ORANGE-BALSAMIC GLAZED CHICKEN & LEMON RISOTTO

Whew!  I'm finally out of the kitchen.  Tonight would have been a great night to have a real stove instead of a hot plate and to have a dishwasher.  It is completely possible to cook a good meal without either of those modern marvels but it's not quite as easy as it could have been!  I only have two burners on the hot plate. I need those two to make the risotto.  One for the risotto pot and one to keep the broth hot.  That third burner would have been nice to make the chicken on at the same time.  We had to do some juggling but we made it work!

Tonight I decided to make the Orange-Balsamic Chicken and Lemon Risotto that Mary over at Life in a Small Town told us about earlier in the week.  These were originally Rachael Ray recipes so this afternoon I went to the Food Network website and studied the recipes to make sure that I had everything that I needed and to read some of the reviews for any tips on preparation. 

I gathered the ingredients for the chicken together....

We normally only eat white meat chicken around here but I had some wonderful boneless, skinless chicken thighs that I thought would be perfect for this dish....and I was right.  I didn't have poultry seasoning so I left that out.  I seasoned the chicken with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper only.  I used spinach instead of arugula and I used some marmalade that mother-in-law recently made instead of buying that at the store.  I'm not sure if it was just orange or if it was a combination of citrus fruits.  Either way, it worked just fine.  The chicken was fabulous.

Next for the risotto.....

When I gathered my ingredients for the risotto, I realized that I didn't have any fresh mint.  The reviews on the Food Network site were mixed on whether or not this was a good addition so I wasn't too concerned about not having any.  I had everything else.  The reviews were, also, mixed about the amount of lemon used in the dish.  The majority seemed to think that it was way too tart so they recommended scaling back the amount of juice and fruit added.  I went ahead and took their advice knowing that we wouldn't want it to be too "lemon-y".  I only used the juice of half of a lemon instead of the whole one.  I ended up using all of the fruit of the lemon; but, in retrospect, I might have enjoyed it more if I had only used half of that at the most. Next time I might even leave the fruit of the lemon out and just use the zest and juice.  I love tangy lemon in desserts and on seafood; but for other dishes, I enjoy a more subtle lemon flavor.

Mary's son plated his a lot prettier than I did mine!

I will definitely make these both again.  The chicken was sooo tender and yummy.  The sauce was sweet and a little tangy.   It worked so well with the tangy risotto and the spinach.   

I was thinking during dinner that the risotto would be perfect for risotto cakes.   The tangy lemon would be perfect coated in panko.  I think it would be wonderful with some sort of seafood....maybe the roasted shrimp that I've been seeing around the blogosphere or broiled scallops or even grilled fish.  I have some leftover risotto so I might try to make a few cakes tomorrow and see how they turn out.  I'll let you know.

Thanks, Mary, for sharing this wonderful recipe with us. I'm definitely going to make this again.

Have a great weekend!