs vine-ripe tomatoes, halved, cored, and seeded
5T olive oil
thyme (optional)

1. preheat oven to 200F. toss tomatoes with olive oil and thyme to coat. place on a baking sheet (crowding them is fine) in one layer.

2. roast tomatoes 6-8 hours, until tomatoes are caramelized on the edges but haven’t fallen apart. let cool. keep the juices to cook with.

[makes about 1 1/2 to 2 cups]