More About Chicken

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A protein, a starch, two veggies. One of my proudest moments. The chicken had a bit more kick to it than I thought it would, but my husband loved it and the kids both ate it up. (Henry needed ketchup, of course, and Calvin liked squeezing a lemon on it every few bites, but hey, they ate meat!!!) Anyway, here’s the recipe:

Chicken Diablo

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (I used the kind out of the plastic lemon)
2 tbs. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed (I used the equivalent of two cloves out of one of those huge jars of pre-minced garlic)
¾ tsp. ground black pepper
salt (optional)
1 lemon, cut into wedges

1. In a wide, shallow bowl, combine everything except the chicken and the lemon wedges. Add the chicken and turn to coat it well. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for at least one hour. (Mine marinated for half the day, but I don’t know how much difference that makes.)
2. When you’re ready for dinner, prepare outdoor grill for grilling or preheat broiler. Drain marinade into small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat; set aside. (I had to add a little more lemon juice to have enough to boil.)
3. Grill or broil chicken 6 to 8 inches from heat source 6 to 8 minutes on each side until meat thermometer inserted in center registers 170 F. (Yeah, didn’t use a meat thermometer – David just made sure it wasn’t clucking anymore by cutting the thickest piece and checking the inside after it had all cooked for about 15 minutes.) During cooking, turn chicken 2 or 3 times, brushing with boiled marinade.
4. To serve, garnish with lemon wedges.

This meal was great because the marinade was super simple to stir up, and then David was grilling while I steamed the veggies (8 minutes) and boiled the pierogies (8 minutes - Mrs. T’s frozen, but you could do mashed or baked potatoes or corn almost as quickly). So dinner was completely ready to serve in twenty minutes, and there were only two pans to clean up. Easy, easy, easy, and quite tasty. Not to mention nutritionally well-balanced and aesthetically pleasing. I think you could probably Tex-Mex the recipe, too, with lime instead of lemon, and some salsa and sour cream on top.

Didn’t really plan dessert, so I’ll think up something real luscious for that the next time I have a wanna-be-Betty-Crocker day. But this time around, that bucket of cookie dough I bought at Costco last week came in handy…ten minutes and there was a batch of warm gooey ones for whoever took three bites because they are three years old. Good thing I've resisted the urge all week to eat it in dough form by the spoonful, eh?

Funny blogging moment...When I read the comments on my post yesterday, someone said that the chicken thing was wierd, and I first wondered what was so odd about the ingredients I had mentioned in the marinade...THEN I realized that I had also discussed a headless chicken celebration in the same post. Maybe what's wierd is being OK eating chicken for dinner on the same day I was obsessively reading and chortling about Mike getting corn poked down his neck. All sorts of oddities come to light in the blogging process, don't they?