**Delicious Chicken Picnic by the Pond**

As I prepare for my picnic by the pond, I'm excited to share with you one of my favorite recipes that's perfect for a summer gathering. Today, I'll show you how to make a mouth-watering whole chicken dish that's sure to impress your guests. First, I start with a beautiful butterfly whole chicken, which I asked the butcher to take the backbone out and flatten it like a pancake. This makes it easier to cook and ensures even cooking throughout.

Next, I season the chicken with an urban oil mixture, consisting of fennel, thyme, salt, and pepper. Brushing this flavorful mixture all over the chicken is easy, and it's what gives the dish its amazing aroma and taste. To enhance the flavor even further, I brush half of the mixture on the bottom of the chicken, making sure to get some under the skin as well. Then, I flip the chicken over and dry the top with a paper towel to help the skin brown beautifully in the oven.

Now it's time to put the chicken in the oven at 450°F for 30 minutes. This high temperature ensures that the chicken cooks quickly and evenly, resulting in a juicy and flavorful dish. After 30 minutes, I add a half cup of wine to the pan and let it cook for another 15 minutes. The wine adds a rich, savory flavor to the sauce, which is one of my favorite parts of this recipe.

While the chicken is cooking, I prepare the lemon and onion sauce that will accompany our picnic. Sliced garlic cloves are thinly spread on top of the chicken, along with some freshly squeezed lemon juice, onions, and herbs. This combination creates a delicious and tangy sauce that complements the flavors of the chicken perfectly.

To finish the dish, I squeeze fresh lemons over the chicken to enhance its flavor and aroma. After 15 minutes, I let the chicken rest for a short period, allowing the juices to redistribute and the meat to relax. Finally, I carve the chicken into quarters and serve it back in the sauce, garnished with some chopped herbs.

**Lemon Bars: A Perfect Dessert for Our Picnic**

No picnic is complete without a delicious dessert! For my lemon bars, I start by creaming together two sticks of butter and half a cup of sugar using a mixer on low speed. Then, I add two cups of flour and E of a teaspoon of salt to create a simple yet flavorful shortbread dough.

To make the crust, I Pat the dough into a 9x2 pan and chill it in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. This allows the dough to firm up slightly, making it easier to work with when I remove it from the fridge later on. Once chilled, I carefully press the dough into the pan, ensuring it reaches all corners without any gaps.

While the crust cools and bakes, I prepare the lemon curd filling. Whisking together six eggs, three cups of sugar, two tablespoons of grated lemon zest, cup of fresh lemon juice, and one cup of flour creates a smooth and tangy mixture that's perfect for my lemon bars. When ready, I pour this delicious filling over the cooled shortbread crust and bake in a 350°F oven for 30-35 minutes, or until it sets.

To finish these mouth-watering lemon bars, I dust them with powdered sugar and cut them into large squares. They're sure to be a hit at our picnic by the pond!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enone of my favorite treats to bring is lemon poppy seed cake which is what I'm making now and I make it in this bun pan okay that's the pan now the batter so I started with two sticks of butter it's a half a pound and two cups of granulated sugar butter has to be room temperature so it really gets light and fluffy and I've missed it for about 2 to 3 minutes and it's just about done so next is eggs I've got four room temperature eggs and I do it one egg at a time one teaspoon of good vanilla and A3 of a cup of lemon sest it's a lot but it is lemon poppy seed cake after all okay now I'm ready for the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients and I'll show you how I combine them I started on the wet mix a couple of hours ago I poured a cup of Buttermilk into a liquid measuring cup added A3 of a cup of poppy seeds and stirred them together I set the mixture aside side for 2 hours to allow the poppy seeds to soften then when the time was up I added 1/4 of a cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice and mixed it in for the dry mix I measured out 2 and 3/4 cups of allpurpose flour and put it into a SI set over a bowl then added 1/4 of a cup of corn starch teaspoon of kosher salt half a teaspoon of baking powder half a teaspoon of baking soda and sifted them all together so at this point I'm going to turn down the mixer to the it's lowest stir and starting with the dry ingredients I'm just going to slowly add them in in thirds first the dry ingredients then the wet ingredients and just let it mix in until it's just done don't want to over mix once the flowers in and then I always turn it off and actually use the spatula to just fold it in and make sure it's really well mixed okay that's perfectly mixed so now into the bun pan this Cake's great cuz you can make it you you can keep it in the refrigerator you always serve at room temperature but it'll hold in the refrigerator for about a week or you can