Roasted Chicken with Moscato Peach Sauce and Black Rice

First of all, you don't have to use black rice. I just happened to see a giant bag of it at Costco and decided to try it. It looks really pretty (if you compare them in your brain to shiny black pebbles instead of bugs) and it tastes sweeter and nuttier than regular white rice. Don't follow the water amounts on the bag though, I noticed that it needed the standard 2 cups water to 1 cup rice just like any other kind, but you do need to cook it for 30 minutes like it says, I didn't add anything fancy to the rice, just salt and butter at the end. 

Now to the chicken. I use chicken thighs- they cook quickly and they stay moist no matter what. If you absolutely insist on using chicken breast (because you're a weirdo like my husband) then at least use the breast with the bone and skin still on.  I'm yawning just thinking about chicken breast. For this recipe, you want 8-10 chicken thighs (two per person). 

Season the thighs first with:
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 heaping tablespoon (or more) of dried herb, I used thyme, but you can do sage or marjoram, or whatever strikes your fancy.
 
The peach sauce:

2 cups of fresh peaches, peeled, pitted and chopped
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup Muscat wine (Moscato) cheap stuff is fine
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper or white pepper
1 tablespoon of cornstarch diluted in a little bit of water

Bring the ingredients to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes.

To cook everything in order:

-Preheat the oven to 375 for the chicken. 
-Get your peach sauce going on the stove.
-Start the water boiling for the rice. 
-Put the seasoned chicken in a roasting pan in the oven. 
-Pour your rice into the boiling water, cover, turn down to simmer and set your timer for 30 minutes. 
-At the end of that time, pour peach sauce over the top of the chicken and put the chicken back in the oven another 15 minutes. 
 -After pouring the sauce on the chicken, turn the heat off of the rice and let it sit there covered until the chicken is done.

Serve the chicken with the buttered and salted rice and lots of the pan juices poured over the top.

Obviously you could serve white wine with this, but a cold beer and biscuits would be good too.