Pantry Challenge: Peachy Baked Chicken

As promised, I'm using whatever I can find in the kitchen to make inventive meals this week.  Tonight's recipe is a baked chicken casserole.  I was going for apricot and ginger but for some reason I have about five cans of sliced peaches so I went in that direction instead!

Raiding the pantry and freezer can be an interesting task, but in amongst the dead celery and year-old frozen pie, I found a large tray of chicken legs, a tin of peaches, some fresh ginger and a half can of chopped tomatoes.  With those ingredients, this meal was a bit of a no-brainer and I'm kind of nervous about what the rest of the week holds - I'm pretty sure I just used up all the hidden gems but we'll see...!

I cooked this in the oven since I also wanted to do a bit of baking, it took about an hour and a half so I think it would make a great slow cooker meal.  There is enough sugar in the fruit to provide a glaze for the chicken (which is slow cooked and soft with a yummy crunchy skin) and there's enough sharpness from the ginger and depth from the worcester sauce that the dish isn't too sweet.

Peachy Chicken Casserole

serves four

Four large chicken legs, skin on

2-4 serves of casserole veggies of your choice (I used two sad carrots and half a kumara)
1 tin sliced peaches
1/2 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce
1 diced onion
1 inch cube fresh ginger, diced very finely
1/2 cup salt reduced stock or 1 stock cube dissolved in 1/2 cup water

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
In a large ovenproof dish, place the chicken legs and the vegetables and then pour the rest of your ingredients on top.  My tinned peaches were "in syrup" so I rinsed them with water to get rid of most of the sugar - the fruit is naturally sweet enough and you don't need the extra sugar from the syrup. Once everything's in the pan, season the tops of the chicken with black pepper and pop in the oven.
Some ovens are hotter than others, so do check on your dish every so often. After about an hour you will need to quickly take the dish out of the oven and manoeuvre the ingredients so the tops of the chicken are exposed.  The fruits and stock will have cooked down and made a yummy sauce, spoon some over the chicken to help glaze the tops.  Pop back in the oven for 20-30 minutes then it's ready.

 This would be delicious with mashed potato or brown rice but if you are feeling like showing off, it's great served with home-made bread :)