freeze it freezers really well and just take your spatula and smooth the top make sure it's even okay into the oven 350° for 45 minutes till the toothpick comes out clean okay how good does that look okay I'm going to let this sit for about 10 minutes if you turn out a hot cake sometimes it can break and you don't want to do it no point in going through all that trouble so in the meantime I'm going to make lemon drizzle to pour over the cake I've got half a cup of fresh lemon juice and I half a cup of sugar granulated sugar just going to cook it just enough so that the sugar dissolves okay this is done just going to turn it off so the cake has cooled for about 10 minutes you can actually see it just pulls away from the pan a little bit so normally you just dump it out like that but I always worry about it breaking don't want a broken cake so I'm going to take the rack and just turn it over like that and if you're lucky and if you grease the pan properly it'll come out and there it is that looks great so now I'm going to take the drizzle to pour over the cake and you don't want to dump it on it you just want to sort of slowly run it around so that it absorbs it just like that and I did it over a baking pan so that didn't run all over the kitchen it just runs into the pan because too much is never enough I'm going to make a glaze to put on the cake so I need a cup of confection of sugar and a few tablespoons of fresh lemon juice maybe about one and a half but I'm going to do it slowly I'm looking for something that's like a very thick but pourable glaze let it just run down the sides just like that lemon mes one of my favorite desserts unfortunately it's one of Frank's too so I'm going to make Frank and Steven and now I'm going to make the base of the lemon mousse so first thing I going need is three whole eggs and then I'm going to separate three eggs I'm going to put the yolks in the base and whip the egg whites to make it nice and light and fluffy okay next I need a cup of sugar and lots of lemon sest two teaspoons half a cup of firstly squeezed lemon juice just going to whisk it all together a little salt and I'm going to put this over double boiler and just cook it until it thickens so the first thing I need is half of the egg whites two tablespoons of sugar just sweeten it a little bit pinch of salt and just whip those on high I'm going to get the cream and I'm going to get the base for my lemon mousse just done so I'm just going to take this plastic wrap off the base so you make a really thick custard and then you lighten it by folding in egg whites and whipped cream and that's how you make a mousse and this is the thing about folding is you just want to put it on top and then fold it in slowly want to do nothing that will deflate the egg whites put the spatula down in the middle and then just fold it over really carefully can really smell the lemon zest in this so now I'm going to whip some cream make it even lighter hard to imagine cream is light okay one cup of cream and you can just do it in the same Bowl so I've whipped the cream I'm just going to pour it on top and fold it in this is so many layers of things but the good news is you can make it in advance and let it sit in the refrigerator for a long time just want to fold it in really carefully just like the egg whites make sure you don't deflate them okay and then I'm going to give it extra special flavor I'm going to put in half a cup of lemon curd gives it a real lemon bite it's about half a jar and then fold that in again carefully but not too much but this is really good M so good so lemony really test the zest and the lemon curd and yet it's really still very light so you can really do a lemon mousse just like this but I'm going to make it extra special and decorate with cream and lemon slices I'm starting with a big roasting chicken first thing I want to do is salt and pepper the inside of the cavity I've already washed and patted it dry lots of salt inside to give it lots of flavor and lots of pepper want this to have great flavor then I'm going to take a whole head of garlic I'm not even going to peel it just cut it right in half and all that garlic flavor just gets right into the chicken it's going to be delicious and the next thing I'm going to do is lemons cuz I love the way lemon tastes in chicken so I'm just going to quarter this and put that right into the chicken just that way and then some fresh thyme big sprig of fresh thyme right in the middle all this is really just to give the chicken more flavor as it roasts if you have other herbs around like oregano or Rosemary or something like that you can also use that but I particularly like thyme okay now I'm going to show you how to truss a chicken it's really simple just want to do two things I'm going to tie the legs together a little bit of kitchen string just tie these guys to together this is really about making sure that the chicken Cooks evenly if the legs are flapping around in the pan they're going to cook faster than the rest of the chicken and the wings are the same thing you don't want them flapping around in the pan so what you want to do is just turn them backwards and tuck them right underneath the body of the chicken and it