French Honey Chicken on a Rainy Day

Is there a word for a complete, mayhem-at-breakneck, locomotive-speed, converging-into-one, climactic amalgam of condensed, mentally-incapacitated, nerve-splitting event?  If there is, we don't know it, so cannot use it.  But, suffice it to say, that life is crazy-busy, (but normal for us), and so we try to figure out what just happened after we lie back to assimilate stuff.  Make sense?  No?  Good!  You are just as clueless as we are :-)

It just seems that we have so much creative energy in our brains-great ideas, juices flowing for things we would like to do, meals we want to make for family and friends, projects that we know we could invent and create, added to all the things we NEED to do to survive, and also try to be a respectable part of living creatures...leaves so little time and usable capacity in said brains to hold it all...

The last couple of days were spent on work-related driving...mile upon mile of white stripes lining up one after the other, potty and gas breaks, spurts of manic conversation followed by stretches of mind-numbing silence.  We were so glad to make it home, and at one o'clock in the wee morning, we made plans for that evening for a quiet night at home making a delicious dinner.  So, here are the results of said plans...

Oh, but first of all, on the farm-front, the little lass with the head-peck injury is doing fine; all of the extra loving spewed out upon her has seemed to have made her feel an attachment to us old fogy humans.  When Poppy went out to check on the chicks, she ran up to say hi, and when Poppy crouched down, she hopped up on his leg for a scritch on her half-healed head. 

"Hey, you and me-we got something special"

We think she is going to be another lovey-hen for us in the future; awww! fuzzy-feelings here on the farm-front!

Today, spring arrived with a fury; it was a rain-soaked fury!  It poured today!  But everything is getting bright green with all the nitrogen from the thunder, and the moisture from the rain has made it feel like a secluded Eden here...it truly is beautiful out here in the woods...

There are tiny green leaves emerging on the blueberries

Okay, we really did make a delicious dinner...a meal that is a favorite recipe of Mamie's.  It is a recipe that she got out of an older "Where Women Cook" magazine, that has become a dish that Mamie loves.  Of course, she had to put her own southern spin on it.  Most recipes taste a bit bland for us, since we live where spices are an inherent part of our food.  After making it for the first time, we added a bit of our own spice, and changed up the gravy-makin' part too, to avoid all 'dem lumps...

French Honey Chicken

Directions:

1.   Preheat oven to 420 degrees.
2.   Rinse the chicken under cold running water. Pat dry. Then sprinkle with a bit of seasoning mix (in our case, Cajun seasoning).

3.   Whisk the melted butter, honey, sea salt, Herbs de Provence, and several grinds of pepper in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Coat the chicken with the sauce.

  

  

4.   Place chicken pieces skin side up in a large oiled cast-iron skillet. 

5.   Pour 1 cup  white wine into pan.

6.   Place skillet into oven for about 45 minutes.
      (Cover with foil last several minutes if browning too much)

7.   Remove from oven and remove chicken from the juices.
8.   Return skillet to stove-top. Cook over medium-high for 3 minutes until some of the liquid is cooked off.
9.   Add the flour to the cold chicken stock and blend so as to have no lumps.
10. Pour the flour mixture into the skillet and stir for a few minutes. Cook until it reaches a thickened gravy.
11. Drizzle gravy over the chicken.

Recipe:

2   whole chicken Leg quarters

2   bone-in-split chicken breasts

Tony's Cajun Seasoning (or your preference, or none)

4   TB. butter, melted

3   TB. honey

2   tsp. sea salt

2   tsp. Herbs de Provence

Pepper

1   cup white wine

2   TB. all-purpose flour

1/2 cup chicken stock

    We have also used just legs and thighs, same cooking time...

We usually serve ours with some rustic mashed potatoes and some roasted vegetables.

And of course we end it with some Apple Pie topped with whipped cream and caramel sauce.

Hope you enjoyed dinner! We did, and we are going to make this for Mamie's parents. Hope they like it as much as we do!

©Sweet Pickles Farm