Roasted Chicken with Lemon and Rosemary

Please forgive any typos, I’m sure to go back and fix them, but this blog is being written from my phone while the Little Miss sleeps on me.

I found the end of the internet

I received an inter-office envelope today. I never receive these, so my curiosity was piqued. When I opened it, there was but one sheet of paper enclosed, bearing the message:

It would be a fine idea if you were to refrain from the consumption of candy today.
–The Phantom

I grinned because I know who the phantom is and he’s quite inspiring. His note helped me refuse a chocolate covered salted caramel today. And when a colleague offered to bribe me with chocolate, I confidently announced that I’d prefer baby carrots.

Today was a pretty good day. I had a lot of lean proteins and a lot of spinach. Of course, I had a poptart and crackers, too.  This blog is about progress, not perfection, so I’ll continue to tell it like it is.

I told it like it is to Jeff tonight. After surfing to the end of the internet, (did you realize there’s a page on tickld that doesn’t have a “next” button??) Anyway, after surfing to the end of the internet, I got angry with myself. Here I had paged through 45 pages of things of little consequence and wasted hours of time. Time that could’ve been spent cleaning, exercising, crafting, painting, or even sleeping. 

Then I shut down the computer and said to hell with it.  Jeff is going to help me block the trouble sites and I’m going to redouble my efforts to be more productive with my time.

And, I’m back…

Is it just me, or is WordPress being weird? I usually include photos in my posts and this one *STARTED* fine, but then I went back to edit the draft of this post and the photo exploded.  The preview looks fine, but, I dunno…I’m typing right now and all I can see is the orange and it’s super zoomed in and… let’s just say it doesn’t look like an orange at the moment @_@;

Ahem.

I’ve been away a lot lately because, well, life happens–I needed to be there for family and so I was.  This involved going back to Canada for a funeral service just a week and a half after we had come home from Canada, but it was well worth the journey, just to gain some closure, healing, and time with family.

 

I’m at a point, where I want to get back to what I originally intended with this blog–cooking, working out, getting healthy.

Today, I’m spring cleaning around the apartment and I’ll be cooking up a few things for this week’s dinners.  I’ve got my grocery list planned out and the meal plans, too.  Now it’s just a matter of executing on the plan:

Monday: Chorizo Chicken Jambalaya

Tuesday: Taco Chicken Bowls

Wednesday: Wild Rice Soup – made from a mix, I’ll be adding fresh mushrooms and serving with a salad and a crusty bread.

Thursday: Spaghetti – nothing fancy, just browned beef, pasta, and sauce

Friday: Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup

Saturday: Skillet Gnocchi w/ Chard and White Beans – we’ve tried this one before, and it was terrible.  Mostly, Jeff says, because “melted spatula” wasn’t supposed to be part of the recipe.

Dedicated to Mentality, My Fitness Pal

Lunch: chicken, salad, fruit…work

I’m eating lunch at my desk more often than not these days. And dinner. And breakfast.

Can I *not* be busy for a second? K thanks, (´･_･`)

Zoe and Zucchini

Which Firefly Character Are You?

More on Firefly.Created by BuddyTV

Is it just me, or are quizzes becoming popular again?  I think I’ve taken a couple in the last week or so, but I know I’ve SEEN a gob of them show up in my friend feed.  I like it 🙂 Let’s bring back the blogging habits from the early aughts.  I feel like bloggers were closer with their audience because there’s a certain bit of ‘audience participation’ when you can share your answers with each other.  Go ahead! Take the quiz above (in a new window) and come back to share your answers…. I’ll wait.

[Firefly theme starts up]

Did you post your answer in the comments yet? 😀

Anyway… The plan for today is to do a lot of cleaning, menu-making, and cooking.  Our last week month has been out of whack with the three of those above, culminating in a desk that the cat cannot sit on, a kitchen that has seen little to no use, and a waistline (I’m sure) that’s expanding from all of the fast food we’ve been eating.

By the end of the day, I’m going to have a menu whipped up for dinners for this whole week, a grocery list, AND a plan to batch cook all of it. Nothing to it but to do it!

Zen Box Izakaya

deep fried buckwheat cracker/stick

Takoyaki!

