Chicken in an hour...

You need to start with chick that is thawed, cleaned and dried. Unless you are doing something special to it, a baked chicken is cooked at 350 degrees for an hour. If the chicken pieces are really thick, you may need an extra 10-15 minutes. Most recipes will tell you chicken is done when you pierce the meat and the juices run clear. If you have cooked for long enough, you will be able to smell that the chicken is done.

Fried chicken is a totally different animal and I will address it another day.


I love the leg joint of the chicken. It has more robust flavor than the breast meat. It just takes a little more work to eat but since dinner is my favorite meal of the day, I do not mind taking a few more minutes at the table. Besides, folks need to stop grazing at meal time.

I cook a package of legs at a time so I have food options during the week.

There are many things that I put on chicken and bake it in the oven. Some of the my usuals are:

1 can cream of mushroom soup mixed with 1 cup of sour cream, adobo and 1TB minced garlic. This also makes a sauce to put over rice that is its typical starch accompaniment.

Cherry Cola BBQ sauce with a four extra spoonfuls of cherry preserves.

4TB maragarine metled with 2TB ancho chili wing spice mix

BBQ sauce with a pinch of season salt. There are a lot of great bottled BBQ sauces on the market.

honey mustard glaze-


Once the chicken is in the oven, you can putter around the house. This would be a good time to start the laundry, clean the bathroom or go through the junk mail. You will feel better when you know that not only you will have stress free meal, you can knock one chore off your list.