keeps them close just like that I'm just going to brush the whole top with butter just to make sure that it has lots of flavor and that it Browns really nicely in the pan then I'm going to sprinkle it with lots of salt and pepper and now comes the surprising part I'm going to put strips of bacon over the top which is going to actually give it lots of flavor and then later I'm going to crumble the crisp bacon into the salad so it's going to be a combination of dishes this is the usual Friday night chicken but dressed up for company now I'm going to add more flavor to the sauce too by putting in garlic in the pan another whole head of garlic just cut right in half I'm going to roast it in the pan and then the juices from the chicken are going to make a sauce with the garlic and I think I'll put in two lemons so these are the flavors in the chicken but it's also going to add to the sauce cut off the ends and then just cut it in half and do big wedges and you'll see the lemon is going to Brown and it's going to have great flavor right in the sauce just right in the pan sort of instead of vegetables okay so I think it's all ready 425° for about an hour and 15 minutes and before it's done I'm going to take the bacon off so the chicken Browns really nicely the thing about lemon ricotta pancakes with figs is instead of putting all the flavor on the top like with fruit and chocolate and whipped cream all the flavors of these pancakes are in the pancakes so I'm starting with one cup of ricotta whole milk ricotta next is a cup of Buttermilk you always want to be sure to shake the buttermilk because it settles but it's got a rich about it that's different from regular milk and a Tangy flavor so far it sounds pretty good right not like ordinary pancakes okay three extra large eggs just going to whisk these together one of the nice thing about pancake batter is you can make it the night before and just scoop it out and make pancakes in the morning okay next 1/4 of a cup of sugar I want them to be a little sweet 1 and 1/2 tblspoon of grated lemon zest these are really lemony pancakes one and a half that's perfect and 1/4 of cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice and a half a teaspoon of vanilla no I always say good vanilla but what I mean is pure vanilla extract as opposed to the imitation stuff I have no idea what's in that just whis this together okay that's the wet ingredients next the dry so I need 1 and 1/4 cups of allpurpose flour this is pretty easy to do 1/4 of a cup of corn starch which're is going to make them really tender tablespoon of baking powder make them light 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt just makes them taste good so that's the dry ingredients think about this base that's so nice is lemon and ricot it's just a great pancake and I have figs in seasoned which are great with it but you can make it with blueberries you can make it with chocolate chips chocolate ricot lemon fabulous combination so be creative okay that's the dry ingredients now I'm going to put them in the wet ingredients just fold them in just mix this in you don't want to over mix it because you'll end up with tough pancakes we want really tender pancakes fold it in just enough so the flour is just mixed in I'm just going to let it sit for 5 minutes minutes that allows the gluten in the flour to relax makes a really tender pancake don't worry if the batter's a little lumpy it's the ricotta that makes it lumpy okay that's the batter I'm going to let it sit I'm going to prep the figs so this is what I have I have fresh figs they're so delicious and I'm going to cut this in half inch dice try and get ripe figs if you can but if they're a little under rpe don't worry because when you cook them they kind of sweeten and caramelize I'm going to make the pancakes put the figs on turn them over figs will cook maple syrup butter on top how bad could that be of course these are great for breakfast or like Sunday brunch but I have to say I served breakfast for dinner one time for a dinner party people went berserk it was like they just couldn't need enough pancakes it was really sweet okay that's eight figs half inch diced let's make some pancakes so I'm starting with clarified butter and this is what it is I took some butter I put it in a picture I put it in the microwave for 30 seconds to melted and the milk solids go to the bottom and that's what burns the clear liquid on top has a higher burning temperature and since I don't want burnt pancakes I'm just going to use the clear liquid 2 tablespoons of clarified butter for each batch okay just some butter on the bottom of the pan nice hot pan always a good idea and here's my Pro tip I use an ice cream scoop that way all the pancakes are exactly the same size I'm only making three pancakes but this batter will make 14 just like that look how nice and thick they are another reason to let it sit is the batter gets really thick and one more and then I'm going to put the figs right on top just place a couple of figs on each pancake just make sure every bite has fig in it if you want to make a few of these ahead what you can do is make them and keep them warm in a 250 or 300° oven they'll stay nice and warm and still