Baked Chicken and Creamed Spinach

It's definitely been a while since I've posted anything about food!  Actually, I was going through a real baking kick during the holidays but nothing really worth posting since I was using online recipes from Martha Stewart and allrecipes.com.  Since I was baking so much, I didn't really feel like cooking outside of simple things I could quickly throw together like Hamburger Helper or rice and side dishes.  I let the Boyfriend get creative and man, he made some DELICIOUS things like parmesan-crusted pork chops and creamy mashed potatoes.
Even though I'm feeling a little under the weather today, I somehow found the energy to whip up a little something.
Hit the jump for the recipes!

For the baked chicken, you will need:

• 4 chicken breasts (of medium size, not too thick)
• 1 lemon
• 4 cloves of garlic
• a few sprigs of rosemary and thyme
• salt and pepper

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Rinse the chicken breasts and let them sit in some vinegar while you slice up the lemon into thin slices.
3. Place two breasts side by side on a sheet of foil.  
4. Salt and pepper both sides then coat them lightly with olive oil.
5. On top of the breasts, place two lemon slices, two whole garlic cloves, thyme sprig, and rosemary sprig.
6. Seal up the breasts with the foil by folding it up like a little package, leaving a crack open on top to let the steam out.
7. Repeat with the other two breasts in the same manner.
8. Pop into the oven for 15-20 minutes or until your meat thermometer reads 170.

For the creamed spinach, you will need:

• 1 stick of butter
• 1 bag of frozen spinach
• 3 garlic cloves- minced finely or grated with microplane
• 1.5-2 cups of milk
• 4 tablespoons of flour
• salt and pepper

1. Thaw your frozen spinach according to package directions and drain.
2. Melt the butter in a pot then add the flour. Stir immediately to avoid clumping and let it brown lightly.
3. Add the garlic and continue to stir.  (At this point, you can also add minced onions.  I didn't because I hate cutting them even though I like them a lot.)
4. When the mixture looks nicely blended and browned, pour in about a cup of milk while stirring constantly.
5. Once the milk has been mixed in well, add the spinach and continue to stir.  If the consistency of your creamed spinach is too thick, add some more milk at this point.
6. Salt and pepper to taste.  The spinach was still bland for me so I added some onion powder which made a world of difference!

The chicken turned out to be nicely flavored and tender!  The creamed spinach was great with it and because it was so filling, it didn't matter that I didn't have any other carbs like rice or pasta with the meal.  Next time, I'm going to put onions and some parmesan cheese into the creamed spinach!