Meal

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

I found a recipe on Pinterest titled ‘Rainbow Chicken’ which looked delicious. After a teensy bit of searching, I found the source of the recipe, which can be found here via Kitchen Parade. However, as I do with most recipes, I changed it up a bit, so here’s my version!

I refer to this recipe as ‘Kitchen Sink Chicken’ simply because it is so versatile. You can throw in any combo of veggies you want and it will still be delectable. That’s my kind of recipe. Also, my version feeds two adults + one toddler, however it can easily be adapted to more people – just up your ingredients proportionally.

Ingredients

2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts (This is just what I use – really use any kind of chicken meat you want!)
4 tsp paprika
2 tsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp garlic powder
3 tsp olive oil
2 tbl red wine vinegar (or in my case you can discover you are OUT of red wine vinegar and make your own using 1 parts red wine to 2 parts apple cider vinegar! Works like a charm.
1 lemon
1 medium sized onion

For the vegetables you can really use whatever you want! I used:

1 zucchini
1 summer squash
2 small red potatoes
2 1/2 carrots (aka all I had left in my fridge)
roughly 1 cup cauliflower florets
roughly 1 cup broccoli florets

Neither my little one or myself like peppers, so we left those out. But if you like them – toss them in for sure!

Preheat your oven to 425F.

After gathering all my veggies, I started off making the spice rub first.

Then it’s time to chop up the big stack of veggies (excluding the onion and lemon). I totally forgot to take a picture of my pile of chopped veg. . .whoopsie daisy.

Then, chop your onion and line the bottom of the pan with them.

Take your chicken out, and give them a good rub down of the spice mixture with your fingers. I’d say I used about 2 – 3 tsps of the mixture per breast, just to give you an idea. When finished, lay them on top of the onion bed.

Looks pretty good already!

Next grab a (giant) bowl – large enough to hold your whole pile of chopped veggies with room for stirring! I used a spatula to transfer my rub mixture into the big bowl. Had I thought ahead, I would have just made the rub IN the big bowl. . .but I didn’t. Next time! Pour your veggies in on the top of the rub and give them a good stirring to thoroughly coat them as much as possible.

Spread the veggies around and on top of the chicken.

Then slice up your lemon, remove any seeds, and lay on top of your meal.

How delicious does this look?! Om nom nom.

Cover with foil and bake! Mine took about an hour and a half but my chicken breasts were very thick. I’d still say an hour minimum is a good place to start. Once done, let cool for 10 -15 minutes, then serve and enjoy!