Lemon-Thyme Chicken with Greek-Style Potatoes

Most days, I decide what I'm going to make for dinner in the morning.  That way, if I need to defrost meat, marinate something, or run to the store, there's plenty of time.  I plan weekly menus that I go off of most of the time, but some days, either I don't feel like making any of the things on it, or in this case, the last menu item was for the crock pot and the meat was still in the freezer.  Whoops.

I had some fresh thyme in the fridge leftover from the pork chops I made the other night and I didn't want it to go bad.  So I literally stood staring into the open fridge this morning.  Trying to come up with something.  I opened up the crisper drawer and found I had half of a lemon to add to the mix.  Lemon and thyme.....okay, chicken.  What else goes with that......white wine....yep, got some of that.  So dinner was born.  I pulled two boneless, skinless chicken breasts out of the freezer, threw them in a bowl of water to defrost and came back two hours later with chicken that was ready to go and I went from there.

Here's what you'll need to replicate it:

Chicken pieces - skin, no skin, bone, no bone, leg, thigh, breast - whatever you like
Fresh lemon
Fresh thyme - or any other fresh herb
White wine
Garlic cloves, smashed

I'm a thigh girl, but I didn't have any.  Big honkin' pieces of chicken breast make me throw up in my mouth a little, so I cut two whole breasts in half lengthwise and pounded them out to about 1/2-inch thick.

Put your chicken pieces in a baking dish, bowl, ziplock, or whatever you have that they'll all fit into.  Squeeze the lemon juice over the chicken (you can use bottled).  Add enough wine to get things to slosh around a bit.  I had my chicken pieces layered in a dish, so I tucked the thyme and smashed garlic cloves between the layers.  If you're doing it in a bowl or bag, just stir things around.  For the amount of chicken I used, I threw in five cloves of garlic.

Put a lid on it, cover it with plastic wrap, or zip up the bag.

Throw it in the fridge until your ready to cook it.  You could certainly do this the night before.

We grilled ours, just for the sake of grilling, but you could bake or broil it too.  The amount of time depends on the cut of chicken.  For bone-in, skin-on thighs or legs, I'd bake them at 350 for about 45 minutes.  Same on the grill over indirect heat.  My breasts were thin enough (ha ha ha) that they only took about 10 minutes on the grill.

As for sides, I've always got potatoes, so I decided to go with an old standby.  For the sake of giving them a name, let's just call them Greek-Style Oven Potatoes. 


I cut them into medium sized chunks.  Then I put them into a baking pan.

Next, I splashed on some white wine and bottled lemon juice and seasoned them with dried Italian Seasoning, garlic powder, salt and pepper. 

Then I stirred everything around and drizzled them with olive oil.

I put them into a preheated 375 degree oven and set the timer for 20 minutes.  I checked in on them, gave them a stir and threw them back in for another 15.  The round two check found the liquid evaporated, so I pulled them out, added more lemon juice and wine and I seasoned them up with everything again.  Round three timer was set for another 20 minutes.  Depending on your oven, they should take about an hour total, with three or four check-ins and two or three additions of liquid and seasonings. 

I made steamed broccoli with a sprinkle of Parmesan to go with everything.


Here's dinner on my plate: