Cooking for Dad

Tonight, Mom takes the night off and goes out to dinner with her "girlfriends." She gave me a recipe to prepare, Provencal Vegetables and Chicken in Packages, for my father and myself from Mark Bittman's cookbook "The Food Matters." In his cookbook, Bittman emphasizes healthier dishes with less meat and more vegetables. As he puts it, "meat and other animal products are included, but they are no longer the centerpiece." Many of the recipes are a bit out-of-the-box, such as Dal, or lentil stew, with what he labels as "lots of vegetables" and also a recipe for spinach and noodle "meatballs." My parents have adopted this veggie-emphasized diet as of lately.

To my surprise, the recipe my mother had chosen to prepare is reminiscent of how I used to cook while I was abroad in Paris. Throwing vegetables (especially mushrooms) in tin foil and cooking them in the oven is a deliciously simple way to prepare them. Bittman's recipe followed the same philosophy. The recipe is straightforward and easy to follow -

Ingredients:
-1 small eggplant, cut into cubes
-An appropriate amount of yukon gold potatoes, sliced
-2 zucchini, sliced
-1 or 2 ripened tomatoes, cored and diced
-salt and pepper
-fresh thyme or something of comparable quality
-chicken breasts
-olive oil

Instructions (my interpretation of the recipe):
-Heat the oven to 375.
-After cutting the vegetables, rub them with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme.
-Prepare the chicken in the same manner, with olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme.
-With an appropriate amount of tin foil, combine the vegetables onto the "package" and seal it gently. Do the same with the chicken on a separate package.
-Cook all the packages in the oven for at least 40 minutes (it took me almost an hour for the potatoes to become tender). Make sure the chicken doesn't overcook.

Although the dish takes a bit longer to prepare than I intend, Dad is quite satisfied with his dinner tonight! So am I.