Lemon, feta liven up chicken

A Mediterranean-inspired dish, this baked chicken is simple to make, lively in taste and guilt-free for diners watching their fat intake.

The recipe is from “The New Holly Clegg Trim & Terrific Cookbook” (Running Press, 2006, $29.95), an updated edition of a 2002 book with a working family background.

Author Holly Clegg, who lives in Baton Rouge, La., and has produced a “Trim and Terrific” series of cookbooks, packs some 500 recipes in this one, including a “Just for Kids” chapter. Clegg describes her recipes as healthy and easy to make, for people who are short on time but don’t want “bland-tasting diet food.”

Family members are credited among her acknowledgments. She mentions Haley, her 18-year-old daughter (17 at the time), and her daughter Courtney, 21, helped style food for photographs and test recipes in the book.

“We judge everything in our house by food,” Clegg says. “I think we all just like to eat – so we cook.”

This is from the chapter on poultry.

Lemon Feta Chicken

8 skinless, boneless chicken breasts

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 tablespoon dried oregano leaves

1/4 teaspoon pepper

3 ounces crumbled feta cheese

3 tablespoons chopped green onions (scallions)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Place the chicken in a 13-by-9 2-inch nonstick baking dish and drizzle with half the lemon juice. Sprinkle with half the oregano and all the pepper. Top with the cheese and green onion. Drizzle with the remaining lemon juice and oregano. Bake, covered, for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until done.

Yield: 8 servings

Approximate nutrition per serving: 173 calories, 5 grams fat (2.5 grams saturated, 29 percent fat calories), 28 grams protein, 1 gram carbohydrate, 82 milligrams cholesterol, less than 1 gram dietary fiber, 182 milligrams sodium.