Roasted Chicken Breasts & Homemade Rice-A-Roni
My sister-in-law has totally gotten into cooking lately and I couldn't be more excited about that! She's got a real knack for pairing flavors and always seems to choose the best recipes when she's cooking. She was making some herbed chicken breasts the other night and they looked so incredibly delicious that I went right out the next morning and picked myself up some bone in-skin on breasts and got to work on the easiest, most delicious weeknight dinner ever. Read on.
Ingredients:
Chicken breasts, bone-in, skin-on
Zest of one lemon
1 lemon sliced 1/8" thick (use the same lemon you zested!)
fresh rosemary
fresh thyme
2 tablespoons olive oil
Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees on Convection Roast (or Bake if your oven doesn't have that feature). In a casserole dish, lay chicken breasts side by side. Sprinkle lemon zest over chicken, then slice the lemon and gently slide one slice under the skin of each breast.
Place the remaining lemon slices under the chicken breasts.
Gently insert a couple of sprigs of rosemary and a couple of sprigs of thyme under the skin with the lemon slices and generously sprinkle chicken with salt, pepper and garlic powder.
Drizzle olive oil evenly over chicken. Roast (or Bake) chicken for 45 minutes- 1 hour.
Homemade Chicken-Flavored Rice-A-Roni
My three favorite foods growing up were Chex mix, Top Ramen and Rice-A-Roni....and when I say they were my favorite, I mean I had a least one of those items EVERY SINGLE DAY. My taste buds have obviously come a long way since then, but I still love the taste of Rice-A-Roni...I just have a thing (ahem, aversion) about things that come in a box nowadays. I'd bet my last dollar that you can't taste a difference between mine and the original San Franciso treat's chicken flavor. It's remarkably easy to make this tasty rice/pasta dish from scratch and here's how I do it.
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup orzo pasta
1/2 cup white rice
2 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
Directions:
In a large skillet over medium high heat, melt butter and add onions. Saute, stirring often for about 3-4 minutes. When onions begin to brown, add the orzo and rice and continue stirring 2 minutes until pasta turns golden brown. Add broth and mix well. Cover pan, reduce heat to low and cook 18-20 minutes (sound familiar?), stirring occasionally. Fluff with fork and sprinkle with parsley before serving. YUM!
