 |
I don't want to.... |
answer the phone
design a flyer
rearrange anything
clean anything
write emails
update the website
reorder anything
read anything
follow up on anything
or stay here for another 90 minutes
Weekend please?
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
IT'S HARDER THAN YOU THINK...
...to take photos WHILE cooking. I kinda suck at it, actually. I'm right handed, and my camera fits perfectly in my right hand. Snapping non-blurry photos with my left hand while pouring ingredients with my right and not chopping important parts out of the photo and NOT dropping my camera in the mess is HARD WORK! So for this post, I'm stealing google images, okay? My camera remains in its special case free of barbecue sauce and salad dressing and flour, and that's the way I like it.
Last night we hosted dinner at our house. Nick's parents, his aunt Becky, and cousin Ryan joined us for Barbecued Chicken, Greek Salad, Potato Salad, and Garlic Flatbread followed up with Brownies & Vanilla Ice Cream! This may sound like a big job for a girl who works until 6pm and wants to have dinner ready by 7! It's all about efficiency baby!
At lunch I stopped by Mike's Meat & Farmer's Market to pick up a few things, including their ultra delicious, ginormous boneless skinless chicken breasts. (If you haven't made any purchases there, get to it!). Afterward I ran home and put my chicken breasts in a brine which consisted of:
Brine:
2 quarts water (I used some leftover vegetable stock too)
2 TBS salt
A handful of fresh Thyme (I didn't bother stripping the leaves from the sticks)
Fresh ground pepper (probably a Tbs)
About 1TBS Garlic Powder (although if you have more than the 5 minutes I had, some fresh minced garlic would be great!)
(Cutting corners = efficiency (and yet still delicious))
You could probably do this in a large Zip-Lock bag, but I had a big plastic bowl that I put mine in. Place your breasts in the pool (haha) and put it all in the refrigerator. Don't skip this process, even if you only have 15 minutes. I left mine there for about 5 hours and ohhhhhh my goodness was it worth it! (Prep at lunch time + marination = efficiency)
Fast forward 5 hours and as soon as I walked in the door Nick started up the grill while I patted my chicken dry with some paper towels. I arranged them all on a cookie sheet to take outside and let Nick do the fun/hot job of grilling them for 10 minutes. 5 minutes, flip, 5 minutes. PERFECT GRILL MARKS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO ME, so do us all a favor and make sure your grill is clean-ish and if necessary, wipe the grates down with olive oil PRIOR to turning it on to make sure things don't stick/rip/get messed up. Actually though, it will taste great either way. The point of this grilling process is not to cook your meat all the way through, but rather to crust up the outside and give it pretty grill marks. Got it? Good. (Letting your husband do the hard stuff = efficiency) While he's working on that, I preheated my oven to 350º.
Okay so once 10 minutes has passed feel free to put them back on the same cookie sheet to bring them back inside (don't worry, it's on its way to the oven, so no bacterial worries!). (Fewer dishes = efficiency). I slather the chicken in my favorite BBQ sauce, which you can purchase jarred at Country Boy's Barbecue. I just realized that my last food post was all about their BBQ sauce too... what can I say, it's delicious and we like meat! Anyway... make sure you get the sauce ALLLLLL over the meat and then stick 'em in the oven. I baked them for 20 minutes, flipped, added more sauce, and baked for another 10 minutes. Depending on the size of your breasts you may want to adjust the timing but mine were huge (haha) and I wanted to make sure they were fully cooked.
While the meat was in the oven I prepared the potato salad, which was a recipe that I came up with on the spot based on all the crap I needed to use in my fridge -- maybe I'll share that later. Nick's mom brought the salad. (Taking advantage of guests who offer to bring a side = efficiency).
When your chicken is done, take it out and let it hang out on the counter for a while to seal in all the juiciness. This is when I popped the flat bread in (actually, I'm going to be real honest with you here and mention that this was a fresh, but pre-made basil pizza dough that you can purchase in the bakery at Mike's Meat). I put a little butter and minced garlic on top and baked it at 450º for about 5 minutes while I set the table.
