Silicone Baking Mat: Roasted Chicken with Turnips and Green Bean Casseroles

The real focus of this post is not the roasted chicken, turnips, or green bean casserole but rather a silicone baking mat. These mats are nonstick, and don't need to be greased; basically they replace parchment paper or anything you would use to line a pan. It's great! Patrick had been wanting one for quite awhile so I tipped Mom off last Christmas that he would enjoy a silicone baking mat. Imagine his surprise!

I must admit it got little use the first few months we had it because we'd never had one before and just thought it would be good for cookies. Then slowly we began experimenting with recipes; "oh the silicone mat would be good for this, let's try it" and so on and so on until now we're using it the majority of the time. We enjoyed it so much we even bought a smaller one that fits the toaster oven pan since we use it so much! It makes clean up a breeze too.

As you can it's the flexible blue mat lining the baking pan. Since we would be using the oven we decided to get everything in there. We marinated the chicken and placed it on one half of the baking dish; then diced turnips and tossed them in evoo with salt and pepper so everything could roast at the same time. We also placed a standard green bean casserole in the oven. One note is to make sure your cooking times will be the same otherwise you will need to start the item that needs the longest cooking time first and then take out the pan and add the other item.

And everything turns out like this!

We highly recommend these as stocking stuffers! What fun kitchen items do you use as stocking stuffers?!

Also, thanks Mom for the silicone baking sheet. We have really enjoyed it.