Riff on Martha Stewart's Roast Chicken with Cauliflower and Sweet Potatoes

Cori - not sure how you make this vegan, you kinda have to replace the whole chicken! On the bright side - this is pretty simple, doesn't take too long and really good. 

If you pull up Martha's recipe, she has a lot more sweet potato and a lot less cauliflower. I don' t know, sweet potatoes go really far and it seems like you run out of everything else and are left with....sweet potatoes to eat. So we doubled the cauliflower which is really good roasted and cut sweet potato by 2/3. And added smoked paprika to the mix. This might be really good with cayenne and/or some cajun spices in the coating for the veges. Anyway, here is the recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken (about 4 lbs.) use fresh, not frozen if you can

• 3-4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil but extra for rubbing on chicken

• Salt and ground pepper to taste

• 1 sweet potato, scrubbed and cut into manageable-sized wedges

• 1 head of cauliflower cut into ~2-3-inch florets

• 4 oz of pancetta, diced

• 1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika

• 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, minced

• 3 tablespoons capers, drained

Directions:

• Take chicken out of the fridge and let it come up to room temperature (at least an hour). Pat the chicken dry and then rub the skin with olive oil—season with salt and pepper, inside and out. 

• Place chicken on a rimmed baking sheet. You may want to cover the cooking sheet in foil for an easier clean-up. 

• Preheat oven to 450F.

• Place the sweet potato wedges, cauliflower florets, pancetta, paprika, rosemary, salt, pepper, and remaining olive oil in a large bowl. Toss it all together - make sure you get a good mix, and all the vegetables are evenly coated. 

• Spread the coated vegetables around the chicken on the baking sheet. Spread into a single layer as much as possible. 

• Pop the chicken and vegetables into the oven and roast for 25 - 30 minutes. 

• Remove the sheet pan from the oven. 

• Turn over the vegetables and add the capers. 

• Return the chicken and vegetables to the oven and roast for another 25 - 30 minutes, until internal temperature reaches 165F (at the thickest part of the chicken thigh).

• Let chicken rest for 5-10 minutes.

• You can toss the vegetables in the drippings and return to the oven for a few minutes if you want to brown them some more, but I have never needed to do that. 

• Then serve chicken and vegetables. 

• The wine dude at the butcher said chardonnay is the way to go if you are pairing with wine. 

And that's it! Only takes a little over an hour and is super good!