Reporting in
on The Wifening... I made dinner. Just like a real grown up. And I handled raw
chicken and everything... And no one got salmonella!
I call that a success!
I decided to make
a twist between a recipe that we already love (that’s not really a recipe at
all) and a recipe that I found on-line (I think it was on food.com). For the part we already love: simply
take however many boneless skinless chicken breasts you need to feed who you
are feeding, put it in a Ziploc bag with a crap-ton (real measurement) of
sweet-hot mustard (or whatever mustard you happen to enjoy), and let it soak in
that overnight. J would normally just cook this up in a pan the next day and it
is ridiculously simple and delicious. Something about that sweet and spicy mustard coating
the chicken is just magical.
But I had to
make it different. Because I wanted to make it mine. SO... For the twist: Take it out of the
mustard and coat it in a mixture of panko bread crumbs and fresh shredded parmesan
cheese (slightly more panko than cheese). Then put it on a rack on a foil-covered tray (I improvised this and used the roasting tray out of our turkey pan on a cookie sheet) that
has been sprayed with olive oil (or other oil...) and bake it at 450 degrees
for about 20-ish minutes. Maybe more, maybe less depending on the size of your
chickens. There were two random chicken strips in our pack of chicken, so I made those too. I just put them in the oven about 7 minutes or so into cooking the rest of the chicken so that they wouldn't be overdone.
For a side –
because I had to make sure there was a veggie too... I made carrots with garlic
and shallots. This is something that we have regularly because it’s simple and yummy.
Basically peel and chop your carrots, par boil them for about a minute, dump
out the water and set them to the side. Chop up about 2 cloves of garlic and
2-3 shallots (TOTALLY depends on how much you like...), throw them in a pan
with some olive oil and let that cook up until the shallots start to get pale.
Toss in the carrots and make sure it’s all mixed together. I also added some
spicy Japanese seasoning that we love at this point... Then shove the pan in
the oven for about 10 minutes. Normally J would have it at 350, but since the chicken was already in there at 450, it went in at that... It's pretty forgiving. Just keep an eye on it – you want
the shallots to get crispy, but not burnt. I sorta failed on the crispiness
because I was overly concerned with the non-burntness... But they still tasted good... I just really love when the shallots are super crispy...
So there you
go... My easy dinner.
It’s not
super pretty (well, the chicken actually is quite nice looking – the carrots
aren’t lookers, but they sure are yummy), but it’s still dinner. And fairly
healthy. And I thought it was delicious. J said he didn’t love the parmesan
with the mustard, so if I make it again I will probably leave it out. I
actually liked the flavors together, but I’m not gonna lose sleep over taking
it out...
It wasn’t
nearly as difficult as I had built it up to be in my mind and I’m slightly less
worried about cooking chicken now. I thought it was going to be super dry, but
it was delicious and moist.
My big
problem is that I love baking, but I don’t like cooking. And the biggest
irritation for me with cooking is that there aren’t really any exacts. Not with
measurements or times or anything! There are too many variables... And I never
liked that. Baking is so specific and orderly.... Cooking feels like just slappin’
some stuff together, cooking it “until it’s done,” and hoping it’s good. J
loves that kind of thing – he can walk into the kitchen with no idea what he
wants to make and come out with something incredible like pomegranate duck or salmon
with a plum-chile glaze. I have to have a game plan.
But I’m going
to keep doing this – I already picked out what I’m making this week. For the
time being, I’m going to go into each week with my meal picked out so that I at
least know WHAT I’m making. I’ll work up to the grabbing of random things and
making a dinner out of them eventually... And I’ll keep enjoying watching J
have to do the dishes for a change on the nights I cook... haha
Nice post.. I love this crispy recipe and its second part is much interesting. Thanks for sharing this post.
ReplyDeleteThat looks so tasty!
ReplyDeleteThat looks super yummy. I am going to give it a try. I am the opposite of you I love cooking because I just throw everything together but get annoyed with baking because its so exact.
ReplyDelete"How much time do you need to complete most garbage disposal repairs?"
ReplyDeleteIt really depends on the complexity of the project. Some projects that require replacing worn out parts take 90 minutes to 2 hours to finish.best garbage disposal
Implicit bias is, however, more difficult to understand because an individual is unaware of its existence.guarantor
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete