A New Recipe, Low Fat Chicken

 

Let's start at the very beginning....

A couple of weeks ago there was a sale on "chicken breasts" in our local supermarket, so I bought a couple of packages. A lot of people use them to pan or "oven fry" as schnitzels, but not me. Quite often I separate them and cut and bake with lots of vegetables, sort of like "stir fry," but neither stirred nor fried. In the meantime, I stored them in the freezer.

As our table was "filling" with expected guest for Shabbat lunch, I realized that I had to cook something else as main course for me and my husband for Friday Night. Friday morning I took the "chicken breasts" out of the freezer to thaw planning on cooking just enough for the two of us. As the cooking deadline approached I realized that the chicken was still frozen solid. I managed to break off half, but they fillets couldn't be separated at all.

I put the "chicken breasts" in a glass-like baking pan, so I'd be able see if it's cooking later on. I added onion, tomato, red pepper, mushroom plus a bit of oil and coarse black pepper. Covered with foil it started baking at 200C with the heat coming from below. After I could see bubbling "oil" I switched the oven heat to "top." 

Once I was almost 100% certain that it was fully cooked I took it out of the oven and sliced it to check that it was white and not pink. If it had looked raw, I would have returned it to the oven for more cooking.

My low fat chicken was super tasty, and since I had cooked more than needed, we have a couple of servings left over.

Using Up Leftover Bread, Stuffed Chicken

To keep my weight down, not that I'm all that slim, I have to stay away from bread. We end up with the thick ends of bread, which my husband doesn't like for his sandwiches. So last week, I took four thick pieces of "standard" Israeli sliced/packaged bread and stuffed a chicken with it.

 As you can see, all I added to the bread was some water to soften, plus diced carrots and onion. You can spice it up or add other vegetables that will hold up to long cooking and have a lot of flavor, like celery.

Mix the bread, broken into small pieces, plus water and vegetables into a "mush." Stuff it into the whole chicken. If there's too much, then surround the chicken.

I baked the stuffed chicken in a large, deep dish. As you can see, I sprinkled lots of pepper, paprika and garlic on it.

For the first 40 minutes or so, I had the chicken covered with foil. For the final half hour or more I baked it uncovered, heat from top on turbo 210 degrees Centigrade, which is 410 Fahrenheit.

This is a very simple and tasty way to use up bread.

Delicious and Simple Passover Chicken Soup and Meal

This chicken soup with kneidlach, matzah balls, was the most delicious and super easy to make soup.

Before the Passover Seder, my main cooking contribution was to bring two types of kneidlach, regular and vegan kneidlach. This time when I boiled the kneidlach I used Chicken Broth.

First I prepared the kneidlach mixture, since it's supposed to sit in the fridge for a couple of hours. Click Kneidlach.

Chicken broth is also, so simple to prepare. All I had to do was to boil the cleaned chicken until just cooked, not until crumbling and disintegrating in the liquid. Then I removed the chicken and refrigerated it.

When you're ready to make the kneidlach, boil the chicken stock and either roll the kneidel mush into balls, or just get two spoons ready to "drop" ball like pieces into the broth/stock.

While the broth/stock is boiling carefully drop/add the kneidlach. When all the "mush" is in the broth/stock, cover and lower the flame, so that it just simmers for about 40 minutes.

After they cool a bit, remove the kneidlach and refrigerate or freeze if you won't be using them for more than a few days. Or you can make a large quantity and just freeze some.

I brought them all to my daughter's for our family seder, but afterwards she gave me leftovers to take home. When serving at the seder, those who wanted kneidlach got them added to the soup she had made.

Yesterday I made a wonderful meal with the chicken and the stock and the kneidlach, plus my all time favorite oven-roasted vegetables.

To turn the stock/broth into a delicious chicken soup, I cut an onion, a couple of carrots,a parsley root and parsley leaves. I put them plus the kneidlach in the pot, added the stock and covered it. After the soup began to boil, I lowered the flame to simmer for about 40 minutes.

I carved the chicken and took two pieces, added some diced onion, seasoning and olive oil to another pot, covered and cooked on a low flame.

We had an amazingly delicious lunch. It was very easy to make. The soup was rich and didn't have a drop of salt.

Simple Cooking: Using Up Bread/Challah - Stuffed Chicken

There are people who don't like to throw food out, and all sorts of kitchen and frugal experts suggest freezing or drying out leftover bread and challah to be used later. Two common usages for such bread are bread crumbs and croutons, neither of which I ever need.

