Cooking

Although I am actually not a huge fan of lemon flavored foods, I love this meal. The lemon doesn’t overwhelm the other flavors, and it’s a great combination with thyme. Plus, the lemon smells amazing, and just screams SPRINGTIME!! and FRESHNESS!! while it’s cooking. To me at least.

You will need:

2 -3 cloves garlic
1 – 2 tbl olive oil
2 lemons
2 chicken breasts
1 cups chicken broth
ground thyme
salt and pepper

Start by zesting one lemon.

Then mince your garlic cloves.

Combine your olive oil, lemon zest, garlic, and 1/2 tsp thyme in a bowl. Mix until combined.

Place your chicken breast in a pan, and pour in the chicken broth. Pardon my really old, stained, glass pan!

Then pour on your oil mixture, evenly covering both chicken breasts.

Sprinkle on some more thyme – I didn’t measure, just a light dusting. Add on salt and pepper.

Cut your second lemon into four wedges.

Squeeze the juice evenly over the chicken,

and then place the wedges in the pan.

Cover with foil, and cook at 375F for about fifty minutes, then uncover and cook for another ten. Serve with your favorite rice, and your veggie of choice! Make sure you drizzle the cooked juices over the rice – it’s heavenly.

Enjoy!

-Kayly

The first of my many apple recipe posts just had to be apple crisp. It is my absolute favorite apple dessert. A thick crust of brown sugary oatmeal goodness on top of a baked bed of cinnamon apples. . .just to die for.

I don’t actually use a recipe when I make apple crisp – all the ones I’ve tried never end up with enough topping for my tastes. I like a THICK amount of it, not just a smidge on top of the apples. So the recipe here is a rough idea of what I use, but mine varies from batch to batch. Feel free to play with it so it’s adjusted to your tastes!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 cups baking oats
1/2 cup butter
5 small to medium size apples (I used Macintosh for this particular batch.)
Lemon juice

Preheat your oven to 375F.

Start by combining your flour, sugar, and oats. Mix thoroughly – I do all this by hand instead of with a spoon as I find it mixes better overall.

Then add in your butter, and mix up. Again, I do this by hand as I find that creates a better texture for the topping (I do use a spoon to scrape down the sides however). Once combined, set aside.

Now it’s time to peel and slice your apples. My mom got me this Pampered Chef all in one Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer and it makes every apple-baking project about 500% more efficient than hand cutting and peeling your apples. I highly recommend the investment into this contraption. It may look like an 18th century torture device, but it is amazing. I ended up using only 5 of the apples I’d set out for the crisp, because that was what filled my pan. That’s how I measure how many to use – however many fills my 9×9 pan.

Once the apples are in, I squirt some lemon juice on top and then sprinkle with some cinnamon sugar.

Then place your crust on. This is yet another step I do by hand since I find it much easier to place the topping with my fingers than to try and smear it around with a spoon.

I bake mine uncovered for 30 minutes. This allows the crust to get a nice crunchy top, but still be chewy on the underside. So each bite is a fabulous combination of crunchy, chewy, and gooey apple. Mmmmmm. Definitely eat it warm – with or without ice cream. I actually prefer apple crisp without ice cream; I save it for the pie!