Over the past seven days, I have eaten more massive meals than I can count. Whether formal Thanksgiving dinners, Friendsgivings or Sunday lunches, I have been absolutely “stuffed to the rafters,” as my family always says (quoting comedian Brian Regan).
So when I got home from many festive feasts, I wanted to do nothing less than eat another heavy meal. Or cook at all, really. Despite my love for food, Thanksgiving made me tired of mixing, stirring, sauteing, baking and every other gerund associated with cooking. And at the end of all of it, Hunter and I went home without any leftovers.
When I was searching online for a new recipe to test out after Thanksgiving, I could barely look at the screen without feeling bloated again. Every easy weeknight favorite just seemed like it would clog up my digestive system all over again. So, I did something I’ve never done before.
I searched for “healthy dinner recipes.”
Now, let me explain myself. It’s not that I’ve never wanted to cook a healthy meal before. In fact, I attempt to cook healthy meals relatively often, favoring chicken and seafood over red meat, avoiding excessive carbohydrates and incorporating vegetables where they do not typically belong. But generally, I look for recipes that I can adapt and change to these tastes, rather than seeking out health foods.
Recipes developed to be healthy, I’ve often found, will do so at the cost of flavor, skimping on seasonings for reasons I’ll never understand. Recipes developed for flavor and then adapted to become healthy don’t skimp on the seasonings.
But with my arteries already as clogged as they were, I was more desperate than ever to find something that would make me feel lighter.
I wasn’t looking for a sixth or seventh food coma of the week. I needed to cook, eat and then feel like I could still stay awake afterward.
That’s when I found this One Pot Lemon Rosemary Chicken recipe from Jar of Lemons. I love both lemon and rosemary, as a lighter flavor combination. Plus, one pot meant I would not be restarting the cycle of endless dishes from the holidays.
Since I was starting out with a recipe listed on a “healthy weeknight dinners” list, I knew I would need to be liberal with the seasonings, including the addition of salt and pepper. But with that in mind, the recipe only needed a few changes to match my typical flavor preferences.
Within 30 minutes, I had a complete meal for myself and Hunter to enjoy, without hurting our stomachs again. It was really perfect after all of the butter-infused holiday foods we’d eaten.
Does that mean I will be searching for healthy dinner recipes again next week? Probably not. But for now, my digestive tract will live to fight another day.
ONE POT LEMON ROSEMARY CHICKEN
Ingredients
4 small chicken breasts (or 3 large chicken breasts)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 lemon
1 tablespoon chopped rosemary (or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary)
1/2 teaspoon fresh crushed garlic
4 cups vegetables of choice
Directions
■ Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a large pan or pot, heat olive oil to medium heat, then begin cooking the chicken breasts.
■ While the chicken is cooking, mix together the honey, freshly squeezed lemon, rosemary and garlic to create the glaze.
■ When the chicken is about 3/4 of the way cooked, pour 1/2 of the glaze over the chicken and finish cooking. If the outside of the chicken cooks faster than the inside, you can add a splash of water to keep the glaze from burning until the inside reaches 165 degrees (not too much, though! You don’t want to diffuse the lemon rosemary flavors or lower the temperature in the process). Once it is cooked, set the chicken aside.
■ Immediately throw the veggies into the warm pan and begin cooking. If they are frozen, cook until they thaw and then top with the remaining glaze. If they are fresh, top with the remaining glaze right away. Cook until the veggies are soft.
■ Plate the chicken and vegetables, garnish with extra rosemary and/or parsley (if desired), serve and enjoy!
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 38 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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