Actually, I don't end up with much leftover bread or challah, since I don't buy bread much and only serve small home-baked challot or rolls on Shabbat and Jewish Holidays. Whatever is leftover is used for my husband's sandwiches when he goes to Jerusalem for the day. I supplement the leftovers with uneaten restaurant rolls, when out with friends.

But, davka, this year, close to Passover, when I must rid the house of bread I ended up with almost an entire store-bought white challah in the freezer. It had even been sliced for easy sandwich making, but I really didn't need it. I had decided to use what whole wheat flour was stored to make sandwich rolls, yes, to be blogged about in a couple of days, Gd willing.

Nu? What could I do with all that leftover challah? I decided to stuff a chicken for this Shabbat. I buy whole chickens, which is the most frugal there is here in Israel. Now that I think about it, cutting the chicken into the usual six pieces takes about as long as it took to make the stuffing. Yes, making bread-stuffing for chicken is really easy.

Since I hadn't stuffed a chicken in decades, I googled to make sure I remembered how. Then I just did what seemed right to me. Remember that pretty much everyone has different methods and recipes for various dishes, whether Chocolate Cake, Vegetable Soup or Stuffed Chicken, so you don't have to follow everything exactly. Cooking isn't Mathematics.

 1- Just before preparing your chicken for cooking, put the bread or challah in a bowl and add some water. Usually when I get the chicken ready to be cooked I pull out and throw away all the fatty pieces, but this time I kept them for the stuffing.

2- Squeeze out the water, either by putting the mush in a sieve and pressing down, or just by hand and tipping the bowl.
3- Add seasonings. Egg optional- I remember adding an egg, but since the recipes I saw didn't include it, I decided not to. You can use all fresh seasonings, all powdered or a combination. I used chopped onion then dehydrated dill (because I have a lot in the pantry,) pepper, paprika and garlic.

4- Place the chicken in the baking pan and then stuff it.

 5- Since I ended up with more stuffing than could fit in the chicken, I added it around the chicken. This solved a problem. The recipes had warned that wings and drumsticks could be burnt and should be protected with foil. By covering them with stuffing, they're safe. Also, contrary to all the recipes I saw, I don't tie, pin whatever the chicken together/closed. My chickens don't flap their wings and fly away when being baked/roasted.

6- Optional to top with sliced onions, carrots, peppers or whatever. I recommend using a bit of vegetable oil on top.

7- Start the baking with the chicken covered. Hot oven, just over 200C, about 400F. My oven is turbo, meaning has a fan, and I had the heat from the top. If you don't have a fan, then, I suggest cooking it longer. Depending on the size of your chicken*, it must bake at least an hour like that. When it seemed almost ready, I took off the foil and for the final 20-30 minutes, I baked it uncovered.

*Stage 1 of being fully cooked is when liquid quickly comes out if you pierce the chicken with a fork. When it reached that point, I uncovered it. Then once liquid was coming out on its own, I turned off the oven. There are online sites that give you charts for recommended cooking times according to weight of chicken and whether stuffed or not.

Simple and Delicious Baked/Roasted Chicken

Usually I buy whole fresh chickens in Rami Levi (discount supermarket) every few weeks and put them in the freezer. I really find that they taste better than frozen ones sold locally. But when I went there to stock up on Monday morning, the whole chicken had a "last day to sell" for the same day I was there. I don't buy on "last day," since there's too much a chance that they just aren't fresh enough. The worker behind the counter refused to give me fresher ones from the back, so I checked out the chicken parts and discovered that the "bottoms," which are most popular in my family, were discounted, so that's what I bought. An additional advantage was that I didn't have to cut up the whole chicken into parts. I just separated/cut the leg/drumstick of the really large ones.

Now for my Simple and Delicious Baked/Roasted Chicken recipe:
 Seasonings:

lemon slices, ground pepper, sweet paprika, garlic and cuzbara (Coriander, also known as cilantro or Chinese parsley)

Chicken, best cut into serving-size pieces, though you can use the same seasonings on a whole chicken or one cut "butterfly" or spatchcocking aka in half.

Bake uncovered in the oven about 220 degrees Centigrade (220°C × 9/5) + 32 = 428°F) with turbo fan going until it begins to look cooked, then lower to about 190 for another 10-15 minutes. It takes longer if you don't have a turbo oven. Remember that every oven is different, and different sorts of baking pans also affect temperature and cooking time.

