Chicken Cutlets with Wine Sauce (adapted) and Roast Cauliflower

On a trip to the grocery store, I felt an urge to purchase cauliflower. I don't normally like cauliflower. I typically think its bland, boring, and a variety of other adjectives that start with a B. However, something drew me to that blocky, white head of vegetation, and my opinions around cauliflower have started to shift since then.

For dinner Saturday night, I figured on making chicken marsala (which I adapted out of the chicken cutlets with wine sauce recipe found in Bittman, brown rice, and roast vegetables.

For the roast Veggies, I used cauliflower, similar to the roast cauliflower recipe in Bittman, and also carrots (there is a roast carrot recipe as well). After chopping them and throwing them in to a baking dish, I drizzled olive oil and mixed in a bit of salt, pepper, and cummin, then inserted it in to the oven for about a half hour. The result? Delicious vegetables full of flavor! I also bought a different brand of olive oil when I went shopping, and it could be in my head, but I think the flavor definitely came through.

For the Chicken Marsala, I decided to use thighs instead of breasts or another cut, hoping to get a really really juicy result. I decided to just saute the thighs partially, until the outsides were lightly browned, then removed them from the pan and put them in foil. I then added mushrooms and onions (because I love onions), which I sauteed, and then added the wine to deglaze the pan and the water (in place of stock). At this point, I was more going off of a mish-mash of recipes I had seen plus the one in Bittman. My plan was to put the chicken back in the pan while the pan sauce simmered down to finish cooking. Timing got a little funky, and took probably another 15 minutes of cooking. The final result though, were very flavorful chicken thighs. At the end, I believe that my meal was even somewhat close to meeting myplate guidelines, minus the fruit, and maybe only a little heavy on the protein.

Also, I have a complaint about buying mushrooms already sliced. They aren't sliced thin enough! I know it could be completely avoided by just slicing them myself, but its just really disappointing.