Monday, April 18, 2011

Chicken with Lemon & Olives

I did something on Saturday night that I rarely do.. and should really do more often.

I get a lot of cooking magazines and I love to read them and ooh and ahh over the recipes and beautiful pictures.. and then I don't look back.  Way back when I started dating the BF he was horrified by my stacks of cooking mags that I had hidden under the coffee table in my living room.  The next time he came over he brought over these gigantic binders and told me to go through all the magazines, pull out the recipes I wanted and to please toss the rest.

and I did.  I was very good with it and I still have that binder... and I still haven't made more than half the recipes in there.. *GUILTY*  I can be such a recipe hoarder.  But in my own defense, since the BF and I started dating I moved and unfortunately my kitchen considerably downsized and therefore my kitchen adventures have been not as adventurous as I would like.  My kitchen is so small I don't even have a kitchen table... I have a .... hell, I don't even know what to call it other than sort of another counter that's roughly a foot wide and 3 feet long.  we could sit there and eat if I had stools, but I didn't want to shell out $$ for bar stools when I moved in and they weren't supplied.

Anyway....I digress.

Lets get back on track here.

Last week while The kid was on my computer doing his homework and there was absolutely nothing on TV I started to go to through the latest batch of cooking mags and wondering to myself.. WTF Ashley?  Why don't you make some of these recipes?  They look great, you know what you're doing just make a shopping list and go with it."

See, there's my problem.  I do my grocery trip on Fridays after work and more often than not I go without a list, which is bad bad bad.  I have to stick to a grocery budget of $50/week which isn't all that easy but it's still workable and I manage to do pretty well keeping within the budget buying only fresh foods and nothing prepackaged. (OMG I watched that show extreme couponing on TLC last week and was totally shocked at the amount of prepackaged foods these people consume. Gross!)

When I went grocery shopping on Friday armed with my list I got everything I needed and was happy that I would be sitting around going "hmm, what am I making for dinner tonight?" which I do more often than I'm willing to admit.

I made these Saturday night and wow, they were so good.  The only thing I was missing was honey because I was positive that I had a jar, but it turns out I didn't.  They were still fantastic though!


Chicken with Lemon and Olives

Recipe from Cooking Light Magazine

YIELD: 4 servings (serving size: 1 leg quarter and 2 tablespoons sauce)


COST PER SERVING:$2.39

Ingredients
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons honey
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
6 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
4 chicken leg quarters, skinned
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
16 pimiento-stuffed green olives, halved
1 lemon, thinly sliced
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°f.
2. Combine first 7 ingredients; marinate at room temperature 30 minutes.
3. Pour marinade into a 13 x 9-inch baking dish. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook 3 minutes on each side or until browned. Arrange chicken in dish; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Top with olives and lemon slices. Bake at 400°f for 40 minutes or until a thermometer registers 165°f.
4. Remove chicken from dish; keep warm. Strain sauce over a saucepan, reserving solids. Bring sauce to a boil; cook 3 minutes or until slightly thick. Stir in olives and garlic; serve with chicken and lemons. Top with parsley.




1 comments:

Christine's Pantry said...

Love chicken. Will have to try this. Thanks for sharing!

Christine