Having friends over for dinner is fun but can be stressful if you don’t enjoy cooking. Depending on the crowd, I will do either a coursed meal, or a one dish meal. Today I made two courses and if you need dessert, take help from the store or get some fruit.
First, I season some chicken thighs, trim some of the fat off, and I wash it with apple cider vinegar then pat dry. Using himalayan sea salt, black pepper, ground habanero pepper, worcestershire, and soy sauce. Bake that on a parchment lined cookie sheet at 350 for about 30 minutes, you can flip it after about 20 but you don’t have to.
Meanwhile, I chop some veg. I’m still into the brussels, I cut them in half, season with s, p, EVOO, and ground hot pepper. These can go in at the same time as the chicken but will take a bit longer.
I then put some quinoa on the stove, it’s a basic 2:1 ratio. You can just mix the two together or sauté some onions that are diced very small, then add the quinoa and cook for a minute. Then add stock of your choice, I used 1 cup to 1/2 cup of quinoa. This is enough for 4 people, unless you have vegetarians/vegans who are not eating meat.
I happened upon spiralized beets in the grocery store, I did boil them to soften a little then you can toss with a little balsamic vinegar and ground hot chili pepper to taste.
Then I plated it, but you can also serve it family style too.
Or you can cut the chicken beforehand.
I served a salad first, and she brought dessert. So that was a three course meal in 1.5 hours.
YUM!