Chicken Makes Everything Better

So, after my last post, I'm sure you're all wondering how my travels went. Although my flight was a total of 45 minutes, I spent 10 ours travelling, between delays, and deicing the plane, and cab rides. The only thing that got me through all of that was knowing that my friends were buying ingredients for me to make dinner with when I got there. Yes, I was looking forward to making dinner for people at 10pm after a full day of travelling. What can I say? It's what I love to do.

The grocery list I texted my friend right before the plane took off went as follows: "I just need chicken thighs (bone in and skin on) lemon, garlic, thyme, and polenta. I'm assuming you have salt, pepper, and olive oil." I guess I should have been a bit more specific, because I got boneless, skinless thighs, and precooked polenta in that weird cylindrical shape, and all the olive oil they had, which was about three tablespoons. I was a bit disappointed, because as my friends' father says, "boneless, skinless, tastless." It's okay though, I worked with what I had. I found some baby arugula in the fridge, as well as some onions and mushrooms which I sauteed, and put those all together as a nice little side salad.

It all ended up very nicely. The chicken was garlicky, lemony, and covered in thyme an oil, which spooned over the fried polenta was amazing. The arugula was perfect underneath the buttery and salty mushrooms and onions, and it all tasted better because it was the first meal I'd had all day.

The only regret I have is that I was so tired that I didn't have the forethought to take pictures while I was cooking. So, this is going to be a pictureless post. If it helps, I can post a cute picture of my kitten that my mom sent me instead.

Beautiful Baby Boy Baz

There we go! Isn't he perfect? You don't have to answer that, because I already know that he is. Okay, enough of that, let's get to the food. #elkinthekitchen

Chicken with Garlic, Lemon, and Thyme

Ingredients

1 package of chicken thighs, bone in and skin on, there should be 4 or 5 pieces

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 lemon

4 sprigs of thyme

2 Tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

2. Thinly cut 4 slices of lemon, and save the rest for juice. Unwrap the chicken and place the thighs in an ovenproof baking pan. I used a glass Pyrex dish that I found in my friend's kitchen.

3. Sprinkle the sliced garlic and the the sprigs of thyme over the chicken, then place the lemon slices in the dish. Use the other half of the lemon to squeeze some juice over the thighs. 

4. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper (I'm usually pretty generous with both of these in this recipe). Pour the olive oil evenly over the dish, and you're ready to put it in the oven.

5. Bake at 350 for about 30-40 minutes, The skin on top should be crispy, and the meat on the inside should be devoid of all pink coloring. If the chicken is still pink, you need to put it back in the over for a few minutes.

6. Pair with some nice crusty bread, polenta, or even some rice! When you pour the oil from the chicken over any carb like that, the result is amazing. Enjoy :)