Chicken

This is a recipe that I hope gets passed down. Everyone seems to like it. We make it as a main dish when I make it with chicken. We also make it a side when omitting the chicken. We will then have grilled chicken with it.

We've done chicken next to rice, on rice, and in rice, but I believe this is the first time we're going to reverse it and do the rice in the chicken-and no, not stuffed in the cavity. This recipe involves stuffing the rice under the skin, and the results really were spectacular.

This is such an easy weeknight meal. It can be made in 30 minutes and is especially delicious served with mashed potatoes. Make sure to use fresh mozzarella as regular mozzarella will not have the same melting properties.

When it comes to mustard, sweet-hot works amazingly well, especially as a glaze for chicken. Even though we are using skin-on bone-in chicken thighs, I'm sure it will work with any cut of chicken. By the time this is done, it doesn't have a super-strong mustard flavor. It gets mellowed out by the brown sugar and spices. The old saying 'The closer the bone, the sweeter the meat' really is true. Leaving in the bones adds a lot of flavor and juiciness.