Tonight’s chicken was lemony goodness and very easy to prepare.  I’m a fan of just a few steps to great food, the oven does most of the work here, slowly roasting to perfection.  My husband is a big poultry fan.  When we go to restaurants, often I will order a steak and my husband some chicken or turkey.  It never fails that the server will swap our plates and give my husband the steak and me the chicken. We taste off of each other’s plates though, so in the end it doesn’t matter.  He won’t swap this though.  I had to let him chew the bones a little before I put them in the freezer so that he could pick off every morsel of chicken left behind.

Today’s chicken we bought fresh from the market yesterday.  You tell them what you want and they will bag it and even skin, bone and cut it up for you all in a few minutes.  They’re really fast.  I bought two whole chickens and a couple of whole breasts split along with some sausage.  The chicken was free range, from a local farmer and that made me happy.  It’s more expensive than the grocery store, but very tasty and local, so I pay a little more for better quality. These chickens were not frozen before I got to them.  One chicken we had for dinner, the rest went into the freezer for later.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo of after I roasted the chicken.  My daughter was leaving for school and I cut a hunk of cooked breast off, and sent it with her to have in her salad for dinner.  I have a before photo that shows how I pulled the skin away from the chicken and stuffed the lemons and rosemary in between the skin and the meat.  You may need to use a knife to start the slit, but after you get it separated you should be able to slide your hand right in.

I sliced the lemons and slid them flat in between the skin and meat.  The two ends of the lemons went into the cavity.  I snipped bunches of rosemary from my plants that I have growing in pots in the diningroom.  Then I tore the leaves up and smashed them before shoving the rosemary in around the chicken.  A couple of branches went into the cavity as well.  I poured a little olive oil over top of the chicken and just smoothed it all around.  A sprinkle of salt and pepper as desired and bake in the oven uncovered at 375 until the thermostat reaches about 165.

Ingredients:

• Precooked chicken (like leftover barbecue)
• Dei Fratelli’s Black Bean and Corn Salsa
• Cooked Rice
• Lettuce
• Cheese (we used Colby Jack)

Peel Chicken from the bone into bite size pieces.  Mix together with a jar of Salsa in a bowl.  Place inside a lettuce leaf, a small spoonful of rice, the salsa and cheese.  Roll it up together.  That’s the whole recipe.  If you don’t have a thick enough lettuce leaf it can be messy (we used some garden lettuce – it was a little on the small size) and you might just want to assemble a salad by layering the ingredients.  This is a great work night, or busy night dinner.  When everyone was done, my husband went back and threw the remnants into one last final salad for himself because it was too good to leave anything behind. 

What about you, are you inspired by reading other people’s post?  Do you happen upon something and think – I could do that?  I hope that you try out our Cookerati recipes and ideas and I hope they work out well for you too!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 box farfalle cooked according to directions
• 1 whole chicken breast grilled and diced
• bunch of asparagus
• 1 handful pecans
• 4 oz goat cheese
• 1 big bunch of all different herbs – tarragon, chives, thyme and parsley
• garlic pepper
• salt
• grated parmesan

Directions:

In a pan with a little more cooking spray – toast pecans and asparagus chopped into bite size pieces(woody stems removed). Drain Farfalle and place into big bowl or back into pot. Throw in chicken and asparagus mixture.  Throw in some crumbled goat cheese, and the herbs chopped.  Sprinkle on garlic pepper , salt and parmesan cheese and mix together .  My husband had seconds then was standing at the stove making noises while he finished off what was left in the pot.  The toasted pecans really made the dish. 

Ingredients:

• 2 large chicken breasts – sliced in half, then pounded flat. 
• 16 spears of asparagus
• Herbed Garlic Chevre
• Grated Parmesan Cheese
• Herbs – basil, parsley
• Salt
• Garlic-Pepper

Dollop the Herbed Garlic Chevre on the flattened chicken breast and place 4 spears of asparagus on top.  Roll the chicken up around the asparagus.  Sprinkle with Parmesan Cheese, Salt, Garlic Pepper and Herbs. Place in glass pan, or casserole dish, and cover with aluminum foil.  Bake in the oven on 350 until Chicken is done.  About 10 minutes before it will be done take the aluminum foil off.

Herbed Garlic Chevre

• Parsley
• Basil
• 2 cloves garlic
• thyme
• 4 oz basil garlic chevre

Sauté garlic in oil to soften.  Peel parsley, basil and thyme off stems and coarsely chop.  Put it into bullet or other small processor or chop finely, and chevre, and whirl to combine.  Use this to dollop on the chicken breasts.

You could really smell the garlic in the kitchen while it was cooking and taste it in the cheese.

I served this with resmashed potatoes.  I added a little cream, some gouda, and parmesan, salt, garlic pepper and herbs.  Place in ramekins, sprinkle with garlic pepper, then parmesan cheese – It will have a nice cooked brown parmesan top to it when it’s ready.  Throw it in the oven with the chicken for about 20 minutes (place in pan with water).

Dinner was a success.  Though the chicken didn’t need a sauce or gravy – it wasn’t dry, the bottom of the pan was filled with good stuff my husband and I kept scraping, so maybe deglazing the pan and making a sauce with it is something I might try next time.