Dinner in a dish

I never want to order chicken at restaurants b/c I feel like it can always be recreated at home and you always run the risk of chicken being overcooked and dry.  I decided to make chicken for dinner last night.  I decided to make an entire meal in one baking dish.  We ate a lot this weekend so I think we are going to try to keep things on the lighter side throughout the week, so I kept it simple to chicken and vegetables.  For dinner we had a brown sugar and garlic chicken with red potatoes, green beans, and mushrooms in a lemon sauce.  This was incredibly simple to make and the whole meal only cost me $20 and is completely organic and we probably have enough leftovers for 2 lunches each! The ingredients are as follows:

Chicken

Lemons

Olive Oil

Mushrooms

Green Beans

Brown Sugar

Garlic

Red Potatoes

I started by slicing 1 lemon, snapping the green beans, quartering the potatoes, and slicing the mushrooms.  Once all my veggies were cut, I put about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in my baking dish.  I used a 9X13 and my chicken just barely fit so adjust accordingly to your amount of ingredients.  I then placed the sliced lemons on the bottom of the dish. 

With my other lemon, I added about 5 tbsp olive oil and juiced the lemon into a bowl with salt and pepper and whisked it together.  I tossed the green beans in the mixture and pulled them out with tongs and placed them on top of the lemons. I did this again with the potatoes, mushrooms, and chicken. 

For the chicken, I also made a brown sugar rub.  I heated up about 1 tbsp of olive oil and added 5 cloves of minced garlic.  Once the garlic became fragrant, about 1 minute, I turned off the heat and added some brown sugar and mixed it together to the sugar was covered in olive oil.  

I used a spatula and spread this mixture on top of the chicken and put the dish in the oven at 400 degrees for 50 minutes. 

The chicken came out in 50 min and I placed it on a plate and put it in the microwave to retain heat.  I then put the veggies back into the oven for about another 15 minutes to continue roasting.  

I clearly forgot to rotate my pictures before uploading so sorry about the sideways-ness of everything! This dinner was great! I was worried the veggies would be too tart due to all the lemon but they weren't at all.  I think the addition of the brown sugar dripping down onto the veggies helped with that some.  The chicken came out perfectly juicy, not dry at all and cooked all the way through.  The skin was crispy and garlic and the meat had a subtle sweetness.  This meal was so easy to make and it all fit in one pan! I highly suggest this to someone who doesn't have a lot of prep time for dinner.  The majority of this dinner is spent in the oven.