really moist okay little more fig I love this combination of fig and lemon ricot it's kind of like a fig cake okay see that's the nice thing about the ice cream scoop every single pancakes exactly the same size if you don't have an ice cream scoop you can use a/4 cup measure it's exactly the same thing so it's about 3 minutes on one side you're just waiting for bubbles to appear on the top don't walk away from it it happens really fast unless of course you're staring at it and then it doesn't happen at all okay I want them nicely brand on the bottom before I flip them over not quite there yet you can always spend your time putting more figs on them 3 minutes seems like a really long time when you're staring at them okay time to flip the pancakes wish me luck perfect oops and this is great when you flip it over the other side Cooks but the figs really cook too okay big plate let's see how these guys are doing the other side Cooks pretty quickly so you want to press them and when it Springs back kind of like a cake they're done so these guys are done okay do we think three pancakes is too much there's no such thing as too many pancakes right two three little bit of butter this is totally decadent okay maple syrup this is the time for Pure maple syrup Not That breakfast pancake syrup which is like maple flavored syrup this is the real deal a little dusting of fresh lemon zest on the top cuz that's the first thing you'll taste I need a fork wow hot pancakes my favorite and you can really see the figs inside look how fabulous Don't Mind If I Do M the figs are so flavorful and the Ricotta and the buttermilk and the lemon those are definitely my favorite pancakes wow look how fabulous not bad I'm having a beach picnic and I'm going to bring shrimp salad pasta pesto and peas and my favorite lemon cake transports really well to the beach so I'm going to show you how to make this if you can make this lemon cake you can make any cake I've got room temperature butter half a pound and two cups of sugar that I've been mixing in the mixer until it's really light and fluffy then I'm going to add four room temperature eggs I'm going to add the eggs one at a time and just let them get incorporated into the butter and sugar okay the next thing I'm going to put in is a third of a cup of grated lemon zest and that goes in wonderful okay then I have to put together my dry ingredients and wet ingredients first the wet ingredients I have a/4 of a cup of fresh lemon juice that I've squeezed buttermilk which is great it's a lowfat um milk that's got a culture in it so 1/4 of a cup of lemon juice plus 3/4 of a cup of Buttermilk and the next thing's vanilla I love the smell of vanilla I figure out how to put it into almost every baged product so a teaspoon of vanilla now the dry ingredients so that's three cups of flour half a teaspoon of baking soda soda half a teaspoon of baking powder and a teaspoon of salt Salt's surprisingly important in baking things really brings out the lemon and the lemon cake and I'm just going to sift these together sifting really combines it but it also makes sure that there's nothing in the bottom so I want to put them in alternately starting and ending with the dry ingredients just until it's mixed and then add the wet ingredients this keeps the batter from getting too thick or too runny and it keeps it really light great thing about this recipe is it's in fact better the next day so if you're having a party it's really great to make it in advance and then the last flour so that's it I've got the drying ingredents the wet ingredients and I'm just going to give it one more mix with the spatula and make sure it's really well mixed I can smell all the fresh lemon wonderful just one more mix with the spatula okay right over here I've got two baking pans that I've greased and flowed and have a little piece of parchment paper on the bottom so there's no point in making a delicious cake if you can't get it out of the pan divide this up evenly that looks about even right looks good so they're going to bake 350° for about 40 to 45 minutes and after they come out I have a simple syrup made of lemon juice and sugar and I'm going to drizzle it on the top and it soaks in and it just has such a fresh lemon flavor and it keeps it incredible moist lemon fuse is a classic beer contesta recipe whenever we were running out of dinners in the store I knew I can make huge quantities of it really fast so it's fusili broccoli and I'm going to make a lemon cream sauce for it into the pot boiling salted water just throw all the broccoli in just going to cook it for about 3 minutes until it's crisp tender then I'm going to shock it nice water to stop the cooking and then later it's going to heat up right in the pasta put the pasta kind of fili little oil in the water just so it doesn't stick salt okay just Stir It Around make sure they don't stick I'm going to cook this for about 10 to 12 minutes until the pasta's alente which is has a little bite but it's completely cooked actually fili is great for this because sauce really sticks okay broccoli is done turn it off put it in ice water how fast is that and while the pasta Cooks I'm going to make the most delicious and really easy lemon