It’s the time of year where many of us have made resolutions, and we’re looking for ways to stick to them. Your resolution may include better health, which essentially comes down to nutrition and lifestyle.

You may be trying to keep a cleaner house. Maybe your new lifestyle is about spending more time with loved ones, and less time on the tedious details of life.

Maybe, you have a similar mindset to the one I have. No resolution necessarily, just always pushing for more and better, adding goals as you see fit.

Rather than drastic changes, you can change things one step at a time, fixing and tweaking things as you see them, and ever improving the aspects of your daily life.

Whatever your outlook may be on this new year, I have a simple recipe that will help accomplish several of those tasks.

Something that hits the target of eating more vegetables and lean protein, but something that also gives you less dishes than your typical meal that includes both of those food groups.

The more diverse your meal is, the more dishes you seem to have, but diverse is precisely the goal when trying to eat a balanced diet.

I also want to put out a disclaimer that this is not the absolute healthiest recipe available. If you don’t want to eat potatoes or a serving of butter, you can absolutely make other substitutions.

I, however, have to get a nine year old, six year old, and four year old to eat this, so we’re keeping the potatoes.

This recipe, from CafeDelites.com, uses one sheet pan, and to make it even easier on the cleanup end, you can use parchment paper to drastically reduce your cleanup even further.

Easy cleanup and less prep time also gives way to less total time spent in the kitchen which makes more time for other things. Time that could be used for exercise if that’s part of your goal, or time for family, reading, various other things that need and warrant our attention.

Sometimes I think we over complicate meals and many of the other tasks in our lives. A complex meal is great if you genuinely enjoy cooking and have time for that, but don’t let some quest for perfection steal away from your peace and joy.

This is me taking a great big dose of my own advice. All the easy meals this year to ensure more time for more important endeavors.

The easy meals with the easy cleanup, but with all the veggies and protein that we need.

Hopefully this year provides us with an abundance of recipes along that line that can be shared here.

As always, thanks for reading and happy new year from hbk!

Sheet Pan Garlic Herb Chicken

INGREDIENTS

1/3 C. low-sodium chicken broth or stock

1/4 C. unsalted butter, melted

1 Tbsp. finely chopped garlic

2 tsp. chopped fresh parsley

1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme

1 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary

1/2 tsp. salt, or more depending on preference

Fresh ground black pepper

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 lb. baby potatoes, peeled and quartered into 1-inch pieces

1 lb. green beans or asparagus

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees, prepare pan with parchment paper, or lightly grease with oil.

2. Mix the butter, broth, garlic, parsley, thyme and rosemary together in a bowl.

3. Place chicken on baking sheet and arrange the potatoes all around the chicken. Drizzle 1/2 cup of the sauce over the chicken and potatoes, seasoning well with salt and pepper. Lightly spray all over with olive oil spray or cooking oil spray.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes.

5. Carefully remove baking tray from the oven and turn over each chicken breast. Move the potatoes to one side and place the green beans around the chicken on the other side of the baking sheet. Pour the remaining garlic herb butter sauce over the beans, distributing well, then return to the oven for a further 10 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through, and reaches an internal temp of 165 degrees or higher.

6. Broil for 2-3 additional minutes, until chicken is golden and potatoes crisp.

7. Sprinkle with fresh chopped herbs, optional. Serve immediately.

Katy Wise is a Fredonia resident.