Oven baked BBQ chicken

My husband mans the grill in our house and have to say does a great job at it too! But during the week, he doesn't get home early enough to help out for dinner so I have learned some ways around that! So tonight I made oven baked BBQ chicken.

I had 4 skin on bone in split chicken breasts. They are quite large, so I used a really sharp knife and cut them in half. Put them on a foil lined cookie sheet. 

First seasoned with salt, garlic powder, red pepper and paprika.

Then poured some BBQ sauce (use your family's favorite store bought, I used sweet baby rays) and then rubbed all the sauce and seasonings into the chicken.

Looked like this-

 

Baked on 350 for two hours. Occasionally, checked on it and basted it with the sauce (didn't make extra sauce to baste, just used sauce that was on the pan) 

For the last 15 mins, I uncovered it, to crisp up the top.

 

I served this some baked potatoes, sautéed Brussel sprouts, cornbread and salad!

Basil Chicken

So this is probably one of my girls favorite dishes. When they ask for chicken and green beans...this is what they are asking for!

It's super fast and easy too!

I slice up 4 chicken breasts and place in a pot with a little olive oil, juice of 1/2 Lemon and braggs amino acids. Season with salt, garlic powder, lemon pepper and red pepper. Stir and cover and let chicken cook all the way through. 

 

While your chicken cooks, get your vegetables ready.

Chop, onion, bellpepper, wash green beans and fresh basil.

 

 

Once your chicken is cooked all the way through, add all your veggies and basil and add some of my fav coconut teriyaki sauce.  Stir it up. Cover and cook on medium low and just let the vegetables cook down a bit. 

 

 

That's it! Super fast, super easy and one of my girls favorites!

I serve it over rice for the girls and Jerry and it's fulfilling enough with all the veggies to eat low carb like I do and skip the rice!

 

Lebanese Chicken

Another easy, make ahead, stick in the oven forget about it supper....until it starts making your house smelling so yummy!

 

My mom makes this with chicken thighs and drumsticks, I do bone and skin on breasts and thighs.

I rinse them and put in a baking dish

Cut up and add the following vegetables 

Onion

Garlic

Bellpeppers

Carrots

Tomatoes

Fresh parsley

 

Season with salt, garlic powder, lemon pepper, red pepper, basil and cinnamon. Drizzle olive oil, worsteshire and squeeze juice of 1 1/2 lemon. 

Toss it all together

 

Cover and bake at 350 for 2 hrs. 

Uncover for last 15 mins, baste top of chicken and let it brown.

Serve over Syrian rice

 

Or if you are low carb like me, skip the rice

 

Greek Pitas

This is a fun family supper. I like making an assembly line and letting everyone make their own-kids love that!

For the chicken-

I marinate it in

 Greek plan yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, basil, salt, lemon pepper and red pepper.

 

Ready for the grill.

While its grilling, I make tzatziki sauce

 

 Similar ingredients- Greek plain yogurt, cucumber, red onion, lemon juice, garlic, basil and mint. Chop your ingredients very small and season with a little Tony's. 

Once your chicken is grilled, tzatziki sauce made, line everything up in an assembly line.

I like having a vegetable plate 

 

Grilled Pitas 

 

Slice up the chicken 

 

Build your pita

 

Yum yum!!!

And super easy to eat low carb

Lettuce wrap style

 

The tzatziki sauce really makes this- super garlicky with the chicken....yum yum! If you like garlic!!!

Whole Baked Chicken

This is a super easy, throw everything in the pot, put it in the oven and forget about it meals!
And its one of my go-to's and my families favorites. I probably cook this at least once every 2 weeks.

I start by rinsing a whole chicken, taking any of the insides out if there is any and place in a baking or roasting dish breast side up.  I cut up and place around onion, carrots and bell peppers (you could also do potatoes to make it a complete meal). I season it with olive oil, juice of one lemon, worsteshire, salt, lemon pepper, garlic powder, red pepper and cinnamon. Might sound crazy to put cinnamon on chicken but trust me! I add water to the pot, so that the water comes up about half way up the vegetables. The water plus the vegetables will create a natural gravy.
When you ask my kids what is their favorite thing to eat, they will most likely tell you chicken(or roast), rice and gravy!
I bake it at 350 for 2 hours.
Your house will smell divine!


Here is what it will look like when you pull it out of the oven.

Here is how I served my girls:

 

My plate, just no rice so that it is low carb:

 

My husbands plate

 

Ok, so being that I am from south Louisiana, we eat everything over rice. Hence my kids loving rice and gravy. This is how I was raised and now how I cook for my kids-its what I know.
So here is how I make my rice.

Syrian Rice:

Start by melting a spoonful of ghee (clarified butter you can find in the mediterranean section of your grocery store)

 

Once melted, add two handfuls of vermicelli

Stand at the pot, do not walk way and continuously stir the vermicelli until it is golden brown. It will burn quickly, if you don't watch it, hence why you have to keep stirring it.
Once it is browned, add your rice. You can use brown rice, white rice...Just remember the water to rice ration is 2:1. 1 cup of rice=2cups of water.

 

Bring rice up to a boil.

Let boil until water is 3/4 way cooked

 

Then cover it 3/4 of the way and turn fire down to medium-low.

 

When water is fully cooked out, cover and turn to low. let finish steaming for another 15mins.
I often leave mine covered and on low until we are ready to eat if its relatively soon. Or you can just turn it off and leave it covered.  When you are about to serve, stir the pot, fluffing the rice.


