Creating Things Day Eighteen - Baked Chicken Thighs and Roasted Asparagus

On my last night here in St. Louis (for at least a while), I figured I should cook the rest of the food in the refrigerator.

Easy has little no to cooking skills, so leaving fresh meat/produce in his fridge would only go to waste. And there were chicken thighs and fresh asparagus sitting in the fridge.

I like baked chicken, but I rarely bake it just by itself unless it's a whole chicken. Seeing as how the chicken thighs are not a whole chicken, I needed extras.

Easy loves soup. He can't cook, remember, so his love of soup is expressed through canned soup. He recently bought a whole bunch of soup. One of those soups unfortunately was the cream of chicken condensed soup for Campbell's.

I love that soup. I make it and add rice and corn and it's delicious. Other than that, it's uses include cooking and cooking.

Easy doesn't want to eat the soup because he tried it once by itself and didn't enjoy the gloppiness of it.

I made him dinner one day last week with the cream of chicken soup for chicken legs and he loved it, so I figured I'd try again with thighs.

And of course, almost everything I make in this house has chicken broth in it. I just does. Don't judge me.

So first I had to clean the chicken. Seriously people, if you buy chicken with skin and bones, please clean your chicken before you start cooking it and thinking of serving it to people you love and cherish.

Then I seasoned it. Next came sauteing in the large skillet to sear the chicken and crisp up the skin.

I took the chicken out of the large pan and then made a quick sauce. First make a roux, then add the cream of chicken soup and chicken broth (and white wine if you have it).

I add the chicken back to the sauce and pop it all in a baking dish. Into the oven (375 degrees) for about 35 min. It only takes that long because the chicken is already 3/4 cooked.

In the last 10 minutes, put the asparagus which you've trimmed, drizzled with EVOO, salt, and pepper, onto a baking sheet and into the oven. Something new I tried was using the rest of the shredded Parmesan cheese from the cheesy garlic bread I made over the asparagus. It will melt over the top, but not mess up your baking sheet. I promise.

The food should come out bubbly and delicious. And it's a perfect use for all that unwanted Cream of Chicken soup. At least when one doesn't know how to make rice.