Yes, it's that simple, and I don't add salt or any oils. Since I prepare my chicken in advance, I store the cooked chicken in containers in the refrigerator and include all of the natural juices/fats in the pan along with the chicken. I heat the chicken with the natural juices/fats, which have a lot of the flavor and richness.

Enjoy!

PS you can certainly vary the seasonings and add fresh ones, like onion, too.

Pre/Post Yom Kippur Meal

Since we have a rather empty nest, just my husband and myself, I don't need to cook as much as before when the house was full of kids and guests. And we still have lots of big pots.

Don't get me wrong; we do have guests, but not as many as in the past. Also, nowadays, my cooking experiments aim more for efficiency than impressive. That's why I decided to try a Pre/Post Yom Kippur Meal, serving (almost) exactly the same meal before and after the Yom Kippur 25 hour fast. Of course, this dish is perfect any time you want an easy hearty one-pot meal.

I don't have many real Jewish Food traditions, especially as pre/post fasts or Succot and Shavuot, which weren't at all celebrated by us. I didn't grow up with kreplach, which is what many Jewish families eat as Pre/Post Yom Kippur Meals.

For some strange reason, as I was trying to figure out what to serve Tuesday night before Yom Kippur, barley popped into my mind. The experts say we should have a complex carbohydrate as a main part of the pre-fast meal. I decided to cook up chicken with barley and vegetables, a one-pot meal, which can even be a soup.

Before the fast, I served it with a salad, and breaking the fast I heated up some ratatouille, I had in the fridge. I also served myself some of the liquid with a bit of whatever came along as a soup, while my husband had his chicken soup. It was delicious, satisfying and so easy to make and serve. I tried to calculate cooking exactly what we needed for the two meals. In the end there's some barley left over, which can be "recycled" into a new soup with added vegetables.

Ingredients:
chicken, I cut it into large serving size pieces
about a cup of barley
onion, cut
2 carrots, cut large
2 large squash, cut large
seasonings, paprika, black pepper, garlic, parsley, a pinch of salt
water, of course

Instructions:

1. add all ingredients to a large pot, leaving a good inch before top, so it won't boil over
2. bring to a strong boil and then turn down flame to simmer for an hour or so
3. Yes, that's it!

Suddenly Cooking Again

For the past couple of years, I barely cooked and didn't bake at all. When I didn't have a functioning kitchen I became very lazy. A few times I baked at my daughter's in Ofra and at a neighbor's, but that was it. If it couldn't be easily cooked in a pot on an eccentric electric burner or two, it just didn't get cooked at all. That had been my kitchen for the past year. And for quite awhile before that, when my old mini-ovens still worked, even before we retired the old stove top, which smelled of gas, no more than two burners were strong and reliable enough for cooking.

Now, I have a kitchen, bli eyin haraa-not to tempt the evil eye, and I must get used to making real meals again. No doubt that our food bills will go up, and I pray that my weight won't join them.

The first things I made in my new ovens were a supply of cake and challah. I couldn't make a super-sized supply, since we don't have much freezer space, just the fridge's freezer. Last week I also made us moussaka, one for Shabbat lunch and one for the freezer. Remember that we're only two people at home, versus the 7-9 we'd have at ordinary Shabbat meals a few decades ago, and don't do all the entertaining we once did. Nowadays, I'm overwhelmed when there are five to prepare for!

Yesterday I cooked the meat and poultry for Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah. I didn't make all that much, but it was more and more varied than I had made for a long time. Take a peek:

Cooking in New Kitchen, B"H

Yesterday, although it's still a mess in my house, I began cooking for Shabbat. I used both ovens, though not simultaneously. Since they are large and have a turbo setting I could even use more than one tray at a time. That's a timesaver for sure. I bought Electrolux which is larger inside than the Sauter.

Some of the cooking/baking was done in bulk so I won't need to do it weekly. Challot and cakes freeze well for sure. I may have enough challah rolls to get me through most of the fall Jewish Holidays, Rosh Hashanah, pre/post Yom Kippur meals, Succot and Simchat Torah, depending on how many guest we have and meals we're invited out. The cakes will be enough for a few weeks, especially if I make my traditional Rosh Hashanah Applesauce Cake. And I already froze some of the baked chicken breasts.