Takoyaki uncovered 😀

Tuna Poké

Chicken Yakisoba

It was a great night in Minneapolis.

What are they feeding our chickens?!

When Jeff and I went shopping recently, we bought lots and lots of fruits and veggies and we also stocked up on boneless skinless chicken since it was on sale.  The package above, for example, was just under 4 pounds for just under $7.  Sweet!  When I bought it, though I knew I’d have to trim them down into a more reasonable portion.

When trimming chicken down to size, I like to cover my food scale with either press-n-seal because it doesn’t tend to get as slimy as naked glass.  Anyway… I threw the first breast on the scale to see how much it weighed so that I knew how many portions to get out of it, and I was kind of shocked:

That’s 20.11oz, people!!  That’s 1 1/4 pounds! For ONE breast!! Now, I’m really glad that they’ve started giving serving sizes in ounces because that is ridiculous.  Can you imagine if we still thought that the serving size was one breast?  HA.

Now, I’ve been avoiding buying giant apples, giant oranges, and giant chicken for a while now, but this was on sale and we’re on a budget. I scrutinized the package and it said hormone free, minimally processed, no water added.  So how the hell did they get so big??  The contributors at Chow Hound suggest that it’s selective breeding to meet the American White-Meat taste.  They insist that since hormones are illegal that there can’t be hormones in the food that is fed to chickens that are bound for consumption…

But as I slice up a chicken breast historically meant for one and I can get 4+ portions out of it… I just begin to wonder just what it’s made of and what we’re eating… start the following video at :28 and you’ll have the answer–

Crunchy garlic chicken

The other night, Jeff and I tried out a new recipe from Jamie Oliver. This crunchy garlic chicken recipe was great!! We got the idea from pinterest and served it with baked potatoes and honey crisp apples.

The breading has just the right mix of flavors… Butter, parsley, lemon, salt and pepper.  When lightly fried, it tastes absolutely decadent.  Go make it. 🙂

Orange Chicken

Yeeeaaaahhh… My version of orange chicken turned out almost nothing like the picture that I pinned on my pinterest foodies board.  When I was at the grocery store, a friend in need called and I missed out on a couple of ingredients such as the  sesame seeds, red pepper flakes and scallions.  We made due with what we had, though, and it turned out pretty wicked (in a good way).

After going through this process, I would say that there are some things to be desired in the recipe, as far as instructions go.  Here is how the recipe was published on laaloosh:

Orange Chicken Recipe

Ingredients:
1 pound uncooked boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 2-inch strips
2 cup cooked white rice, kept hot
Rind of a small orange sliced into thin strips
1 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
3/4 cup canned chicken broth, reduced-sodium
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp peanut oil
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
2 medium scallions, chopped
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, or 1 dried chili pepper, minced
1 tbsp sesame seeds

**For added nutritional value, substitute the white rice with brown rice

Directions:
In a bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, broth, sugar, cornstarch, ginger, and vinegar, then set aside.
In a large skillet, heat peanut oil on medium-high heat. Add orange rinds, scallions, garlic and red pepper flakes and cook for about 2 minutes. Add in the chicken and cook for approximately 6 minutes, or until chicken is golden brown.
Now mix in the sauce and let simmer until the chicken is cooked all the way through and the sauce starts to get thick, this should take approximately 3-4 minutes. On a plate, serve chicken and sauce over rice and garnish with a sprinkle of sesame seeds

Serving size = 1 cup of chicken and 1/2 cup of rice

Here is what I learned by doing:

– Cook the rice according to package directions.  Then strain the rice because there’s still too much liquid when it’s done.

– Use an itty bit more oil.  It was pretty well gone before the chicken even got there.

– Dice the orange rind if you intend to eat it.

– On that note, add a little bit more sugar to the sauce recipe so that it caramelizes a little more.

– Dried chives are not the same as fresh scallions.

– Rice vinegar, though, is a good substitute for white wine vinegar.

– Use the pulp from the orange that you chopped up in a fresh house salad to serve alongside your chicken:

All in all, this recipe has got lots of potential, but we just need to refine the way that we cooked it a little and actually use all of the ingredients called for 🙂 We will probably make this again.  1 serving has 6 points on a popular weight loss program.