Chicken and Olives

I love chicken. Chicken chicken chicken. It's just magical how something so potentially healthy can end up being so terrible for you. Now, we all know how much I love using butter. Allow me to illustrate:

The secret ingredient in EVERYTHING.

Now that you know how I make everything ever to come out of my kitchen (did you know a dab of butter in a glass of ice water really brings out the flavor), we can move onto today's lesson.

Lately, I have been craving vinergary, salty things. Like pickles or, perhaps, olives. But G.I. Joe cannot eat a dinner solely made of pickles and olives. And as much as I would like to deep-fry some pickles and just eat those, sometimes the world isn't fair. Luckily, we still have olives.

Let's begin.

First, you need a nice, big pan. Or heavy skillet. As long as it has high sides and pretty good heft, you're golden. Toss a couple tablespoons of butter in there. More is absolutely fine as well. Add a little bit of olive oil, until you have a puddle of fatty goodness much like this.

I KNOW that pan isn't the cleanest. It has seen many, many calories, all of which have left it a little something to remember it by. Just pretend it's a cast iron skillet and make like a country girl. Love you some old grease.

Now add a few pieces of chicken, say, six is a good number. Thighs and drumsticks are best, but make sure you leave the skin on. It makes all the difference with moisture. Let it brown for a little while on each side.

Don't worry about cooking them all the way through. Just enough to get that pretty brown color and make the fat sizzle. Fat. Fat fat fat fat fat. See? It's not such a bad word once you give it a chance.

In the meantime, chop up your vegetables: onion, garlic, bell pepper, and tomatoes.

See?! So healthy.

Remove the chicken from the pan, and reserve the drippings. Add in the vegetables and let them cook for a little while, just enough to tenderize and juice up a little (Does that wording make anyone else a little queasy? It definitely does for me. Sorry about that.). Pop the chicken pack in, and make sure it's all cuddled up to the vegetables. Now pour in the chicken broth and let it all work together.

This is good. Observe the love.

Let that cook for 45 minutes in the oven, with the lid on. This recipe takes a while, but I like to think it's worth it. Hopefully.

Daaa da dadadadada.... Just trying to entertain you while waiting.

If it's been 45 minutes, you now have permission to remove the chicken from the oven. Take off the lid, and pour in the heavy cream. Just drizzle it in all over. Replace the lid, and jiggle the pan gently back and forth to blend in the cream slightly. The picture is terrible, but you should get this kind of color:

Ok, so the picture is terrible and fuzzy and I clearly should never be allowed to have a camera. Also, that color is absolutely crazy. But bear with me. Put the lid back on, place the pan in the oven for another 15 or 20 minutes to let the sauce reduce, and just have some faith. Because this will be your result:

Dang.

My mouth is about to be very happy.

This was delightful. Even G.I. Joe loved it. You can serve it with some sort of pasta, but we ate it with homemade dinner rolls. Coincidentially, the same disastrous ones from the previous post. Dipping the rolls into the sauce was a magical moment. Oh, and we had some other sides. It was all a little fuzzy.

By the way, the chicken was fall off-the-bones good. Literally.

Chicken and Olives

Ingredients

• Six chicken legs and thighs (skin on)
• 1/3 heavy cream
• 1 cup of chicken broth
• 1 whole bell pepper, chopped up and seeded
• 1 diced medium onion
• 3 Roma tomatoes, quartered
• 1 cup of green olives
• 5 cloves of minced garlic
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 4 tbsp of butter
• 4 tbsp of olive oil

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat in a high sided pan. Add the chicken pieces, skin side down, and allow to brown on both sides, roughly 3-5 minutes per side. Remove from pan to clean plate.
3. In the same pan, add the bell pepper, onion, tomatoes, and garlic. Stir together, and pour in the chicken broth. Allow to cook for several minutes, then place chicken pieces back into the pan. Nestle in between the vegetables.
4. Cover the pan, and place it in the oven. Cook for 45 minutes, and remove the pan from the oven. Pour the heavy cream into the pan, along with the olives. Replace the lid, and "shake" the pan back and forth to blend together the mixture slightly.
5. Place the pan in the oven for an additional 15-20 minutes to allow the sauce to reduce. Remove the pan, and leave lid on until served.

Note: You can serve this with linguine or other thick pasta. I used homemade dinner rolls, and it was glorious.