Balsamic Chicken

This was a new one for us, I found it on Cast sugar. It turned out to be simple, flavorful and definitely approved for the "make again" dinner menu in the future. The only thing for this is you need to make the marinade the night before (not a big deal) and let the chicken marinate. We had jasmine rice (with lemon juice and parsley--but mashed potatoes would be good too!!), green beans (steamed with EVOO, salt/pepper), and carrots/pears (sauteed with little butter and honey). I marinated 3 boneless/skinless breasts and then 2 with bone+ skin. So we had enough for last night, tonight + 1 lunch. We opted to make some gravy from the leftover chicken juice but you could just use it straight from the pan (after cooking...).

Balsamic Chicken:
4 lb of chicken (4-5 chicken breasts)
1/2 c Balsamic Vinegar
1/4 c Dijon mustard
1/4 c lemon juice
3 cloves garlic, chopped up
1/4-1/3 c EVOO
salt/pepper as desired, I think used about 1/4 tsp black pepper or maybe a bit more...

Mix it all together, toss it into a huge freezer ziplock bag, toss in the chicken. Let it do it's thing in the fridge overnight.

On the day you want to eat this chicken, preheat the oven to 400F. Pour the chicken and marinade into an aluminum-lined baking dish (9x13 is a good size). Bake for about 45-1 hr 15 min (depending on how long your chicken takes...the boneless/skinless was done very quickly). Remove from oven. If you want to make gravy melt 1 Tbsp butter in small saucepan over med-lo heat. Add 1-2 tsp flour, whisk til smooth. Pour in the marinade juices from the baking dish. Whisk til smooth and allow to heat for a minute or two. Optional: add 2-4 oz mushrooms.