Okay, so we all know that I cannot bake for the life of me (I am working on that–may just be a life goal of mine one day) One thing I can do is cook. I LOVE to cook. I love the creativity that goes into cooking. Sure, you can follow a recipe, but most of the time you can always improvise, or add something/take something away to make it truly yours. All day yesterday, I had a craving for a roasted chicken. I mean a whole chicken–bone in. There is something magical about the tenderness of chicken breast that has been cooked with the skin on-bone in. I find it 10 times more flavorful than just skinless, chicken breasts.
Before we get to my amazingly delicious roast chicken, I will share some other good things
Good thing 1) A bowl of hot oatmeal to fuel me for my workout Saturday morning. I topped it with some cinnamon, pumkpin pie spice and a drizzle of sugar free syrup. It was poured over egg whites and some fresh strawberries
Good thing 2) I took out the good ole George Foreman grill from the cabinet. Dusted it off and decided to cook up some chicken for the week!
I forgot how easy and delicious George Foreman chicken breasts can be! I LIVED off this thing in college.
Good thing 3) Coffee + Protein = Post workout Protein Frappucino
- 1 scoop cake batter (can use any protein)
- 5 ice cubes
- 1 C water
- 4 oz cold coffee
- 1/4 tsp each xanthan and guar gums
- splash of almond milk
Good thing 4) A delicious lunch!!!
And now onto the roasted chicken breast. For some reason, roasting a whole chicken, or as my family likes to call it “a Joey” intimidates me. I always get scared that I will cook the outside and we’ll bite into it and it will be raw. I know I need to get a thermometor, but I’m just not there yet. Baby steps, right? I decided to pick up some bone in breasts instead of the whole chicken…again, baby steps
This chicken was going to be lemon-rosemary and garlic chicken breasts (I will post the recipe at the end)
I remember in Israel, Rosemary grows there as prevalant as normal trees do here! You would walk the streets and get this wafting of the most amazing rosemary you will ever taste and smell. I LOVE this fragrant, powerful spice
I started by peeling off the “meat” of the spice
started chopping it up!
I mixed some sea salt and ground pepper in a bowl
Added the fresh rosemary
Crushed up some fresh garlic. These bulbs were HUGE!
Added the garlic
Followed by some diced lemon peel ( I was supposed to zest but didn’t have a zester) and some fresh lemon juice
And cleaned by work space
I added 1 tablespoon of olive oil and mixed it all together!
I used to be so scared of touching raw chicken. Now, after living through 4 years of anatomy and physiology, dissecting all sorts of animals and brains…I guess it doesn’t really bother me!
Take off rings<---important step
Lift and stuff. I simply separated the skin of the chicken breasts and stuffed the marinade inside
I gave the breasts a nice massage 🙂
It smelled INCREDIBLE!! I let it sit for about 1 hour.
In the meantime I had a snack of 1/2 C liquid eggwhites and 1/2 C cooked brown rice with cinnamon
Placed chickens on the roasting pan
Paired with some roasted brussels sprouts-this was a dinner of CHAMPIONS!
Roasted Chicken Breasts With Rosemary And Lemon
serves 2-4
This is one of the simplest and most flavorful chicken dishes we can imagine. Together, rosemary and lemon have a particular affinity for roasted meats. The hot oven makes the chicken’s skin extra-crispy.
ingredients
4 bone-in chicken breast halves (2 whole breasts)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves of garlic-crushed (I added this to the recipe)
timer
prep: 10 minutes
total: 1 hour
tools
small bowl
shallow roasting pan
tongs
digital, instant-read meat thermometer
instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 450F and put the rack in the middle position. Pat the chicken breasts dry.
2. Mix the rosemary, salt, pepper, lemon zest, lemon juice and olive oil together in a small bowl. Press the mixture into the flesh of the chicken on all sides.
3. Put the chicken breasts on a shallow roasting pan breast side-down. Roast for 15 minutes then turn the chicken breast side-up. Continue roasting until the breasts reach 160F in the thickest part, another 15-30 minutes. Remove the chicken to a plate to rest, loosely covered with foil, for 5 minutes.
Random but excited for another good thing. I got a camera case! (I didn’t have one before I am SUPER psyched!!)
And a clear coating for my iphone (they say the bubbles dissapear in a few days)
But you can’t really tell when the screen is on!
Lunch of champions. Leftover chicken breasts atop a salad
With leftover brussels!
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- Do you like roasted chicken? Have you ever roased a whole chicken?
- What is one good thing that happened to you this weekend, or about your day right now?
- What is your favorite way to cook? (stove top, oven, grill etc…)