Double Lemon

One Monday night a while back I made "Double Lemon Chicken" from a New York Times recipe. It was four times the work and prep, but didn't deliver the double lemon zing promised . 

Some of it had to be made the day before: there was a lemon and soy sauce marinade to soak the chicken breasts overnight, and then a lemon paste made from simmered lemons, rind included, that were pulverized in the food processor when soft. (Mine did not make a paste, I got chunky lemon salsa instead, but that was okay). 

But by the time all was done it was not what I expected. With soy sauce, garlic, and chicken stock in the marinade and sauce, it was too heavy, too much like brown lemon gravy. Tasty but not as light and lemony as a "double" lemon chicken should be I thought.

The salad was great, though. Baby spinach leaves with raisins and pine nuts in a balsamic vinaigrette. Very light and good. That wasn't a found recipe, it was my own doing, because we had spinach and raisins and pine nuts on hand.

I won't do this chicken recipe again. It tasted good, and the chicken was tender, and Jim ate it up. But it was not light, nor citrusy, nor brightly lemon flavored.

And it was a lot of work, with too many steps, which I should have figured out just by reading the instructions. 

I'm learning. Bear with me.