Just like last year, the Lemon Fairy left a gigantor bag of lemons on my porch. I’ve been working my way through them, so you know what that means, it’s Lemon Week!
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This smells amazing when it’s cooking, all the ingredients come together so nicely. The kids just loved this and ate it right up, unfortunately that’s why I don’t have any good pictures – I apologize, but trust me it was delicious!

ingredients:
6-8 chicken thighs (bone in!!)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon onion powder
2 tablespoons flour
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 teaspoons parsley
3 teaspoons lemon zest
3 carrots, cut into chunks
3 celery, cut into chunks
juice of one lemon
12 ounces chicken broth
1 cup water

Place chicken in the slow cooker pot. By using bone-in thighs, the chicken stays moist as compared to using filets which can really dry out, even in a crock pot.

In a small bowl combine the salt, pepper, onion powder, flour, chopped garlic, lemon zest and parsley. Rub into the chicken.

Put the cut carrots and celery on top.

Add the lemon juice over everything, then slowly add the chicken broth and water down the side (not on top of the veggies) filling the pot. This keeps the lemon and the spices intact.

Cover and cook for 6 hours on low. I served it with rice, but by itself with a nice biscuit is pretty great too!

Mochiko chicken is DEELISH. Then again I love mochi, so I like to use mochiko in everything. Soup, cupcakes, waffles, you name it. Mochiko chicken is typical Hawaii meal – I like to add a little garlic to mine and also cut it up into tinier than bite sized pieces. It really marinates full of flavor that way. Like most fried chicken it tastes GREAT cold, so leftovers make a fantastic lunch. Yoda thinks so, anyway.

Mochiko Chicken Recipe, here.

*Part of a series of posts documenting the Kid’s lunch.

The Kid, as a new kindergarten-er, is unhappy with the school lunches I’ve been packing. He said, “Can’t you put together something else for lunch, say…fruit? Maybe some chicken salad with a little mayo?” You’ve GOT to be kidding. Suddenly it’s Top Chef: Lunch Bag edition up in here.

So I’ve been trying out recipes at dinner to see what he likes and doesn’t and what will work in a lunchbox. So I threw together a chicken salad PER HIS HIGHNESS’ REQUEST. I added apples for crunch and bacon, for well – bacon, and the kids ate it up! Great. Now I gotta bust out the silver spoon and linen napkins for the Clone Wars lunchbag…

ingredients:
2 cups roasted chicken, chopped
1/2 cup apples, small cubes
3 slice bacon, cooked and crumbled
3 Tablespoons mayonnaise**
1/2 teaspoon mustard
1 Tablespoon relish
ground pepper

lettuce
4 croissants split

In a bowl, toss the chicken, apples and bacon. Add the mayo, mustard and relish and toss to coat. I like to add a fair amount of pepper to offset the salt-i-ness of the bacon, but it is up to you.

I feel this tastes the BEST with lettuce on a croissant, but any bread will do. But. Try the croissant. You’ll thank me later.

**I am not a fan of mayo. Nope. Like bananas, it is on my hate list. But in salads, I seem to be able to tolerate it. This recipe uses very little mayo, but feel free to add more if you like.

Part of Fried Chicken: Three Ways
Why is it Hawaiian? No reason except that it’s in every Hawaiian church cookbook known to man. Everyone has their variation – chicken wings are the preferred way to go, but since I serve it to my kids as dinner, more than appetizer, I like tiny bite sized chunks. Really really tasty.

ingredients:
2 pounds chicken, cut into bite sized chunks
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup panko
3 Tablespoons garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
oil for frying

dipping sauce:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon minced ginger

Start with the sauce by whisking all the ingredients in a small bowl, until dissolved. Set aside.

Prep a pan with oil, I’d say about 1″ deep. Heat to medium high.

In a freezer bag, combine the flour, panko, garlic salt and pepper. Shake to combine. Place the chicken in the bag and shake to coat.