cream sauce it's going to be so good the lemon fuzil I'm going to make a really easy and very very rich sauce it's a lemon cream sauce tablespoon of olive oil while that heats up I'm just going to chop some garlic what I'm going to do is I'm going to flavor the cream and then reduce it and it's going to be like a white sauce so tablespoon of chopped garlic going to cook the garlic in the olive oil for about a minute right into the pan the next thing I need is two cups of cream just going to put the cream in and let it reduce over medium heat I'm going to flavor it with lots of lemon zest of two lemons so the lemon and the cream and the lemon juice are all going to cook together and they're just going to become an incredibly flavorful sauce okay that's the zest of two lemons right into the cream and then the juice of two lemons 2 teaspoons of salt remember this is the sauce on the pasta so it has to be really strongly flavored one teaspoon of pepper just going to stir that around so this is just going to simmer for about 10 to 12 minutes until it's reduced by half and by then the pasta should be done okay sauce looks like it's ready see it just starts to coat the spoon just like a white sauce smells delicious lemon and garlic I'm going to pour it right over the pasta and the broccoli okay next is parmesan cheese put on as much as you like about a quter half a cup something like that okay lots of cherry tomatoes isn't this gorgeous going to toss it all together so the sauce and the parmesan get onto everything M that looks great okay I have two more things just a few pieces of lemon tossed into it I think really just looks so much better and the last thing is fresh arugula I have some baby arugula this is gorgeous just a big handful of arugula goes into it just toss it together and the heat from the pasta is just going to wilt the aruga just enough nice PO for it on to the platter lots of cherry tomatoes I would say sprinkle the parmesan cheese you is of lemon and lunch is served in Paris I take inspiration everywhere when I come to the boulevard rest buy Market I love to see these rotisserie chickens going around and all those gorgeous juices falling on the potatoes doesn't that look fabulous and when I went home I thought wouldn't it be great to have braad cubes underneath and that's how roast chicken with croutons was born it's so delicious chicken with croutons work for a crowd or a simple lunch like today when my friend friend Anna shows up now I'm going to stuff the inside with lemon just put them right inside it's going to have really good flavor salt pepper and into the pan great so I'm going to roast it 425° for about an hour and 15 minutes until it's just perfectly done and then I'm going to sauté bread croutons and when the chicken is roasted I'm going to slice it over the croutons so it just absorbs all that gorgeous chicken juice and flavors so for the croutons I'm going to use a sourdough bread like this you can get them all over the country but it reminds me so much of those wonderful breads from paon bakery that I love in Paris nothing like roast chicken to make the house smell good so I'm just going to cover this with foil that gets all the juices back into the meat and makes it really moist about 15 minutes which is just enough time to make the croutons so croutons just going to slice the bread in big cubes I think half a loaf is enough for two people and I don't mind it with the crust on if you prefer it without the crust just cut it off but I love the earthy way it looks it's a great way to use up leftover bread just a little film of oil in the pan get it really hot and then just put all the bread cubes in you want them in one layer just sauté them medium heat just keep turning them until they're nice and brown on all sides and then when I slice the chicken over the bread cubes on the platter all that gorgeous juice from the chicken and the lemon is going to get into the cubes it's going to be really good you can really do this with any kind of bread like a baguette or sourdough bread or a big white bread just make sure it's really good bread done so I'm just going to cut this up put it right on top of the croutons and then all the juices from the chicken are going to get into the croutons M you can smell all the lemon the chicken juices for the breast what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut it all off in one piece and then slice it and that way everybody gets a little bit of the meat and a little bit of the skin I'm just going to put the roasted lemons on the platter too and the beans I blanch for about 3 minutes and then I have the roasted vegetables put them right on top okay while that's heating up I'm going to get the shallots in the bowl how gorgeous and brown caramelize these are they're going to be so good with a chicken everything's ready for lunch okay pay attention this is like the fastest pasta I ever made so first I have a big pot of water to a rolling boil I put a lot of salt in it you want the salt to get into the pasta so it flavors it okay and next capalini one pound calini is a little thinner than spaghetti and a little thicker than angel hair and it Cooks in like 4 minutes so you want to put it right into