Gleanings of Wheat

So, my game plan tonight was to make this version of sesame chicken . I asked J if she wanted to help, she said no, so I started making dinner. I went to check on her brother and I came back just in time to see her tip the bottle of sesame seeds upside down. You know how in the movies something is falling and they shoot it at half speed to make it dramatic? You know how the inevitable "No!" really sounds like "NNNNNoooooooooooo!"? Totally what happened. I thanked her for her help and sent her off to finish her movie while I finished dinner. This is what she left me with: This is the end result: Considering there was way too much sesame, it was pretty good! I'll remake it without her help and let you know my final verdict. Recipe 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup toasted sesame seeds, divided 1 teaspoon black pepper 1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional) 5 (6 ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast ...

Sorry guys, I forgot to take a photo...Tonight I played mad scientist in the kitchen - and my 8 year old commented on how good it smelled. Regardless of how it tasted I declared the meal a success b/c he is so incredibly picky. It gets better though, not only did it smell great it tasted great! Here's basically what I did: 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts 2 tsp ground curry 2 tsp ground cinnamon 2 tsp lemon zest 1 can cranberry sauce salt & pepper to taste Preheat the oven to 350. Add a bit of olive oil to a baking pan, season the chicken with salt & pepper. Bake for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, add the rest of the ingredients to a bowl and mix together. After 20 minutes top the chicken with the cranberry mixture (reserve 2 tbsp per person for dipping) and bake until the chicken is cooked through. I served this up with some white rice.

The problem So last night I put some chicken breasts in the fridge to defrost. After lunch today I was faced with a dilemma - I had some lettuce, tomatoes, & green bell peppers that needed to be used within the next few days or risk them going to waste. I pulled up Food Network , and Martha Stewart's website to try and find something to make. Meanwhile I sent out a tweet asking for ideas and I also pulled My Fridge Food , plugged in some ingredients and started reading. I take food going to waste pretty seriously. I had a few things that looked interesting and with some encouragement I decided to go the wrap route...but instead of going and buying tortillas I decided to use the lettuce as the thing to hold everything together. They say a picture is worth a thousand words How I got it Dice two chicken breasts, a tomato, and a bell pepper. Slice a potato and a cucumber. Mince a clove of garlic. Season liberally with salt & pepper. Heat a skillet with olive oil ...

At last, a real post about food! Tonight for dinner I grilled some chicken breasts after seasoning them with salt, pepper, and a touch of cilantro. For sides, I cheated and used Uncle Ben's Santa Fe rice, sliced some potatoes and threw them in the oven till they were a bit crispy. By the way, those were seasoned with salt, pepper, cilantro, and thyme. To top the chicken I sliced 3 cloves of garlic, mixed them with some sliced mushrooms, and threw that in a skillet with about a cup of milk; cook those puppies over medium heat until the milk is thick like a sauce. If it won't thicken, add a tablespoon of flour. Here's how it turned out: The chicken? Yum. The potatoes? Yum. The rice was a tad dry, and the mushrooms were nothing to scream over.

The kids and I just mixed the batter for a chocolate cake...we didn't have any oil in the house so I substituted butter. I'll let you know how it turns out. After dinner update: Not bad. You really couldn't tell the difference. Just so you know, it is a 1:1 ratio, so if the recipe calls for 2/3c oil that's how much butter you'd need.

So tonight I decided to use some mushrooms up before they went bad, but didn't have an actual recipe or any real inspiration. I added about a table spoon worth of butter to a skillet over medium-high heat, tossed in my pre-cut mushrooms and a few table spoons of white wine and let it cook down until the wine evaporated. Once the mushrooms cooked down I removed them from the skillet, added some more butter & wine, & added my tilapia filets that I previously seasoned with salt, pepper, & minced garlic. The outcome? Fish - nice. Mushrooms - blah.

Ok, I did this dinner like a week ago, I just keep forgetting to post. I was feeling incredibly lazy when I did this, and it turned out great. I had some frozen (uncooked) jumbo shrimp in the freezer that I wanted to use up, but I didn't really have anything that felt like it went with it. Problem, yes? Not for super me! I ended up dicing one small onion, mincing two cloves of garlic & browning them in a skillet. Then I added sliced green bell peppers and cooked that for a few minutes. Pull it out and keep it near. Add the shrimp to the same skillet, sprinkle with lemon juice, once the shrimp were almost opacque I added the pepper, garlic, onion mixture back to the skillet. Meanwhile I cooked up some white rice. Once everything was done I threw it all on a plate with some lettuce & topped that with oilve oil & vinegar dressing. Super yum, guys, super yum. AND it looked pretty. And it only took about 20 minutes. Sorry about the lame picture, I couldn't find my...

As promised, here is my first experiment! I wanted eggs for lunch (I had cookies for breakfast) so I decided to attempt making hash browns for the first time and decided to dress it up a bit by adding cheese & onions. I started off by dicing 1/4 of an onion I had sitting in my fridge and adding it to a hot skillet with a tablespoon of butter. I cooked the onion till they just started to brown - about 3 minutes. Meanwhile I got my handy IKEA cheese grater * out and shredded a small potato over it. I tossed that into the skillet and mixed up the contents and let it cook for about 5 minutes before adding a handful of shredded cheese to it. Results Honestly? It was pretty ugly looking. Not golden brown like I'm used to, but it tasted great! Next time I think I'd use 1/8 of a onion or a larger potato, I'd also let the onion cook a few minutes longer. Other than that it was great. Went great with the eggs. I'm pretty happy about it. Next experiment will be posted ...

So I've decided to do a mini series of posts where I'll be cooking using no pre-existing recipe. Just gonna make things up as I go with whatever I have lying around and then I'll post about how it turned out. Good or bad. I'll do at least one breakfast, one dinner, and one dessert. Look for the first installment on Monday!