Categorizing Dinner

How do you categorize your recipes?

For those of us who keep many, many recipes, it is always a quandary on how you categorize them. Prior to the electronic keeping of recipes, I was always forced to decide where to put a recipe. Take something as simple as spaghetti and meat sauce. In the most basic designation, it could be filed under “Dinner”. In a more detailed organization it could go under Italian, pasta, or beef as well.

When I started to electronify my recipes with the Paprika app, I found a different issue: too many categories.

I have talked up the app extensively, but one of the features I like is that I can not only create whatever categories I want, but recipes can fall into as many categories as I want.

My current categorization includes:

• Meal: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack
• Course: soup, salad, appetizer, dessert
• Significant ingredient: Beef, chicken, cheese, etc…
• Diet: low carb, vegetarian
• Cuisine: Italian, German, Mexican, etc….
• Cooking method: slow cooker, grill

And most recently

• Blog related: blogged, not blogged yet

Even with all of these designations I find I need more. The most recent one I am contemplating is to identify weekend dishes. These are ones with total prep and cooking time greater than 60-75 minutes. The only thing keeping me from pulling the trigger is going through all 850 recipes to categorize them. (Yes, I know. I could add the designation as I go, but that would just be sloppy).

I need that designation as too often I will add a recipe to the weekly menu without realizing that the time commitment is really too extensive for my weekday cooking. This is one such recipe.

The chicken was great with the skin being the best part.

I had a couple of split chicken breasts already and love thighs so bought two packs of those.

I cut the veggies slightly different than what the recipe called for.

This is a big pan but it looks small with all that chicken in it.

Beautiful.

Succulent!

Family-Style Chicken

Prep Time: 15 mins | Cook Time: 2 hr 0 min | Makes: 4 servings | Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

• Vegetable spray, as needed

Vegetables:

• 3 ribs celery, cut into thirds
• 2 medium yellow squash, halved crosswise
• 2 medium zucchini, halved crosswise
• 1 medium yellow onion, quartered (about 1 cup)
• 1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and quartered
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

Chicken:

• 1 (4-pound) chicken, cut into 8 pieces
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
• 4 bay leaves

Garnish:

• Lemon zest, for garnish
• Chopped parsley, for garnish
• Equipment: 1 large roasting pan

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Lightly coat the roasting pan with vegetable spray.

Make the Vegetables: Toss all of the ingredients in a large bowl, and arrange them in the roasting pan, leaving room in the center for the chicken.

Prepare the Chicken: Nestle the chicken pieces in the center of the pan. Combine the remaining ingredients and sprinkle evenly over the chicken. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour.

Remove the chicken from the oven and baste with the drippings. Continue baking uncovered until well browned, about 1 hour more. Arrange the chicken on a platter surrounded by the vegetables. Sprinkle with the garnish

Source: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/george-stella/family-style-chicken-recipe/index.html