It is one of the perks of having cooked compulsively for years that one has a tendancy, every so often, to throw into a pan whatever is in the kitchen and come up with something which is better than expected.
Last week we were staying with the brother-in-law Colm in Skerries and spent a long and unproductive day in Dublin shopping, unsuccessfully, for clothes for the three weddings we are going to in the next couple of months.
I had promised Colm that I would cook and had brought with me a free range chicken from Carlow.
I was so knackered after the shopping that I just threw into a pan, with the chicken, anything I could find in the kitchen and then put it into the oven.
The results were so good and so simple that I have repeated the same recipe tonight and it looks like becoming a family standard.

Recipe
(for 3 to 4 depending on size of chicken)
1 Free Range chicken (jointed in 8 pieces.)
4 Large Cloves Garlic
2 Limes
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
4 sprigs fresh Thyme
salt and black pepper

Joint the chicken and put the pieces into a roasting tin or oven proof pan.
Season well with salt and pepper and pour over the olive oil.
Quarter the limes and squeeze roughly with your hand over the chicken.
Now put your hands into the pan and rub the whole thing together.
Into the pan throw the pieces of squeezed lime, the whole unpeeled cloves of garlic and the thyme and put it into a hot oven (200C,Gas 6) for about 45 minutes.
Take it out of the oven, and then squeeze the soft garlic out of its skins into the pan juices and also press down on the limes with a fork to extract maximum flavour.
Discard any of the thyme which hasn’t fallen into the sauce and the garlic skins and lime skins.
As you serve spoon oven the delicious lemony, garlicy juices.
It hardly needs anything with it but some plain potatoes or rice would go nicely.