Tonight we had a cucumber salad to go with our dinner.  Cucumbers are my kids favorite raw veggie and also one of mine, so we eat a lot of cucumbers in our house.
This salad was pretty simple and consisted of cucumbers, red onion, tomatoes, 1/2 an avocado and fresh basil.

I seasoned it with a little olive oil, juice of 1/2 a lemon, splash of red wine vinegar and Tony's.

Hope you enjoyed this recipe.
Its definitely super easy, a go to, can prep ahead, throw in the oven and forget about it....and your house will smell amazing!
Enjoy!

Not chicken and rice...

But might as well be!

I found these thin organic chicken breasts on sale and decided to make something new up for dinner.

It's kind of a spin of chicken picatta.

I started off with a little olive oil, lots of fresh squeezed lemon juice and the thin chicken breasts 

Seasoned with Tonys, garlic, basil

Let chicken breasts cook and get tender.

Added a little chicken broth to add a little juice. And added frozen baby peas.

Also topped with fresh basil.

Boiled some orzo ( even when we eat pasta it's like rice) and poured chicken and juice over it. 

Topped with fresh Parmesan cheese.

Tada as Jacquelyn would say!

It was pretty good

Next time I would start by sautéing onions and fresh garlic then add the chicken to give it more flavor!

The girls did love it!

Roasted chicken

Tonight I roasted two chickens

I do this a lot when I need to feed a lot of people!

I placed the two washed organic chickens on the roasting pan, seasoned with olive oil, fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, lemon pepper, garlic powder, red pepper, sumac, basil and oregano. 

I stuffed each chicken with a cut lemon in half.

Baked at 350 for 3 hrs, leave uncovered for last 20 minutes so it browns.

I plated this on a platter and them poured the natural gravy it made over.

Forgot to take a pic of it on the platter!

Heatlhy Eats

So tomorrow Jerry and I are starting our 24 day challenge.

Super excited!

 

We did some meal prep this week so its easy for us to eat healthy!

Started with making these egg white muffins for fast breakfasts:

 

Egg White Muffins

Spoonful of store bough pico in each muffin

Cracked 1 egg white in each muffin

Sprinkled with Tony's

Bake at 325 for about 30 minutes or all the way cooked through.

Refrigerate and then microwave for about 30 secs when ready to eat.

I usually eat 2 for breakfast.

 

I will make ham, cheese and green onions with full eggs for the girls!

 

We had planned to have some friends over for a BBQ this weekend, but then the girls got sick so we canceled.

I had already marinated all the meat, so we went ahead and grilled it all.

 

Orange Roughy- marinated in lemon and lime juice, olive oil, salt, lemon pepper, red pepper, oregano and basil.

Strip Steaks-marinated with worteshire, soy sauce, salt, red pepper, garlic powder, lemon pepper

Chicken breasts- marinated in lemon juice, olive oil, worstechire, salt, red pepper, garlic powder, and lemon powder.

Jerry grilled it all to perfection.

We ate the fish and steaks over the weekend.

I sauteed a big batch of mixed vegetables-squash, eggplant and bellpeppers in olive oil, lemon juice, salt, red pepper, lemon pepper, oregano and basil.

 

Sliced up the chicken breasts and made tupperware meals with the chicken and vegs for easy and fast grab and go meals for us!

I also made a big batch of rice dressing for the girls.

However, they are not feeling well, so I will be making a big ol' pot of homeade chicken noodle soup tomorrow morning. Nothing like old fashion homeade soup-like medicine!

Look for that recipe this week!



Family Favorite-Basil Chicken

This is a VERY easy and VERY fast healthy supper idea. It was one of those recipes I can of just made up one day and actually came out good and has become a regular in our household. It's fast, easy and healthy and EVERYBODY loves it!

 

It tastes like thai style basil chicken, so that is what I call it.

 

BASIL CHICKEN

First I slice some chicken breasts, put a little bit of olive oil in the pot on medium heat and start cooking the chicken.

 Then I add lemon juice (3 times around the pot), soy sauce (twice around the pot) and Bragg's liquid amino acids (3 times around the pot). ***I am really sorry, I do not cook by measuring...so I thought I would conciously try and count how much I put in by pouring around the pot, maybe you can gauge how much to put that way??****  For me though, the best way to cook is not be measuring bc its a lot faster and easier not too, if you cook regularly you will see you really dont need to measure! You will get used to how much of things you need to use!

If you haven't used this, it is FANTASTIC and a healthy soy sauce alternative. Although I think it tastse different that soy sauce, so I use both but def more of the Bragg's. It adds another flavor to the dish.

Then season with salt, garlic powder, lemon pepper, red pepper and basil.

Stir it up and cover it and let the chicken cook.

Keep it covered so all the liquid doesn't cook out.

Then after the chicken is cooked, probably about 15 mins, I add chopped onions and green beans

(bellpeppers and broccoli go good in it too)

Reason-add little bit more bragg's and seasonings since you are adding the vegetables, stir it up and cover and let it cook the vegetables.

Then it is pretty much done depending on how much  you want to cook your vegetables. If you want the green beans crunchy then it will only need another 10-15 mins. Right now I cook down my green beans a little bit more than I would prefer just so that they are tender where I can cut them and the girls can eat them.

Then at the very end, add fresh basil. Honestly, the fresh basil at the end MAKES it!

For the girls, I serve over rice and for Jerry and I we just eat the chicken and green beans with a side salad.

If you were to add hot peppers like a siracha pepper it would def taste even more like thai style basil chicken. I haven't tried it just because it would be too hot for the girls. My girls LOVE their spice but I think that would be too much for them!