Lemon Honey Rosemary Chicken

I made this the other night and posted it to Facebook. A few friends asked for the recipe. I have done my best to recreate it here (I stink at remembering how I cook things, at times, but really I don't think I forgot anything here..? Heh!) Here it is! It was marvelous, really. I feel like there's something wrong with saying that about your own cooking - but I suppose I never followed the rules anyway, right? 

Ingredients:
2-3 lbs of chicken breasts (I used bone in)
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons honey
2 lemons
2 shallots
6-10 "stalks" of rosemary
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil cooking spray

Other Utensils:
Skillet
Tongs
Food processor (or excellent chopping skills)
Measuring cups
Knife
Cutting board
Lemon juicer


Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. 

Take half of the rosemary sprigs and de-leaf them. (You know that's not the technical term for any of that, right? This isn't the Food Network. This is a blog that a hungry girl is typing up...I think you'll be okay though. Just keep up, kids.)

Throw two shallots and the rosemary into the food processor and pulse for a few moments.

Juice lemons until you reach 1/4 of a cup. Try not to get yourself in the eyeball. Good luck, my friends. I'm rooting for you. 

Combine the lemon juice, oil olive, and honey. Add to food processor. Pulse well. 

Cut the remaining lemons into cute little thin circles. I made sure I had two lemon circles for each piece of chicken. They really weren't paying attention to how many they received though, those fowl are flighty sometimes - see what I did there?

Spray chicken with olive oil cooking spray. Salt and pepper. Flip after a few minutes and do the same to the other sides, of course. Again, not technical cooking skills here,people. I don't know what you were expecting. I'm sorry. Sorrynotsorry?

When both sides of the chicken look sufficiently tanned (but not Snooki orange) pour the liquid over the chicken. Stand back and enjoy the smell, because seriously? So good.

Add remaining "stalks" (Someone with culinary experience reading this is dying as I butcher what to call rosemary stuff) and lemon circles to the skillet. Make it look pretty, there will be awards appointed to the best looking ones.

Cover with foil. 

Pop into oven.

Cook for 20 minutes.

Remove pan and foil carefully. Spoon liquid over chicken. 

Cover with foil and return to the oven. The chicken, not you. This isn't Hansel and Gretel, people. 

Cook another 20 minutes. 

Remove from oven. Let sit briefly. It has been a long journey for these birds. They need a nap. Or to cool so you don't burn your mouth off.

Enjoy!

Here's where it gets weird. My sister came in from work and started eating it and said it was missing something. She ended up cutting into a whole breast and eating it that way. I was so sad to see she wanted barbeque sauce. But then I tasted it. It wasn't flavorful enough. But the chicken breasts were huge. When I went in for mine, I sliced off a few big piece of the breast and let it sit in the liquid in the pan. I added salt and pepper to taste when I removed the pieces from the pan and plopped them (lovingly of course) onto my plate... and it was divine. Try it both ways. I think you'll agree with me. I think next time I make it I will toss it into the crock pot after browning instead to let the flavors meld and marry more (equal rights for food, guys, let them marry) because the flavors were outstanding. Also if your chicken breasts aren't gigantic you may not have that same issue that we did.

This was a big experiment. So if you try it let me know what you thought and if you tried the letting it sit in the juices for a few and enjoyed it as much as I did!

Note: You don't need a food processor. You could chop and stir all of that. I'm just lazy and have an amazing "Ninja" processor. Thanks, Grandma! You have enabled my laziness.