Jimmy Smith's Sheet Pan Chicken

Let us guess: Your wife is pregnant. The doctor says she needs to increase the amount of protein in her diet and it can't be soy based since soy is a pseudo-estrogen. However, the two of you have been pseudo-vegetarians for most of your adult lives and you know about as much about cooking meat as

you do changing diapers (i.e., you changed one once and it fell off within two minutes of the kid standing up). To complicate things further, you spend three hours a day commuting, have house guests coming over, and have to cut down on salt because of a risk of preeclampsia.

Cast your worries away, friend. Jimmy Smith is here to save the day with a recipe that is as simple as a 12-bar blues and can feed a crowd. Here's what you do:

1. Get skin on, bone in chicken and a variety of veggies (carrots, corn on cob, squash, beets)
2. Preheat oven to 375
3. Cut the veggies into 1/2-3/4 inch cubes
4. Dress both chicken and veggies in olive oil and Mrs. Dash. If your wife is not at risk for preeclampsia, you can use salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, and garlic powder instead of salt-free Mrs. Dash. The Mrs. Dash actually tastes great though.
5. Spread everything onto a big sheet pan
6. Put the pan in the oven and hit play on The Incredible Jimmy Smith's Back at the Chicken Shack:

7. While baking, make some rice or bulgar

8. When the album is over (about 45 minutes), you can either take the goods out and enjoy or broil for three minutes to crispify. Warning: we've over-crispified by broiling once or twice and now skip this step. Either way, the chicken should come out impressively moist and no one will ever complain that it tastes like wood. 

While you're in process and giving your wife a much deserved back or foot massage, be sure to check out the innovative way Smith's drummer, Donald Bailey, uses his foot on the hi-hat for the swing note on the album's title track.