So, yesterday's cooking/baking was truly a time investment, besides learning how to use the new ovens.

For those wondering about oven temperatures, something I never paid attention to with my old oven,* I sort of followed the guidelines on the inside of the oven doors:

To whet your appetite, here are some photos of my cooking/baking experiments from yesterday:

Challah recipe

Simple Basic Cake**, with blended banana and mango rescued from the freezer

These Chicken Breasts were simply layered over sliced onion and topped with tomatoes, dehydrated basil and coarsely grated pepper. I baked them covered with foil. I could see their cooking progress, since I used a pyrex baking pan. (Recipe)

Oven Baked Chicken, the food my kids consider my specialty

Besides enjoying the ovens, I'm super happy to be finally cooking on gas after almost two years of using an old two burner electric "hot plate."

The kitchen is almost completely organized. I think that all of the chametz dishes and pots are stored, but I will need help with the Passover things which will be on higher shelves. More updates, Gd willing, in future posts.

Bottom Line:

Was the expense and chaos of a new kitchen worth it?
YES!

*The numbers had long been rubbed/cleaned off the old oven, so it was like telling time from a sundial. 

**I made a few small changes, cinnamon instead of vanilla, and the blended banana and mango instead of some of the water. That's the beauty of the recipe; it's very adjustable.

Easy Chicken "Fricassee"

What's Fricassee? It's generally chicken cooked in a sauce, frequently a white sauce, but Chef Google showed me links to definitions that say any sauce makes it a Fricassee.

I had a package of chicken wings and a package of chicken breast I needed to cook/use up before Passover.  So first I made a very simple sauce. I don't use/buy ready-made sauces.

Sauce Ingredients 

Photo by Y. Medad

• diced onion
• fresh garlic
• a few ripe tomatoes. OK in Israel they aren't expensive, so you can buy a can of diced tomatoes.
• 1/2 cup of wine I needed to get rid of
• a few peppercorns
• a couple of Tablespoons of Tamari sauce
• a couple of Tablespoons vegetable oil of your choice

Instructions

• saute the vegetables in the oil
• cover pan
• When the sauce is boiling strongly, add the wings and cut pieces of chicken breast.
• Cover again, and cook until chicken has become white and well cooked.

I've made it with meatballs, instead of the chicken breast. You can also add more vegetables to the sauce. We enjoyed it very much. If you try it, please tell me how it came out and how you changed it.

Secret Behind My Perfect Chicken

I've discovered that it doesn't pay to play around with creative and varied chicken recipes. My family loves my simple baked/roasted whatever you want to call it CHICKEN.

I buy either whole chickens or already cut in serving size pieces. A few years ago I invested in good poultry shears for easy cutting. And I think it's much safer than using a sharp knife, which was my previous tool.

• Whether fresh or thawed chicken, I soak it all in tap water for an hour or so. 
• Then I pour out the water and
• pour boiling water to cover on the chicken.
• When it's cool enough to handle, I pull out whatever feather things are left by butcher/packaging people. 
• Rinse in cold water
• and place on "baking paper" to go in oven, one layer only. 
• Squeeze fresh lemon all over it, leaving the lemon on the chicken. Half a lemon per chicken.
• Sprinkle with black pepper, granulated garlic and paprika.
• Bake in very hot oven. My oven does not have any numbers left, so I don't know the temperature. Gd willing, when I get a new modern digital one, I'll be able to give details like that. At present I use the hottest the oven can get.

The heat is very important, because you want the skin to be crispy and the meat juicy. Most recipes recommend heat that's too low, and the chicken dries out.

Readiness check. Pierce with a fork and see the fat ooze out.

Store in the fridge in a covered container. Put it away when still warm. If you wait too long, the chicken will dry out. Heat in covered pan.

Yes, you read it correctly. 
NO SALT
NO ADDED OIL

I don't remember any guests adding salt to my chicken after tasting it. There's that much flavor the way I cook it.

Easy One-Pot Chicken Meal

OK, just to be totally honest, I must admit that although I call this a "One-Pot Meal" I serve it with more foods. I served this on Shabbat to my husband and a couple of guests. There were also a nice fresh salad and two other vegetable dishes. But I didn't bother with an additional carbohydrate, and most people would find this enough with either a fresh salad and/or additional vegetable.

