Chicken: It’s what’s for dinner…

Have you ever been faced with “What do I make for dinner tonight?”, and then realize you have an inordinate amount of chicken in the freezer? I do… almost every week. I love Costco, it’s a great place. About every month, Chris and I go and take the voyage into the surplus of food and I always buy bulk in chicken breasts. Especially with the warm weather coming around, I hope, it will be great for grilling! But I am still faced with … what the heck am I going to do with chicken again?

When cooking chicken in an oven or in a skillet, I feel like I am constantly running out of ideas for how to make my chicken dishes different from one another. I am not a big fan of repeating dishes - I like to keep my taste buds guessing! So I am going to challenge myself: I am going to work on creating 101 DIFFERENT chicken dishes. Why 101 instead of 100? I don’t know, I think it sounds more impressive. Through this chicken challenge, I will be sharing some tips like how to know if your chicken is fully cooked or how to cook a super juicy and flavorful chicken.

Speaking of juicy and flavorful, I found this delicious chicken recipe on . This was an incredibly easy and flavorful dish that only took 5 minutes of prep time and 45 minutes to bake. The original recipe asks you to broil the chicken, but since there was butter involved in the marinade I didn’t want to have a smoking problem. I baked the chicken at 375 degrees for 45 minutes and the chicken came out beautifully! The only other change I made was to add a little finely minced rosemary into the soy sauce marinade and in the last 5 minutes of baking I squirted some fresh lemon juice directly onto the drumsticks. You must try this recipe! You probably have all the ingredients in your kitchen already! I ended up serving this on top of a mushroom orzo dish that is cooked like risotto. Risotto could be one of my all time favorite dishes so I was intrigued to use the same technique with the little pasta pieces. It made for a perfect base for the chicken!

Easy Garlic Broiled Chicken by Ava Sewell
Adapted from allrecipes.com.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
3 tablespoons minced garlic
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon dried parsley (I didn't have any on hand so I used fresh rosemary)
6 boneless chicken thighs, with skin (I used 6 drumsticks, skin on)
dried parsley, to taste

Directions
Preheat the oven broiler. Lightly grease a baking pan. (I preheated the oven to 375)
In a microwave safe bowl, mix the butter, garlic, soy sauce, pepper, and parsley. Cook 2 minutes on High in the microwave, or until butter is melted. (I would do this in 30 second increments, if you do it all at once it could bubble over, be careful!)

Arrange chicken on the baking pan, and coat with the butter mixture, reserving some of the mixture for basting. (If you don't know what basting is, it means to continue adding the extra liquid to the meat while it cooks.)

Broil chicken 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until juices run clear, turning occasionally and basting with remaining butter mixture. Sprinkle with parsley to serve. ( I cooked mine for 45 minutes. At the last 5 minutes I squirted some fresh lemon juice onto the chicken. Once I took the chicken out of the oven I covered the dish with tin foil and let the chicken rest for 10 minutes. This helps the juices say in!)

Here is the link for the Mushroom Orzo by BABARCLAY
Adapted from allrecipes.com.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, divided
8 pearl onions ( I used 1 large vidalia onion)
1 cup uncooked orzo pasta
1/2 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
1 cup water (I used chicken stock to add extra flavor)
1/2 cup white wine
garlic powder to taste
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup fresh parsley (I didn't use any!)

Directions

Melt 1/2 the butter in a skillet over medium heat.
Stir in the onions, and cook until golden brown.
Mix in orzo, mushrooms, and remaining butter.
Cook and stir 5 minutes, until butter is melted and mushrooms are tender.
Pour water and wine into the skillet, and bring to a boil. (I used chicken stock)
Reduce heat to low. Season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Cook 7 to 10 minutes, until orzo is al dente. Stir in the Parmesan cheese and parsley to serve.