Half Baked Harvest Every Day: Lemon Harissa Chicken

This week’s new recipe of the week was…Lemon Harissa Chicken! From Half Baked Harvest Every Day. Every time we try a new recipe of Tieghan’s it becomes our new favorite recipe, and this one is definitely going to become a staple. (Though it might not beat out the Braised Beans…we’ll see.)

There were some items that we did not have in our pantry, so the “start up” costs were a bit high for this recipe. When we looked at the grocery receipt we questioned whether it was more cost effective to make dinner or order out, but I think that’s just the way things are nowadays - especially when you’re only cooking for two. All this to say - this recipe was completely and totally worth it, and we know we’ll get our moneys worth from the ingredients!

On top of this meal being a winner because it tasted so darn good, it was really simple to put together. I wasn’t expecting it to pack such a punch for a one sheet pan meal, but it did. When grocery shopping, we thought about doing less chicken than it called for because we seem to always have leftover chicken from meals that doesn’t get eaten, but we ended up having more than the recipe called for and zero chicken left behind.

I wish you could smell this picture.

Tieghan doesn’t miss.

And if you tag her on Insta she’ll probably respond.

Because I can never pass up an opportunity to do a perfect dessert pairing, I also made Food52’s Olive Oil Cake with Lime & Sumac. Olive oil cake is my favorite type of cake, and this one really hit the spot after the Harissa chicken. I didn’t quite nail the glaze (probably because our faulty oven caused this cake to be done around 12:30 am), but the flavors were all there and they were perfection.

This glaze looks nothing like the gorgeous glaze in the original recipe, but it tastes so good. Luckily, it was good enough to make again (and soon!) so I’ll hope to redeem myself in the presentation of it next time.

This whole meal was a much better success than last week’s onion soup. Week two down of trying a new recipe each week! How many more recipes do I need to try from cookbooks I already own before I can justify buying more? Stay tuned!