Of course, you can always cook this with more potatoes and/or carrots. I actually added another potato before putting it in the oven.  Be sure to put the squash, if you use it, inside the chicken, or it will burn, since it cooks more quickly than any of the other ingredients. And vegetables should be cut in large pieces or not at all.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
a couple of carrots
a large squash or zucchini
a potato or more
an onion
some garlic
paprika, black pepper and whatever you like

I baked it in an old Farberware, stainless steel pot, that had "lost" its handle. I started baking it without a cover, and after about a half an hour, I covered it with aluminum foil. It baked for a couple of hours, high heat. Use whatever heat your oven manufacturer recommends. Probably an hour and a half would have sufficed. It depends on the size of your chicken. This was a small one, which is why not all of the vegetables fit inside.

Everyone enjoyed the meal, and this sure is a good way to utilize an old pot of fantastic quality.

Quick Shabbat Cooking with Minimal Water

This was not quite what I had been expecting... there have been major water problems in the Shiloh and Shomron areas, as far as we've been told. While I had been in New York, my neighbors had suffered from total lack of water due to shoddy infrastructure in the Mekorot Water System. Also, usually, when I return home, especially when it's late in the week, we get invited out for a Shabbat meal, but not this time.

OK, I'm an experienced and creative housewife. I found a way to prepare delicious Shabbat meals.

One thing that helps is disposables. I did the cooking, all the cooking in the oven in aluminum pans, and I made sure that we have enough disposable dishes and cutlery if needed. I even bought more disposable gloves and "wipes." And the kettle was full hours before "Shabbat.  And there are bottles of water all over the place.

Menu:

Baked Potatoes: unlike pasta and rice, you don't need any water for baked potatoes. I just slice them up a bit for quicker cooking and then wrap in foil and bake.You can't get easier than that.

Chicken: I cheated. I didn't do my usual soaking and pouring boiling water over it before baking. I just quickly rinsed the thawed (bought fresh) chicken under running water, and since we did have some water at the time I used my poultry shears to cut it into serving-size pieces. I squeezed fresh lemon juice over the chicken and added my usual paprika, black pepper and granulated garlic.

Baked in a hot oven, it was delicious as usual. Maybe I don't really need to do all that soaking etc...

Chicken Breast Plus: Since my poultry shears were out and chicken-dirty, I decided to use them to cut up the thawed chicken breast.

Over that I layered eggplant, mushroom, onion, tomato paste, fresh garlic and some oil in a disposable aluminum pan. I covered it with foil to be baked in a medium-hot oven. It tasted fine. I think it would have been even better if I had mixed up the tomato paste with oil, spices and water to make it more of a sauce.

Vegetable-Side Dishes: Yes, these too were baked in aluminum pans to save on washing, since we had no idea if there would be water. And considering that in the summer, dirty dishes and pots are a magnet for ants and other undesirables.

These are my usual variety of baked vegetables, as you can easily see. Basic ingredients, (not all in each dish,) are onion, squash, mushroom, eggplant, sweet potatoes and oil. I find that they cook more quickly in aluminum than in my ceramic or Pyrex baking pans. I suggest a medium heat.

For those of you who want specific temperatures and times, I'm sorry. Each oven is different. Also the smaller the pieces, the more quickly they cook. Just keep checking for smell and crispiness. I do not add salt.

Stove Top Passover Cooking, Good All Year, Too

On Passover I have to cook my chicken and beef on top of the stove, because I don't kasher the oven for Pesach. I do have a small Passover oven which I keep parve for all the baked vegetable dishes etc. At this point in life, I'm not in the market to buy one of those ovens for chicken. First, there's no room and second I look at my life/age and say:

"For  just a few weeks use, it really isn't worth it."

also:

"We've survived so long without one, we will survive ad me'ah vi'esrim until 120 perfectly well fed, too."

The CPA daughter in me looked at my 60th birthday as

"OK, now you've hit the halfway point in the  me'ah vi'esrim 120. Oops!"

So, yesterday I did the messy cooking, the fleishig/meat stuff for the last of Passover, 5776, 2016. And here are some photos and instructions aka recipes. And why do I call these "instructions?" That's because one isn't to OCD trying to measure and count and follow exactly. I never know how long it will take to cook or how much exactly of anything I will add etc.