Fry the chicken pieces in the hot oil until nice and brown. Drain on a wire rack – if you drain on paper towels, the chicken just resoaks up that oil, which is pretty sick. You just want nice crispy pieces, not soggy oily ones.

Once all the pieces are cooked, ‘dunk’ them in the dipping sauce and serve.

Part of Fried Chicken: Three Ways
While chicharones are traditionally crispy pork, here I am just taking the crispy and flavorful aspects of it, and using it for the world’s greatest food, fried chicken.

ingredients:
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 Tbsp sugar
2 pounds chicken, cut into bite sized pieces

Vegetable oil

1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon pepper

In a small bowl, stir together the garlic, lime juice, soy sauce, and sugar. Pour the mixture in a freezer bag, and add the chicken, cover with plastic wrap and keep it in the fridge for a few hours.

Heat oil in a pan. I don’t like to deep fry, but shallow fry. So just enough oil to go up about 1/2 on a large pan.

Whisk together the flour, paprika, salt and pepper in a bowl. Remove the chicken pieces from the marinade and pat dry. Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour.

Fry the chicken pieces, only about 3-5 minutes on each side, until nicely browned. I always like to drain fried foods on a wire rack, instead of paper towels. so that the chicken doesn’t soak back up that nasty oil.

This is great with rice, or even with tortillas and some salsa.

Part of Fried Chicken: Three Ways
This is sort of like a Japanese sweet fried chicken. Without all the dredging. Every recipe is kinda standard, but it’s the way you cut the chicken that counts. SIZE MATTERS.

ingredients:
2 lbs chicken, cut up into small pieces
1/4 cup mochiko
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup sugar
5 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon minced garlic
black pepper

Mochiko – what this dish is named after is a wonderous thing with lots of yummy uses. I always keep a box in my pantry.

Now, I like to cut the chicken into tiny bite size pieces. Believe it or not, it tastes better when cooked this way. Other people just fry the whole thigh, or chicken wings, but I’m telling you, this is the best way! Trust me on this.

Mix all the ingredients together. Add the chicken pieces to the mixture. Keep in the fridge for about 5 hours. That should make the chicken nice and marinated.

When you’re ready to cook, heat oil in a pan to fry the chicken pieces. Grab a bunch and drop it into the oil and just stir it around, they will separate on their own.

As Alton Brown told me (not personally) the best way to drain fried foods is on a wire rack with paper towels underneath. This will get rid of all the excess oil. You don’t wanna be eating that. I make this for dinner, but it makes a great party food and like I said, you can use chicken wings cause that would be a-ok for parties.

I make this pasta salad A LOT. I never really thought to put the recipe up until I started doing a series of Chicken 2 Ways meals for the kids. So when I made some buttermilk fried chicken, I added it to the pasta salad and it was FANTASTIC.

There are a lot of ingredients to the dressing, but DON’T let that deter you. The flavor is exactly what you are looking for. Please don’t be tempted to wimp out and use that bottled dressing crap. It’s full of preservatives and so much oil that it will never stick to the pasta anyway. You won’t regret it, I promise.

ingredients:
8 ounces of pasta
1-1/2 cups cooked broccoli
1 cup chopped green/red/yellow peppers
1/4 cup sliced olives
2 cups buttermilk oven-fried chicken, cut into cubes

dressing ingredients:
4 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
1-1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
6 Tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
3 Tablespoons dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon oregano

Obviously, make sure you make Buttermilk Oven-Fried Chicken in advance of this recipe.

Boil the pasta according to package directions. Drain, but do not rinse. If you don’t want to cook fresh broccolli (I never do) just defrost Trader Joe’s frozen broccoli. It’s always frozen at the height of freshness so when it’s defrosted it tastes just fine.

Put all the dressing ingredients into a shaker and shake well to combine. If you don’t have a shaker, mix it in a bowl!