the boiling water just swirl it around and just give it a big stir and that'll keep it from sticking okay next the sauce not going to believe how easy this is so it's a half a pound of butter I know it's a lot of butter but it's really good the zest of two lemons and I'm going to zest it right over the sauce cuz then the oils from the lemons that's get into the sauce so you just want that little bit of bright yellow around the lemon you don't want the white pith underneath cuz that's bitter this is a great dish I make this all the time for New Year's Eve because we love to go out have drinks have fun in Paris take a little tour and then come back and have dinner at midnight and I don't want to start making a long complicated dish so what I do is I make this and then literally in five minutes dinner's on the table lemon capalini with a big dollop of cavier on top that sounds very festive New Year's Eve in Paris doesn't it okay that's that's one and now one more you know I've seen so many recipes for lemons where they say okay you want a half a cup of lemon juice and then lemon zest but by the time you've Juiced the lemons you can't zest it so always zest the lemons first before you juice them so this is going to be the zest of two lemons and then the juice of two lemons this really one of my favorite dishes of all time it was in my first book be for contesta cookbook and I've made it ever since okay that's that now I'm going to do the juice of two lemons in fact I got this recipe on a New Year's Eve I went to somebody's house and they were making it I remember after a really long day at the store I arrived to these people's house for New Year's Eve dinner and they were cooking and I kind of joined in just to be social and the next thing I knew everybody had left for the living room and there I was making dinner for everybody I thought well at least I got a great recipe out of it freshly squeezed lemon is just the best love my little juicer okay this just goes right into the sauce two teaspoons of salt one teaspoon of pepper and just twirl that around make sure it's really nicely mixed and let's see if the pasta is ready got to clear the decks a little bit whoa runaway lemon so I'm just going to cook this normally it cooks for 4 minutes for alente but what I'm going to do is cook it for 3 minutes and then cook it in the sauce for another minute Missy Robbins from Missy the restaurant pasta restaurant taught me this mhm perfect so I'm going to just lift it out let it drain a little bit but then take some of the pasta water and put it into the sauce and the starch and the pasta water thickens the sauce and then I have lots of pasta water just to add back in if I need to Missy Robbins is just an incredible restaurant in Brooklyn she owns two restaurants Lilia and Missy they both have unbelievable pasta that she makes think this is enough pasta this is going to be so good it's basically lemon butter and pasta but the the total is so much better than the sum of its parts and then I'm just going to toss it together I mean missy tosses it in the air but I'm going to be a little more conservative I don't think I'll be it'll be all over the kitchen and me if I do that so just toss it all together just keep tossing it for about a minute so all the butter and the lemon and the zest and the salt and pepper get absorbed into the pasta and then as it sits just going to get a little dry so I'm going to put a little of the pasta water in want to make sure it's really moist you don't want it dry just toss it together wish you could smell this it's just unbelievable the that sort of fresh citrusy lemon is so good and butter I mean how bad can that be okay I'm going to show you how I plate it so I've got an Italian plate I thought that would be pretty and let let me see if I can do it the way missy does it she takes a big thing of pasta whoa so what Missy does is twirl it on the plate and your hand so it ends up being a nice little p I don't know hers looks better but mine's still good oh run away lemon and then I'm going to do a little lemon zest on the top just so you know it's lemon it's that last hit of lemon that really that you really taste when you taste the pasta and then everybody knows it's lemon and I think maybe I'm just going to do a little wedge of lemon on the plate how's that little salt little pepper and that's lemon keni looks so good I may have to try it this why do I think I'm going to be wearing this by the time I'm done trying this just to twirl it around this is not my forte it's so good it's really zesty from the lemon zest and Juice it's perfectly seasoned that's an amazing pasta it's crazy good it's Friday night and most Friday nights involveed Jeffrey coming home and a roast chicken dinner but I think tonight I'm going to shake it up a little bit I'm going to do a Skillet roasted lemon chicken which is kind of like roasted chicken but better so first thing I'm going to do is make a marinade kind of a rub for the chicken it's going to give it a lot of flavor I need 2 teaspoons of fresh thyme leaves 1 teaspoon of whole fennel seeds tablespoon of salt seems like a lot but it's a whole chicken teaspoon of pepper I'm just going to grind it all up together this