Chicken "Bottoms" with Parsley, Carrots, Onions and a Dash of Wine

In Israel, the bottom part of a chicken is the favorite, and I bought a couple of packages for the holiday. When cooking stovetop, it is best not to make too much at once. Four rather zaftig bottoms fit perfectly in this low pan. They were joined as you can see by carrots, onions, parsley, pepper, paprika and the wine that Eliyahu Hanavi didn't drink. Any wine can be used or nonne, too. I cooked it covered on a low flame until when poked and prodded it seemed completely cooked.

Beef Braised with Onions, Garlic and Ripe Tomatoes 

First I seared the beef in hot olive oil with the chunks of onion and garlic. Then I added the gorgeous red tomatoes and about a half a cup of sweet wine. I lowered the flame and covered it.  I also added about half a cup of water, nothing else. I let it stew for a couple of hours. You may need a bit more liquid, but my pot is a good one.

Two Baby Chickens with with Parsley, Carrots and Onions

Rami Levy was selling these tiny chickens on Tuesday when I was working. I wish I had bought lots more, but there's a limit as to how many I can carry. They fit perfectly in the pot side-by-side, and were cooked the same way as the "bottoms."

These recipes are easy, healthy and good all year round. And, of course, they are strictly kosher!!

Homemade "Airplane Food"

In the olden days, not all that long ago, airplane travelers were given meals on most flights. That is on all but the shortest flights. Nowadays, even if you're traveling over five hours, like the trip between New York/Jersey and Arizona, you only get water and some soft drinks. You can buy food on the plane, but nothing is kosher. When they first eliminated the meals, there were "snacks," crackers or nuts, but no longer.

Since I had a very long flight and travel day plus, I ended up making myself an airplane meal. I was very nervous about it, because I didn't know if security would allow the aluminum tray, but thank Gd it did.

The night before I flew, I made two of these, one to eat that night and the other for the flight.

• chicken breast (Empire kosher)
• onion
• zucchini

I baked them all covered with lots and lots of layers of foil, and then I cut up a tomato, one for each. 

The only other food I took with me was a nice big juicy apple and some almonds. And on the plane I took down the tray and set up my meal to eat. It was delicious and filling, just perfect. 

Could Be An Entire Meal

In this nice, and well used, bake and serve dish, I placed not only the pumpkin you see on top. There's squash, onion, eggplant and bite-sized pieces of chicken breast. Other vegetables can be used or added. There are no rules.

Add some oil on top, catsup is optional, bake in a hot oven. Cover half-way through. If you cover early, it will just take longer to cook. It's ready when the vegetables are soft.

My Newest Kitchen Gadget

When I was in New York a few months ago, I not only bought that wonderful, low-tech 1-cup coffee filter in Zabar's, I bought new poultry shears aka kitchen scissors. I guess that Zabar's has more in the store than on their internet site, because I can't find either there. but I did find the poultry shears on Amazon.

I had seen my friend use them for easy chicken-cutting, yes the same one who has the coffee filter. These shears, unlike a pair I had been given a couple of decades-plus ago, seemed so easy to use and clean.

 

It took me awhile to get the gumption up to use them. That's why I'm just writing about them now.

They seem to have some other gadgets attached, but I'm not quite sure what. Also since they are used on raw poultry I don't think it's healthy to use them for other things. We don't have a dishwasher of the electric type, just human.  They may not get as clean as they should be.

This was definitely a good purchase. I'm glad I got it, because I buy whole chickens which cost less than those cut up in quarters or more.

Fruity Chicken

The other day I bought some apricots in Machane Yehuda Market. They were a good price and were delicious, but that meant that some, especially by the time I got home a day and a half later, some were too soft. I did keep them in my friend's fridge, but they are a very delicate fruit. I had to quickly figure out what to do with the soft ones. So...

I debated between cooking them with the beef or the chicken. I didn't plan on baking a cake. So I finally decided to use them with the chicken.

I cut (with my new poultry shears) the chicken up for baking and placed them on baking paper on a heavy pyrex-like baking pan. Then I sprinkled some nutmeg, cinnamon and pepper. I squeezed lemon, leaving the rinds on, too. And then I opened and cut and checked the apricots (for infestation) and placed the halves on the chicken.

Then I baked it all in a hot oven until ready. Sorry, but my oven doesn't have an exact temperature knob. Also it's hard to time, since it depends on how large the pieces are and how hot the oven. I cook by smell and sight. When it starts smelling ready, I check, and then when it looks pretty ready I turn off the oven or take out the pan.  Years ago one of our ovens, when new, had instructions that said that every oven is different so don't go by exact timing.