Voila! Dinner was ready in less than an hour!
After we ate I mixed up some brownie batter (Umm... hello giant box of Ghirardelli brownie mix from Costco). Why make brownies from scratch when they've completely perfected it in a box? I do add some chopped walnuts to the mix, because I like 'em. But I buy those pre-chopped too... efficiency might be turning into laziness, but I'm not ashamed!
Success! We love love love having people over for dinner, even on a Thursday night. I extra love my hubby who is going to finish up those dishes today =)
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| Impossible to do on your own... |
Last night we hosted dinner at our house. Nick's parents, his aunt Becky, and cousin Ryan joined us for Barbecued Chicken, Greek Salad, Potato Salad, and Garlic Flatbread followed up with Brownies & Vanilla Ice Cream! This may sound like a big job for a girl who works until 6pm and wants to have dinner ready by 7! It's all about efficiency baby!
At lunch I stopped by Mike's Meat & Farmer's Market to pick up a few things, including their ultra delicious, ginormous boneless skinless chicken breasts. (If you haven't made any purchases there, get to it!). Afterward I ran home and put my chicken breasts in a brine which consisted of:
Brine:
2 quarts water (I used some leftover vegetable stock too)
2 TBS salt
A handful of fresh Thyme (I didn't bother stripping the leaves from the sticks)
Fresh ground pepper (probably a Tbs)
About 1TBS Garlic Powder (although if you have more than the 5 minutes I had, some fresh minced garlic would be great!)
(Cutting corners = efficiency (and yet still delicious))
You could probably do this in a large Zip-Lock bag, but I had a big plastic bowl that I put mine in. Place your breasts in the pool (haha) and put it all in the refrigerator. Don't skip this process, even if you only have 15 minutes. I left mine there for about 5 hours and ohhhhhh my goodness was it worth it! (Prep at lunch time + marination = efficiency)
Fast forward 5 hours and as soon as I walked in the door Nick started up the grill while I patted my chicken dry with some paper towels. I arranged them all on a cookie sheet to take outside and let Nick do the fun/hot job of grilling them for 10 minutes. 5 minutes, flip, 5 minutes. PERFECT GRILL MARKS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO ME, so do us all a favor and make sure your grill is clean-ish and if necessary, wipe the grates down with olive oil PRIOR to turning it on to make sure things don't stick/rip/get messed up. Actually though, it will taste great either way. The point of this grilling process is not to cook your meat all the way through, but rather to crust up the outside and give it pretty grill marks. Got it? Good. (Letting your husband do the hard stuff = efficiency) While he's working on that, I preheated my oven to 350º.
 |
| Sidenote: We love PAM Grilling Spray! Also: The best part about google images is that I can change Nick's ethnicity at will! |
 |
| I love this photo because this is EXACTLY what they looked like! |
While the meat was in the oven I prepared the potato salad, which was a recipe that I came up with on the spot based on all the crap I needed to use in my fridge -- maybe I'll share that later. Nick's mom brought the salad. (Taking advantage of guests who offer to bring a side = efficiency).
When your chicken is done, take it out and let it hang out on the counter for a while to seal in all the juiciness. This is when I popped the flat bread in (actually, I'm going to be real honest with you here and mention that this was a fresh, but pre-made basil pizza dough that you can purchase in the bakery at Mike's Meat). I put a little butter and minced garlic on top and baked it at 450º for about 5 minutes while I set the table.
Voila! Dinner was ready in less than an hour!
After we ate I mixed up some brownie batter (Umm... hello giant box of Ghirardelli brownie mix from Costco). Why make brownies from scratch when they've completely perfected it in a box? I do add some chopped walnuts to the mix, because I like 'em. But I buy those pre-chopped too... efficiency might be turning into laziness, but I'm not ashamed!
Success! We love love love having people over for dinner, even on a Thursday night. I extra love my hubby who is going to finish up those dishes today =)
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