Bacon Lemon Garlic Chicken

I notice a disturbing trend in my posts with bacon and garlic. I like them. A lot. And I use them. Too much. And I’ll try to change, I really will. As soon as I’m done with this post. Bacon lemon garlic chicken. This is how Gaston would cook his chicken.

Bacon, garlic and lemon really go well together. But you already know that. Lemon juice is so last year, though ( 😉 ). Lemon zest shines here. It’s still lemony and has the added benefit of balancing flavors, just like garlic does. Here, it balances the red pepper and garlic. That means that you can taste the pepper and garlic very, very well, and still taste a hint of citrus in the chicken.

Cooking the bacon with the chicken is another great thing about this recipe. As the fat drips from the bacon, parts of it get caught in the chicken. The salty taste of the bacon also comes through to the chicken. The magical lemon zest brings out the bacon taste, too.

It’s funny how this recipe came to be. I was desperate for a meat lovers pizza. Like, seriously desperate. Like, sacrifice a goat to Odin for a meat lovers pizza desperate. So I made this chicken, because I could shred it onto the meat lovers pizza and already have bacon cooked up right there.

But then I got hungry.

And I ate the chicken.

Because to heck with meat lovers pizza when I have delicious meat staring me straight in the face.

And you know what? It was delicious. Sometimes we don’t think things through. And that’s ok. Is it a good rule of thumb to plan? Absolutely. Every now and then, though, throwing caution to the wind and following your instincts has brilliant results. In this case, the brilliant result was having a happy tummy and felicitous taste buds.

But there can be all sorts of positive results from not planning every last detail. Just another element of why life is so fun, if you let it be. I thank my lucky stars every day for being able to have a fun life, because it is most definitely a blessing.

So eat this chicken! Leave a few things to chance. And enjoy what you can. Specifically this chicken. But I suppose that you can enjoy other things, too. 😉