From my Instagram: Chicken and Vegetable Sheet Pan Dinner - Keto Friendly

Easy peasy - throw it all on a pan and roast. I posted this on my Instagram story today as I was making it - thought I'd pop it up on the blog quickly tonight before heading to bed to read myself into oblivion.

Amounts are dependent on how much you need, how much you want and yada yada.  Change up the vegetables too.  We are low carb, sugar free so although I'd love to have potatoes, we don't regularly eat them so I substituted turnips and radishes.  Broccoli is good in this - as is cauliflower.  I love it with tons of onions - but carbs and husbands mean little to no onions so I used some green onion tops.

Chicken and Vegetable Sheet Pan Dinner

Chicken thighs - bone in
Brussels Sprouts
Radishes
Turnips
Green onion tops
Bacon, cooked and crumbled
Mushrooms
Avocado Oil
Butter
Garlic
Salt and Pepper
Kinders Woodfire Garlic Seasoning or whatever seasoning you like

 

I used about 4 T butter, 2 t garlic, minced and some salt and pepper - mixed together and spread on the chicken.  Then sprinkled with one of my current favorite seasonings that I find myself putting on almost everything... Kinder's Woodfire Garlic. 

Clean and trim the turnips and radishes.  Cube.  I chose to soak the turnip cubes for an hour or so in a mixture of heavy cream with some salt and a little water, in order to draw out some of  the 'bite' so they would be more like potatoes. The sprouts were halved and put in a Ziploc with real bacon pieces, the mushrooms, green onion tops and radishes.  Add about 2-T avocado oil, some salt and pepper and let it marinate while the turnips soak.

Drain and rinse the turnips.  Add to the veggies.  Massage the bag to cover everything with the oil and seasoning.  Pour onto your baking sheet.  You can line it with parchment or foil if you wish first.  Then top the vegetables with the chicken.

Put into a preheated oven at 425 degrees and bake for about 40 minutes.  When the chicken is done and everything is golden, you can serve as is - or if you like the chicken extra crispy (we do) I flip the chicken pieces over onto another pan and place them under the broiler for a couple minutes.  When they are as crispy as you like, take them out and serve them with the veggies.

 

The chicken is topped with the butter garlic mixture and woodfire garlic seasoning

 

Soaking the turnips to take the bite out

 

 

The veggies are marinating while the turnips soak - the prep work is almost done.

 

Into the oven with you...... 

Out of the oven and done....

 

 

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Low Carb Spaghetti Puttanesca - (Even with some substitutions using things I had on hand to work with, it was fabulous!)

 

 

 

"Spaghetti Puttanesca" How can so little ingredients taste so good? 

 

Last weekend we returned home after a long week away at the beach for vacation.  Because I had been carefully using up all the fresh ingredients we had before we left (so nothing would go bad or go to waste while we were gone) we had very little in the house by way of 'fresh' to use for an easy dinner.

I was needing some inspiration for a meal so I opened one of my bajillion 3-ring notebooks where I have typed out, collected and hand written recipes.  I saw two little tiny pink pieces of paper where I had jotted down the ingredients for "Puttanesca".

Glancing over the ingredients I thought to myself "This would be a great way to use some of that tube of anchovy paste I have in the refrigerator that has never seen the light of day since that one recipe made with it... so long ago now that I don't even recall what it was!"

Let's see...

Anchovies?  Check.
Olive oil?  No problem.
Garlic?  Of course.
Canned tomatoes.  Absolutely.
Kalamata olives... shoot.  I used them up right before vacation.  But we have green olives!  Just as salty and yummy.
Capers.  Nope... only have those on hand when I make my homemade tartar sauce.  But oh well.
Crushed Red Pepper Flakes.  Oh yes.  Always!

And I had low carb pasta on hand as well since I had ordered a few bags of it a couple months ago!

Woowhoooo!  Let's do this thing!

 

Even with the substitutions I had to make, it was incredible!  Surprisingly, my HUSBAND loved it, which I wasn't sure he would even give it a chance considering it had green olives and anchovies in it.  He loved it and raved about it two different times so I know he wasn't just being polite.  Ha ha.

 

 

  

The photos for this post are the ones I took to post on my Instagram that night (so if you follow me on Instagram, you'll have already seen them!)      

 

Substitutions were needed based on what we had on hand...

Low Carb Spaghetti Puttanesca

3 T olive oil or avocado oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 t anchovy paste
1 - 28 oz. (ish) can diced tomatoes
1/3 - 1/2 c green olives, sliced
1/2 t oregano
1 t crushed red pepper flakes
Low Carb Pasta of choice (spaghetti, rotini, penne - or use spiralized zucchini or Palmini Angel Hair Pasta)

 

Boil your pasta while you are making the sauce.  If you are using the Low Carb Bread Company pasta like I did, you only need about 1/2 - 3/4 of the 8 oz. bag.  I used 3/4 of the bag in the photos here.  Next time I'll just use half so we have more sauce, less pasta.

Put the oil in a saucepan on the stove and heat over medium high heat.  Add the garlic and anchovy paste, stir and cook just a minute then add your tomatoes.  When it starts to simmer/boil, lower the heat and simmer it for a few minutes while you finish the pasta, and drain it. Add the sliced olives, oregano and red pepper flakes.  Stir and let simmer 2-3 minutes - toss with the pasta and serve. 

I sprinkled a bit of black pepper and Parmesan on ours and a bit of fresh minced basil from my kitchen window planter.

(I whipped up some garlic bread using keto bread to serve with it... totally up to you of course!)

 

 

SUBSTITUTIONS
Obviously if you have the original ingredients on hand you can use them.

Kalamata Olives for the green olives
Add 1-2 T capers
Regular pasta if you aren't keto or low carb
3 anchovy fillets instead of the paste