In a large bowl toss the pasta, broccoli, peppers, olives and chicken with the dressing. You don’t need to use all the dressing if you don’t want, just as much as you need. Mmm, you’d be surprised how good this is – it’s great for parties.

Part of my Chicken 2 Ways meals for the kids – I LOVE fried chicken. But when it comes to the kids I like to do things a little bit healthier. This chicken is so flavorful that putting it in the oven tastes just as great. Oh and the leftovers! The things you can do with that…

ingredients:
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 whole chicken, cut into pieces

1/2 cup flour
1-1/2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk, mustard and garlic. Get a ziploc freezer bag, and put the chicken in – then pour the buttermilk mixture inside. Make sure the bag is closed well (I also lay the bag in a pan) and chillax it in the fridge overnight. If you are desperate for chicken now – then just chill it for a few hours.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Prep a baking sheet with a silpat or parchment. And put a wire rack on top. You want the chicken to be lifted up off the pan.

In another freezer bag, put the flour, paprika, onion powder, baking powder, salt and pepper. Shake it to mix it up. Take the marinated chicken pieces one by one, try and not let them be too drippy – and put them one by one into the flour mixture. Shake to coat.

Put the flour coated chicken pieces on the wire rack. Bake until brown about 40-50 minutes depending on your oven. Like most brines or marinades, that’s what makes this chicken so tender and flavorful!

See, first I made a roast chicken, since I had a lot of leftovers I came up with this Chicken 2 Ways concept to get two dinners out of one chicken. The Baby wanted pot pies but I didn’t have any pie shells, and I thought, biscuits might work just as well. It was BETTER! Because you got to make cute little cut out biscuits for the tops. Who wouldn’t eat their food if there was a Batman signal on it?

ingredients:
2 cups leftover roast chicken, cut into cubes
1/2 cup leftover roasted onions, cut up
1/2 cup leftover roast carrots, cut into a small dice
1/2 cup corn
1/2 cup peas
1-1/2 cups chicken broth

biscuit ingredients:
1 cup flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 stick (4 Tablspoons) butter COLD, diced
3 ounces half and half
1 egg mixed with 1 Tablespoon water (for egg wash)

Take all your leftover roast chicken ingredients, plus the corn and peas, and divide them up into ramekins (either 4 large or 8 small). Divide the chicken broth into each ramekin evenly. Now make the biscuits.

In a mixer, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Add the butter and mix on low speed until crumbly. Slowly add the half and half, still on low speed.

Dump the dough onto a flour board and roll out to about 3/8″ thick. Round is kind of boring, but you can do it, I like to get the cookie cutters out and really have fun with it. Plus it makes the kids WANT to eat.

Who can resist Batman, am I right? The Baby called this BAT POT PIE.

Brush the tops of the biscuits with the egg wash and sprinkle with a little kosher salt. Arrange the ramekins on a lined baking sheet, in case it bubbles over. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until the biscuits are brown and the chicken mixture is hot.

This is a great use of leftovers and so fun to eat. Also – before the egg wash, you can just freeze what you have and pull them out for a meal later. Just finish up with the egg wash and baking on another day!

This is an easy once a week recipe – and you can do so much with it if you have leftovers. I love the crispy skin the roasted veggies and the great way it makes the house smell. MMM.

ingredients:
1 onion
1-1/2 cups carrots
4 small potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
salt
pepper
olive oil

1 whole fryer, in pieces
salt
pepper
3 cloves garlic
butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut the onion into rounds and lay them down on a lined baking sheet. This will make a nice ‘bed’ for the chicken. Arrange the carrots and potatoes around the onion. Season with salt and pepper and little olive oil. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

Take the pan out, arrange the chicken on top, skin side up. season again with salt and pepper, both under and on top of the skin. Smash the garlic cloves and scatter them over and around the chicken. Dab the top of the chicken with a little bit of butter, probably about a half a tablepoon on each.

Cook for 35-40 minutes depending on your oven. Your house will smell so good.

This meal is so easy, and really doesn’t take long to prepare.