is a mini food food processor it's really useful comes in all different sizes okay that's perfect so I'm just going to take a/ third of a cup of olive oil and I'm going to mix the herbs right into it just going to put all the spices right in salt and pepper all the flavors just whisk it right in okay that's the herbed oil next I need a lemon so one whole lemon I usually cut off the ends just for pance sake cut in half and then just do thick slices one of the things that's unique about this chicken is that I cooked the whole lemon in with the chicken and the lemon is edible even the peel because it Cooks in the chicken juices and it's so delicious I'll show you how it works okay that's lemon ready for the skillet it's really heavy but it really does a great job so the first thing I'm going to do is put the lemon in just kind of in one layer the whole lemon I know it sounds wild but it really works and next I have one yellow onion just going to put it right on top this is like the easiest chicken dish on the planet and then I have two cloves of garlic that I thinly sliced just put them right on top okay next the chicken so what I have is a butterfly whole chicken I asked the but sure to take the back out and what he did was flatten it like this so I'm going to start with the skin side down and I've got my urban oil mixture I'm just going to brush half of the urban oil mixture on the bottom of the chicken on the underside of it just brush it right on it's really easy it's got so much flavor in the fennel and Thyme salt and pepper it all gets into the chicken and then I'm going to turn it over grab it by its little legs turn it over like that and then what I do is I take a paper towel and dry the top cuz I want the skin to Brown and that'll help it brown and the oil and the herbs will do the same thing so I'm just going to pour the rest of this on top brush it make sure it's completely covered how good does this look already I mean it's such a good chicken because cooks really high temperature it's really fast and then the lemon and the onions and the garlic and the juices from the chicken make the most delicious sauce so good together it's like a meal all in one okay into the oven 450° for 30 minutes whoa that's a really hot oven then I'm going to put a little wine in cook it for another 15 minutes and it's going to be perfect okay I think the chicken cook for half an hour and now I just need to put some wine in about a half a cup and make sure I put it around the chicken not over it cuz I really want the skin to Brown and it'll stop it from browning perfect okay back into the oven for 15 minutes and then I'm going to squeeze a lemon on it give it lots of flavor and then let the whole thing rest for 15 minutes it's going to be fantastic this smells amazing wow so good okay the last thing I want to do is put some lemon on it when the chicken's hot it just really absorbs the lemon flavor and then I'm just going to let it rest for about 15 minutes just going to cover it with Alin of foil loosely just keep it warm very hot be careful just going to cut it up I just do it in quarters but you can do it any way you like it's easy to cut because the backbone came out the butcher took it out okay right back in the sauce and then I actually serve it right in the pan okay that's done my picnic by the pond I'm making all kinds of portable food including lemon bars for dessert so I'm going to start with two sticks of butter half a cup of sugar why do all my recipes start with two sticks of butter it's for a party though I'm just going to cream those together and then with a mixer on low add two cups of flour and E of a teaspoon of salt great this is really a shortbread dough so much easier to make it doesn't require rolling pin I'm just going to Pat it right into the pan okay put it right into a 9x2 pan don't even have to grease the pan cuz there's butter in the dough I'm just going to flour my hands and press this out I'm going to chill it for about 15 minutes and then later on I'm going to make a wonderful lemon curd filling and pour it on top of the baked dough and then cut them out in squares for my party okay just chill for 15 minutes I've got the crust all baked and cooled and now I'm making the filling so I've got six eggs three cups of sugar I'm just going to whisk it all together these are really l lemony lemon bars I've got lots of lemon juice and lots of zest in them with great flavor okay next thing is 2 tablespoons of grated lemon zest which I've already got right there cup of fresh lemon juice I can already smell the sharpness of the citrusy lemon and the last thing is one cup of flour just put the flour in slowly so it doesn't get lumpy and when this is done I'm going to pour it onto the crust put it in the oven 350° for 30 to 35 minutes until it sets and when they're cool I'm going to cut them in big squares and dust them with confectioner sugar okay just pour it right in and into the oven I'm just going to dust them with a little bit of powdered sugar these are so lemony I can't wait for dessert and just I've cut 12 of them in this pan it's always the first one that's hard to get out got it okay going wrap it in parchment paper off to the pond to me my friend\n"