Since this is my first time living away from home for an extended period of time, my mom reminded me constantly to make sure I ate well and to cook enough food to survive. Since moving to Baltimore, it’s been a challenge to figure out a routine of cooking and meal prep, since whenever I have a decent amount of time to spare, I try to cook something new to add to my meal for lunch when I’m in school! I haven’t figured out the best days of the week I should be cooking, or if I want to just cook on the weekends to last me the school week, but I’m slowly but surely figuring things out 🙂
During my first week in Baltimore, I was on a mostly vegetable diet since I brought a lot of veggies with me from NY, and I hadn’t had time to buy any protein meats or eggs. It wasn’t too bad, but it started to get monotonous eating the same veggie dishes every day without something to change it up. After classes one day, I stopped by my grocery store that’s conveniently downstairs in our plaza and got some eggs, ground beef, and a pack of 8 decent-sized chicken legs for less than $4! Talk about a bargain!!! So, I decided I was going to cook half the pack to keep my belly happy for the week.
Ingredients:
- chicken legs
- olive oil
- smoked paprika
- cayenne pepper
- garlic and salt/pepper seasoning
- multi-purpose seasoning mix
- Worcestershire sauce
I wanted to experiment with different flavors, so I used all of the above seasonings to decorate my chicken legs so I could eat something new every day.
Steps:
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Line your baking tray with aluminum foil and pour enough oil to cover the entire bottom lightly.
- Add whatever seasonings you want to your chicken, to taste 🙂 For me, I seasoned them randomly like this:
– 2 with smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, and seasoning mix
– 1 with garlic and salt/pepper seasoning
– 1 with seasoning mix and Worcestershire sauce
**quick tip: When you have skin on the chicken, you want to season underneath the skin. Cut slices into the meat and season to make sure the meat will absorb as much flavor as possible!** - When you place the chicken onto the tray, make sure you give each of them some breathing room so they don’t touch!
- Pop them in the oven for about 30 minutes until they’re ready.
Cooking in larger batches in general is a great idea for people who are in college and have access to a kitchen, or if they’ve recently moved out to live on their own since you can pretty much have your meals set for the week 🙂 I’m slowly learning that meal prep is a great way to save time on weekdays when you’re super tired from the day and just want a meal that you can microwave and eat once you get home. Hope you enjoyed reading!
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A Healthy Blueprint 