East African Braised Chicken With Roasted Citrus Asparagus

This meal is delicious and the aromatic spices will make your home smell amazing.

East African Braised Chicken 
From Cooking Light Magazine, can be found at this link.

Ingredients
2 chicken breast halves, skinned
2 chicken thighs, skinned
2 chicken drumsticks, skinned
1/2 ts salt, 1/2 ts pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
3 cups vertically sliced onion
1 tbsp chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/1 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
2 lge garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 tbsp chopped pitted dates
3 tbsp golden raisins

Method: to make this recipe, check out this link.

A few changes I had to make
I've been making this dish for years so I was comfortable making a few changes tonight, although I truly love the original recipe and recommend making it.

I only had skinless chicken thighs, so I used those. I didn't feel like using my heavy Dutch oven, so I browned the chicken for a few minutes on each side in a pan in olive oil after seasoning with salt and pepper, careful not to cook through. Removed chicken and placed in a roasting pan.

I didn't have white wine so I used red wine to deglaze the pan (I could have just used the chicken broth through now that I think of it). Then I reduced it a little and poured it over the chicken.

Then, in same pan, I sauteed onions, garlic, and ginger in a little olive oil until onions were soft, being careful not to burn the garlic. I added chicken stock instead of adding more olive oil while sauteing because the pan got dry.

Once onions were soft I added the rest of the ingredients. I was also out of golden raisins and dates so I used regular raisins and dried cranberries.

The mixture was poured over the chicken thighs and baked at 350 degrees for one hour in the roasting pan covered with aluminum foil to keep moist, I didn't want the liquid to evaporate.

Roasted Citrus Asparagus
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash asparagus, trim off about 1 to 2 inches of the ends (the woody part), sprinkle baking sheet with a little olive oil and lay asparagus out, squeeze a whole lemon over them, a pinch of salt and pepper and layer with orange slices, sprinkle with a little more olive oil. Cook for about 10 minutes, or until tender.

The chicken and asparagus were served with long grain wild rice.

Tonight the family was too busy to set the table and eat together so everything we served buffet style.