November 18, 2010

Chicken Legs!!

First, I'll say that Paleo has been going pretty well for me overall and I'm about 95% strict. One or two nights/week, my babysitter makes dinner for the family, so those nights aren't perfectly paleo, but I can get pretty close. She made an amazing pork & mushroom goulash last night that I'm pretty sure had some flour in it, but besides that, I skipped the potatoes, so I called it a success (especially since it was cooked for us!).

OK, now for the chicken legs. Wow. These were seriously yummy tonight! About 10 minutes of effort and the rest is just marinating and cooking time. I was inspired by Dole's post the other day (particularly the price for chicken legs!) and so I picked up 8 of them at Gene's Sausage Shop. I looked up some recipes, and combined a few into my own concoction, and I must say it was fab and easy! Great for a weekend meal or for stocking up for the week. No pictures because they all got eaten too fast!

Baked Chicken Legs with Orange and Rosemary
Serves a hungry family of 5

8 chicken drumsticks (about 3 lbs)
2 navel oranges
1 lemon
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 Tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
1/3 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Wash the oranges well. Grate the zest from one of the oranges (pretend like your grating cheese, but do it by rubbing the orange hard against a fine cheese grater) and put into a large bowl. Slice both oranges and the lemon into fourths and squeeze all the juice into the bowl. Add all the remaining ingredients except for the chicken. Wisk until it's all combined. (You can do all this the day before to make the evening so much easier.)

Remove a couple tablespoons of the marinade and set aside (if desired) to use as a great dressing for a side salad.

Rinse the drumsticks in water and pat dry with paper towels. Then, put them into a large ziploc bag, pouring the remaining marinade over the top. Seal the bag and swish it all around so everything gets some of the marinade on it. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, rotating half way. I left mine in there for about 2 hours.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees and line a sided cookie sheet or other casserole dish with foil (this will make cleanup a ton easier!). When the chicken is done marinating, take them out one by one with tongs, and place them skin side up on your foil-lined pan. Stick it in the oven for about 40 minutes. They're done when you stick a sharp knife in them and the juice runs yellowy clear (not pink).

I served them with steamed spinach, though I wished I would have remembered to reserve some of the marinade for a salad dressing!

4 comments:

  1. I will have to try that ... maybe even tonight! Also want to make mashed "potatoes" but with cauliflower.

    Can you start marinading the chicken in the AM before leaving for work? Or is 2 hours the max?

    Seriously, it's amazing I don't burn water when I boil it.

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  2. I think a longer marinade would be fine. I wouldn't do it with fish, but chicken is tough enough to handle it. When I do it with kabobs (boneless breasts), a 24 hour marinade is to die for, so I'm guessing 8-10 hrs should be great! Let me know how it goes.

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  3. Sounds awesome, but looks like a half serving to me :)

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  4. I made this yesterday! Marinaded everything for about 40/50 minutes. Oh my ... the pan of chicken legs was almost entirely devoured by yours truly ... and I ended up making more than the recipe. ;-)

    @ Kim - thanks! good to know. I will definitely have to try prepping everything in the AM. Would be great to throw this stuff in the oven after a workout ...

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