Brooke's Lemon Chicken

When I was in college, I lived with a family by the name of Moore and it was some of the most fun times of my life spending time with their family.  They have four fun kids that I got the pleasure of spending a few years hanging out with and watching grow up a little bit.  Olive, who is their youngest and only girl (I am the only girl of 3 brothers, just like them), was four years old when I moved in and now she is stinking nine years old!  Its insane.  You would often find us cooking or baking in the kitchen when I was not working or studying.  Olive has flowered into a very educated bake and chef and I love hearing the stories from Brookie (Olive's mom, my friend) about how she is developing her own recipes and making some of mine too.  When she was five, all she would request was to sit atop the counter and watch me as I cook, well that sneaky little snook ended up wanting to get her hands into everything I was doing.  Now, if you don't know me very well, I might have been able to slyly hide the fact that I am a very type-A, perfectionist, particular or say, controlling (thats probably the most accurate word) cook.  Sort of the "only room for one cook in the kitchen at a time", "I do things a certain way, leave me to my work" kind of person.  There have been several instances of me lashing out at my brothers in the kitchen for sneaking a treat after it has been perfectly placed on a tray to cool.  "Its not ready yet!!!"

Blah blah blah.  All that to say, I learned a lot of patience from Olive (for I did not want her parents to know how controlling and bossy I can be), that is harder to hide than you might think.  I learned that teaching kids how to be independent in the kitchen far outweighs having the perfectly clean kitchen as you go.  I learned the incredible amount of pride I could feel over successfully teaching a 6 year old to crack an egg with one hand.  Pretty impressive right???

That was a lot more writing that I had anticipated to introduce you to a chicken recipe.  Oh well, this recipe is actually a Brooke Moore signature, not Olive's or even mine, but Olive's cool mom, Brooke.  Now, one of my dearest and most treasured friends.  I could not live without Brooke in my life, or her lemon chicken for that matter.  I make this bad boy a lot.  The trick is to make a good sticky rice on the side, use a LOT of garlic, lemon and olive oil, just lots of it, and to cook it low and slow so the chicken is really tender....I guess there are a lot of tricks.

Honestly, I do not have an exact recipe, if you were standing with me in my kitchen, I would explain it to you like this, and you would probably ask questions and I would go from there... if you have questions I will get back to you I promise!

OK.... Lemon chicken.  I use white meat chicken breasts, you can use dark if you like.  I like white meat much better, especially when you cook it correctly.  I grab two or three lemons, bottle of olive oil, salt and pepper, and a bunch of garlic cloves... Like 10.

So, for reference (and I am eyeballing this one):

• 5-6 Pieces of Chicken
• 2-3 Lemons
• 1/2 Cup Olive oil (should cover the chicken, and have a layer of oil and lemon at the bottom of the pan surrounding the chicken)
• 8-10 cloves garlic
• 1 Large Onion Chopped Roughly
• Salt and Pepper
• Rice on the side (or whatever side you like)

Place the chicken in a large dutch oven or 9 x 5 baking dish. Place the large pieces of onions all around the chicken.  Smash every clove of garlic and surround the chicken.  Drizzle the olive oil, lemon juice, and sprinkle a good amount of salt and pepper on each piece of chicken.  The oven should be set to 250-300 degrees depending on how much time you have.  Brooke would say 250 for like 2 hours?  I do 300 for about an hour and a half unless I have the day off of work to start it at 3:00.  If you work from home or are a stay at home mom, this is a great one to add to your portfolio.  So easy, so comforting, healthy.  So so good.  Love you Brookie...and Olive.

XO

Kait