Bacon-wrapped Roasted Chicken with Bacon Tomato Fried Rice

Many elements of life remind us that the rationality upon which our society is founded is but a sham—love, parenting, picking out the right outfit. Severe morning sickness (HG) is one of those things where the rational mind searches for patterns and your stomach refuses to conform. I wish I understood the unspoken Spinx-like riddles of my stomach.

So, yesterday when we were told the baby needed to gain more weight, and that I should ingest more caloric foods, I thought, “good luck.” Trust me, my limited diet is not a life-choice. It is more like someone imposing a cult-like diet onto me for 80 % of a year. But, I digress from the food. So, the doctor has said if you can only eat a little make it very caloric. Makes sense—the real estate is small make it worthwhile. But, the problem is finding caloric foods that will agree with me. And, there is no sense of what that would be. For a while, with my pregnancy with Belle, I decided to only eat what I was craving, figuring that my body had the secret answers. That didn’t really work.

But, hope springs eternal, so we continue to try to find things that won’t upset my stomach. My husband decided to take on the proactive role. He made a roast chicken inspired by the most recent issue of Gourmet Magazine but wrapped in bacon and served with tomato, bacon fried rice. While the taste I had was delicious, my stomach chose to abstain.

This is also our entry for the Royal Foodie Joust, which we are entering because we love Nuria. The ingredients were tomato, bacon and rice. As tomatoes are not at their peak right now here in the great state of Ohio, we used some cherry tomatoes, tomato paste, and tomato juice.

Recipes:
Bacon-wrapped Roasted Chicken
adapted from Gourmet magazine

Butcher the chicken to make it flat (either by cutting out the back or by following the Gourmet magazine description (which we did).

Marinade for 2 hours in:
3 T Green Mango (vadu mango) pickle
3 crushed garlic cloves
4 T olive oil
3 T pimenton
3 sprigs of fresh oregano, roughly chopped
1 T ground cumin
pinch of allspice
juice of 2 limes
3 sprigs cilantro, roughly chopped
1/2 cup tomato juice

Drape 3-4 strips of bacon over the bird. Put in a roasting pan and weigh down with 2-3 tin-foil covered bricks. Cook for 45 minutes at 500 degrees.

Tomato, Bacon Fried Rice
Sautee in bacon fat:
3 shallots diced finely
1 clove crushed garlic
2 T tomato paste
2 cups day old, cooked brown rice
2 t dried oregano

Add:
a splash of chicken stock
2 T roughly chopped cilantro
1/3 cup chopped grape tomatoes

Serve with crumbled bacon