One evening while trying to figure out something new to prepare, I stumbled upon this recipe in my chicken folder. I’d found the recipe on the internet at thecookiewriter.com. I’d saved this recipe because it looked simple. As you know, we like chicken.

After reading the recipe, I decided the chicken might have a better flavor if I let it marinade. I went to the freezer and got out four chicken breasts. I didn’t have bone-in and opted to bypass going to the grocery store and just used boneless. I put them in the refrigerator to thaw overnight — to my surprise the chicken was thawed by morning.

The next day, after getting ready for work, I cleaned the chicken and placed it in a bowl. I then minced four cloves of garlic onto the top of the chicken and let it sit about 10 minutes to bring out its full flavor. When the time was up, I decided I probably should use a large plastic bag to marinate the chicken. So I dumped the chicken and garlic into the bag then added the other ingredients, minus the salt and pepper.

I zipped the bag and massaged the chicken with the marinade, making sure every piece of chicken was covered well. I placed the bag in the refrigerator and left for work.

When I got home that evening, I preheated the oven and set about getting the rest of supper on the stove: canned green beans from our garden that I’d cooked the night before, cooked carrots, along with white rice and wild rice. While the wild rice was cooking (it takes about an hour) I found a few shiitake mushrooms in the refrigerator and decided Brad would probably enjoy having those with the wild rice.

Brad usually calls on his way home from work, which allows me to gauge when I should have supper on the table. Now, he doesn’t expect supper when he walks in the door, but I don’t like eating at 8 p.m. either. On this particular evening I had the chicken in the pan and put it in the oven while we were talking. When he got home he informed me that he had just realized that a meeting we’d been planning to attend was starting at 7. I said, well, I don’t know if supper will be ready in time for us to eat before we go.

I changed into something presentable and then checked the chicken. It was almost done and we had about 20 minutes before we needed to leave the house. After another 10 minutes I checked the chicken and decided the smaller pieces were done so we could eat.

Instead of wasting time and dirtying more dishes we just filled our plates at the stove. Brad prayed and we gobbled down our food. Halfway through eating, I jumped up and removed the rest of the chicken from the oven. The pan had a bit of burned-on marinade, but it was going to have to wait.

I finished eating before Brad and was putting everything in the refrigerator when he asked what was on the chicken. I started listing the ingredients and told him I thought it had a good flavor. He said “Hummm.” I asked what that meant, didn’t he like it? He said he didn’t really care for rosemary; which was news to me.

So the verdict for this dish is I nailed it, even though Brad wasn’t crazy about it. Since he wasn’t all gung ho about this recipe, I probably won’t be adding it to my self-made cookbook.

Oh, by the way, Brad did like the mushrooms in the wild rice.

Baked Balsamic Chicken

— 4 bone-in, skinless chicken breasts

— 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

— 1 tablespoon olive oil

— 4 garlic cloves, minced

— 2 teaspoons dried oregano

— 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary

— Salt and Pepper

You can marinade the chicken overnight or make it as is. Combine all the ingredients into a plastic zipper bag and give it a good massage with your hands to coat the chicken.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Place the chicken into a glass dish in a single layer and pour any excess marinade on top.  Season with extra salt and pepper if desired.  Place in oven, uncovered, and bake for 20 minutes.  Baste chicken if desired.  Cook for another 15-20 minutes or until chicken reaches 160 degrees F.  Serve over rice.