Since my son was born I have been trying to eat at home at least three dinners a week. It's just too much of an effort to take him out for dinner since he is cranky by the end of the day. But we also need things to eat that are easy and/or quick to make.
At some point I'd like to be a stay at home mom (SAHM). If I ever get that chance we'll have to eat at home instead of eating out. And I'll be the one who will have to make the majority of the dinners (it's part of the deal I've made with Hubby). So I've been trying to make new dishes on days off from work, when I can be as messy and as loud as I want, I can curse when I need to, and I Hubby isn't around to give me weird looks or ask questions. (I love you, Hubby!!)
I recently pinned this Pan Roasted Lemon-Garlic Chicken with Green Beans and Potatoes. It looked so delicious and everything was cooked in one dish -- I had to try it!
I should probably start out by saying that I am not a cook. I can bake just fine, but when I cook I tend to set off the smoke detector. It happened multiple times when Hubby and I first moved in together so he has done the majority of the cooking around here for the last five and a half years.
I was excited to try this dish because 1) it looked easy and 2) I was going to be out that evening. It sounded like something I could make ahead of time and leave instructions for Hubby to cook it while I was out so that it would be ready when I got home and we could scarf it down before putting the baby to bed.
I went to two stores to get the ingredients. (The Target by us has recently acquired grocery store status; however, their produce/poultry items are pretty limited. They have a ton of other fun things that I looked at and bought instead, but I digress.) Then I came home and started prepping, rocking to NIN and Matchbox Twenty as I went along.
Then I took the remaining 5tbs of olive oil, the juice of another lemon, salt, peper and 4 cloves of garlic (minced) and made the olive oil mixture.
I'm like some members of my family: I don't read directions; I just do. I put these ingredients in a small bowl and upon glancing at the next step, it said to do it in a large one. I realized after reading the next step why that was.
You add the green beans and toss everything together. Then take a straining spoon, remove the beans, and spread them in the baking dish. Then you do the same with your potatoes. I think I lost a bit of the olive oil when I had to pour it into a larger bowl.
When you have arranged your vegetables, you coat the chicken in the same olive oil mixture and put them on the baking dish.
As I was dicing, I realized that my potatoes were on the large size and I probably should have just bought four of them, instead of the eight small ones the recipie calls for. But hey, I love my carbs, so extra potatoes weren't a problem for me. I was just worried about whether or not it would affect the cooking time of the chicken, especially since we were on a tight schedule that evening and I wasn't going to be around for the cooking process.
It was my first time cooking bone-in skin-on chicken breasts. I am a fan of meat being a pre-prepared as possible. I hate touching it and I'm not even a huge fan of eating it. Luckily I was able to use the spoon to toss everything together and drizzle the remaining olive oil mixture over it. Win!
I covered it in foil, wrote baking instructions for Hubby and put it in the fridge (450 degree oven, roast for 50 minutes, take out chicken, roast veggies for another 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender). I probaby could (should?) have prepped this a lot later than I did. It sat in the fridge marinating for about five hours before it needed to be put in the oven. Our fridge had a nice garlicky smell by then!
Hubby was great and followed my directions. This is how it looked when it was done (and after I put the chicken back in the dish to get a picture of the completed project):
My overall opinions of this pin:
Was it easy? Yes
Was it delicious? Meh. We liked the potatoes. The chicken wasn't cooked very well. We had to stick it back in the oven. Hubby didn't like the green beans; they were too lemony since they were sitting on top of the lemons sitting on the bottom of the baking dish. I was hoping that the leftovers I took to work the next day would be good. I was disappointed.
Would I make it again? Yes, with tweeks. I won't put the slices of lemon in there. I might try juicing that lemon for the olive oil mixture instead. And I'll be using boneless, skinless chicken breasts next time. Hubby and I weren't a huge fan of these chicken breasts.
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