Dishing...

I made two chicken dishes recently.

One was chicken and mushrooms in a garlic white wine sauce where I let the sauce cook too long, so it mostly evaporated. 

Sigh. 

Dear Baked Pesto Chicken Dish

Dear Baked Pesto Chicken Dish,

You are mine.

Don't even to begin to think for a moment that you belong to my ex-boyfriend's wife.

I mean, I bumped into you while visiting her Facebook page (more evidence that she and I would have gotten along; you know, if she hadn't so rudely broken up The Man and me and then went on to marry said man; she misses Obama as much as I do; unrequited BFFs forever!).

Not that I spend that much time on her page, mind you. Only occasionally, OK? When the urge hits. The curiosity.

And thank heavens for that BECAUSE THERE YOU WERE.

Just sitting there, waiting for me to happen upon you.

The Most Dangerous Thing I've Cooked So Far

Some bitch named Stella came down from the heavens and decided to sneeze six feet of snow onto Boston in the middle of March.

(I'll let you figure out which part of that is an exaggeration.)

Knowing I'd be trapped in the apartment and wanting comfort food, I thought I'd cook and decided on this One-Pot Creamy Chicken and Tortellini, which, depending on how I made it could be One-Pot of Creamy Salmonella.

You might think that's the danger part, but it's not.

Here's where the REAL danger comes in. And it's a two-fer.

When Your Regular Rotation Dish Wakes You Up at 3AM

Do you blame the chicken, or the cook?

This is why cooking stresses me out, the constant fear of getting sick (or making other people sick) because I have NO CONFIDENCE.

I made my one-and-only regular rotation dish last night (second time in a month!). I used a meat thermometer to combat my Fear of Fowl (TM) and cooked the darn dish for fifteen minutes longer than the recipe called for because that's what I did last time and because I don't trust my oven, but, honestly, that's the oven's fault.

Tasted great. I may have had two servings while watching the latest episode of The Blacklist and then catching a freebie version of Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 (don't judge) and wondering if men can actually love a woman like Edward loves Bella Swan.

Everything's fine until 3AM when I awaken to a noisy tummy and the need to, you know, go, and I start calculating when I had dinner (7PM) and wondering if botulism can kick in that fast and then wondering if it could be the dinner I had out the night before (filet mignon, something I will never, ever attempt to cook). How do people or the CDC ever pinpoint what, exactly, made them sick when food poisoning is indeed the culprit?

I Survived the Feast of Fowl

I think I've found my first dish that I will enter into this thing called Regular Rotation.

Regular Rotation, as I understand it: your go-to meals. Meals that you feel confident making, that are straightforward to make, that everyone can agree on, that won't kill or sicken the masses.

Last night, I made Easy Tomato Baked Chicken from Kraft Foods. I'd made this dish probably 10 years ago and remembered it being tasty and relatively easy.

THERE IS NO SHAME IN THE WORD EASY, BY THE WAY.

Listen, I have no illusion about becoming Rachel, Julia, Emeril, or that Pioneer chick. This is me, people, a nervous idiot whose main goal is to cook without poisoning myself or others (once I get to that point--right now, I'm just cooking for moi).

I love easy recipes. I'm fairly certain you don't win a prize or extra life chips for spending three hours slaving over dinner as opposed to whipping something up in 30 minutes. I could use that extra 2.5 hours doing something else: reading, writing, contemplating my navel, figuring out how to get the crusty stains off my tub.

This recipe was easy, tasty, and healthy.

Sometimes This is Dinner

And you know what? It's OK.

It's OK to buy a chicken from Stop & Shop and boil bagged rice and heat up frozen mixed veggies and call it a day. 

Because sometimes it's a hard week and clients are pains in the ass (asses?) and the work-in-progress feels like you're trying to catch a pterodactyl with a butterfly net. It happens. And you want to cook and you want to eat healthy, but it's just you, not even the cat to guilt you into anything with his Stare of Condemnation, because the cat is dead (long live the cat!) and has been for almost two years.

But here's the thing. It's better than pizza, I guess. And when I went to the store, I avoided the cans of chocolate frosting calling my name even though I wanted nothing more than to open one up and eat directly from it with a spoon. And then buy a bag of Tostitos and layer them with cheese and nuke 'em for a minute and jump into bed with nothing but the memory of my dead cat and lots of Netflix.

THAT didn't happen, at least. 

And I WILL do something with the leftover chicken. I have an easy chicken noodle soup that I'll make with the remaining meat on the bone and I'll share that here, at some point. I haven't gotten to the point where I'll boil the carcass or make my own stock (haven't the first clue!), but that's OK, too.

I will eat tonight. And it will be relatively healthy. And life will go on. And tomorrow (or next week) will provide another opportunity for me to challenge my lack of culinary skills and confidence.

Onward!

Should You Rinse Your Chicken Before Cooking It?

OK, so this question regarding chicken rinsing causes a lot of debate online. Apparently, the reason why is because most people, at least in the US, rinse their poultry, probably because that's the way people were raised and because Julia Child did it.

My mother rinses. For me, the rinsing itself isn't the problem. IT'S THE FRIGHTENING SCENE THAT HAPPENS POST RINSE THAT HAS SCARRED ME FOR LIFE.

When you rinse chicken in the sink, you need to clean everything in sight afterwards, and my mother is a wild woman with her bleach. To her, Clorox is a verb. She has to Clorox everything and it's very stressful for a germophobe and angsty person like me to watch and eventually replicate on my own.