Battle of the Kitchen Divas vs. the BigGirlBed III: Rachael Ray’s Honey Lemon Chicken with Potatoes

Don’t call it a come back.

Ah, Rachael.  Your witty repartee, your winning smile, and sometimes disconcertingly childish sexiness could not save you today.  Your Honey Lemon Chicken went down with a TKO from the BigGirlBed before it even entered the ring.  (Note:  The following entry is not for those with a weak stomach.)

Honey- Lemon Chicken with Potatoes

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
• 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
• Salt and ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 pounds baby potatoes
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped or grated
• 4-5 sprigs thyme, leaves picked and chopped
• 2 lemons, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup chicken stockor water

To finish:

• Zest of 1 lemon, cut into strips
• 1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
• 1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
• Balsamic Drizzle

1.  In a skillet, heat the EVOO over medium-high heat. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and brown on both sides.

2.  Scatter the potatoes, onion, garlic, thyme and lemon slices in the bowl of a crock pot. Season with salt and pepper. Lay the browned chicken over the veggies and drizzle with honey. Add the stock or water, cover and cook, undisturbed, for 4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low.

3.  Serve each portion topped with a combination of the lemon zest, parsley, toasted nuts and balsamic drizzle.

Balsamic Drizzle

• 1 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar

1.  Combine the vinegar and sugar in a small pot over medium-high heat and bring up to a bubble. Reduce the heat to medium and cook the liquids until they’ve reduced by about half and are thick and syrupy, about 10 minutes.

I had my doubts about this recipe before I even started it.  First, how many directions are there above?  In my opinion, way too many for a crock pot recipe.  However, I thought I’d spread my wings a bit and go out on a limb.  I was skeptical of the chicken.  I’m not the biggest fan of dark meat chicken, but the recipes I’ve tried for white meat have all ended with hopelessly dry meat.  I also thought perhaps my laziness was speaking louder than it ought to, and so dove right into this more labor intensive and therefore, hopefully, tastier dish.  Second, do you have any idea how flippin expensive pine nuts are?  Really, Rachael, for someone who advocates economic purchasing practices and family friendly food, $8 for a 1/2 cup of pine nuts is a bit much.  Needless to say, this recipe was already in the red before I even broke out the chicken, which, if you all recall from previous posts, is close to touching a bucket full of slugs in my opinion.

The BigGirlBed was coming out of a fairly tame evening.  The toddler had gone to bed relatively early and hence we were both working on a full night’s sleep.  Despite my doubts, I went into the dinner prep feeling fairly confident that this meal would finally put the BGB down for the count, even though it was clearly the weakest of the triad already.

Then, naptime hit.  The toddler has always been a good napper.  For some time when she was really little naptime was infinitely more successful than bedtime, a habit her little brother is now also practicing.  Often, after the usual 15 minutes to half an hour, my husband and I will notice that the toddler is still awake.  Odd.  Most often in these instances we will go into the room to find that she’s gone number 2 in her diaper.  We promptly change her diaper and she usually then falls immediately to sleep.

Today fell into this pattern.  However, I was unable, due to dinner prep and infant maintenance, to go in and check on her in a timely fashion.  I also suspected that perhaps the BGB was preventing her, rather than a poopy diaper, from falling to sleep.

As I soon discovered, these two scenarios had actually combined forces to ensure the ultimate downfall of the day.

With the infant soothed into contentment in the exersaucer and the meal simmering in the pot, I finally got around to checking on the toddler.  I opened the door to discover her standing in front of me buck-naked and smiling with the pride of someone who’d just found the cure for cancer.  I took a deep breath and rounded the corner of her bed.  There on the floor lay her diaper.  Next to the BGB, almost as a sign of its ultimate triumph, lay a huge pile of poop.  I swear I heard the bed boards creaking with evil laughter.  My toddler then began talking to me in perfectly clear jibberish as if explaining the symbolic significance of her work and its impact on the broader culture of toddler and BigGirlBed collaborations.  I calmly patted her on the head, turned on my heel, and left the room.  I picked up the phone and called my husband at work.  ”I just need someone else to hear and know what I just walked into,” I said.  With his support via cell phone, I closed my eyes and visualized my “happy place.”  With LL Cool J in my head, I opened the door once more and took care of the battlefield that was my toddler’s bedroom.

The Honey Lemon Chicken with Potatoes did not even have a chance at this point.

It was a real purdy dish.  The pine nuts made it edible and at times yummy, but overall it was just not comforting enough for the poop my day had piled on me.  Honestly, it tasted healthy.  The whole point of good healthy food is that it doesn’t taste healthy.  It should be indistinguishable from deliciously bad-for-you food.  It’s cache lie in its deliciousness, despite it’s good-for-you-ness (can I italicize any more?).  The potatoes were bland and the honey and lemon combo worked well for the chicken, but clashed in everything else.  The chicken was still dry, a problem of the crock pot in general, not this dish in particular.  The pine nuts, though crucial, were not worth the EIGHT FREAKING DOLLARS I PAID FOR THEM!!!

Perhaps I’m allowing my dissertation research seep into my blog here, but what the hell, right?  To me this whole battle demonstrates a lot about connections between healthy food and class.  Healthy food, demonstrated by the healthiest dish of the bunch in Ray’s chicken, is not only the most expensive, but also the most time consuming.  It assumes a certain amount of disposable income and spare time that, quite honestly, I don’t have.  No offense here to Rachael Ray, this is a general observation.  This thought is supported by my experience with the South Beach diet, too.  While I found it wildly successful for me, it worked when I could afford to spend $200 a week on food and entire days fixing food for two people as opposed to the four that now occupy my living space.  Paula Deen’s recipe, on the other hand, was by far the least “healthy,” but was much easier to make, much more satisfying to eat, and lasted happily for several meals.  In fact, since this day (I will confess here to writing a blog as if it happened today when it honestly happened weeks ago) I’ve now made the Paula Deen Spaghetti and Cheese Stuffed Meatballs three times.  It rules.

Though Rachael Ray left the ring bleeding and broken in her tussle with the BGB, Paula Deen’s recipe made up the slack, and the BGB was ultimately defeated in this battle against the kitchen divas.  It took about a week for the toddler to transition successfully to her bed.  We had to remove everything but stuffed animals and books and install a light-eating curtain, but she is quite happily at ease in her new room with her new bed.  She and her brother (and perhaps most importantly her parents!) have their own spaces.  Wa.  Hoo.

Next stop, pacifier weaning and potty training.  Any recipes for these milestones?  I think at some point I’ll have to rely on something more than the Spaghetti and Cheese-Stuffed Meatballs.