I Can't Believe He Ate The Whole Thing

So.... was watching one of the new shows on Food Network, "5 Ingredient Fix", and there was an interesting recipe for Dry Rubbed BBQ Chicken on recently. I'm still on the fence about this show.... I want to find the host kind of annoying, but I can't. And I really wish it wasn't all tied to a "5 ingredient" idea, since it seems like a lot of the recipes would be even better if they included a couple more things.


But anyway... the chicken brine interested me. So I wanted to try it. And I did.


Now... it's not a secret that the husband unit really, really doesn't like chicken. And I understand that, since my very dear mother in law (who can roast a turkey like nobody's business) used to think that boiled chicken was something perfectly acceptable to serve for dinner. I never understood how the hubby could hate chicken until the time I went over to his folk's house right after work back when we were dating (he was living at home, and I worked about five minutes away) and his mom actually made boiled chicken for dinner. And it was pretty gross. I think we ended up going to Wendy's at like 8 PM.


But, at least I understand why the hubby can groan when the words "dinner" and "chicken" are used together. So I'm always looking for ways to try and make chicken tasty. And brines usually do that.


I couldn't do the peach/onion relish that was done on the show, since my peaches went modly on me. D'oh.


But the chicken was faaaaaabulous. And I could not believe it when my husband actually ate the entire chicken breast. That never happens.


And yes, that is "blue box" mac & cheese on the side. Usually when I do chicken, he'll pick at the chicken and load up on the mac & cheese. If I'd have known he'd like the chicken that much, I would have made mashed potatoes.

A Lesson in Fridge Cleaning Madness

So, last week a 'net buddy of mine (the infamous Killie... a nickname you can apparently quite easily pick up when you're name is Kim and you live in Illinois) mentioned she was using some ground beef to make Simple Bolognese for dinner. Who isn't looking for a good way to use some cheap ground beef??


I was also interested in giving the recipe a go after I had two good deals at the deli counter on Saturday.....

MEAT ENDS!!

Those would be nice end bits or "overages" that were cut from the deli meats. And I figured throwing some extra Italian-looking cold cuts into the sauce couldn't be a bad thing.

I was also, very much, looking forward to opening a bottle of wine on Sunday to use some in the sauce, and then enjoy a nice couple of glasses of wine with dinner. Hey, a girl's gotta have some fun.

Sauce base is onions, carrot and celery....

Throw in your ground beef....

(I feel like I should have "ta-DAH!" music for their introduction to the sauce....) Then dump in the chopped meat ends....

One can of crushed tomatoes and one can of dice tomatoes.....

Herbage.....

And then it got whacky. My tomato plants took a decidedly bad turn last month, and I figured I'd dump in the last of my few remaining, sad, tomatoes.

And then I looked around the kitchen and found a pint of cherry tomatoes that was about to go south. So, I halved those and dumped them in. That was the start of the madness.

And although this is supposed to be a "quick" sauce, I actually let mine simmer for a few hours. Hey, it was a Sunday. And the less rushing around dinner time, the better.

About a half hour to go until dinner, I was actually reading the reviews on the FN site and some people mentioned adding mushrooms.

Hey... I had mushrooms to use up, too!

Granted, I wish I would have sauteed them, but it still turned out okay.

Mmmmm..... pretty sauce. And good, too. A nice change from meatballs or Sunday gravy. And not a jar of Prego in sight.

Although, I did learn the hard way that it's a bad idea to give me the mircoplane and a wedge of parmesan cheese after I've already had two REALLY BIG glasses of wine......

D'oh. Oh well. Sometimes you gotta suffer in the kitchen.

How is it that....

... when I try to make any kind of roasted pork tenderloin, I can only get the end result of "bloody" or "charcol", yet I can cook a wonderful, full pork loin with no problems whatsoever??



It was juicy. It was tasty. It was cooked but not overcooked. Not shockingly raw in the middle.

Sigh. I hate the kicthen sometimes.

This Week in Unemployment: I Wore a Bra For 10 Straight Hours Today

Did ya'll know there is a new Windows operating system looming on the horizon?

There is. Windows 7. Supposed to suck a lot less than Vista did.

At my old old company, they need to make sure that their products work with the new OS, and also get updates ready for their website so people will be able to use their products with the new OS. Fun stuff, lemme tells ya.

And apparently some people are "too busy" to get around to testing these things, so I got to go into the office today to play around with the PC that has a beta of Windows 7 on it.

Oh, and I finally met the new Head Dude working there that has always been out of the office any time I stopped by.

And I successfully wore a bra for 10 hours straight without having to "adjust" (meaning: partly unhook the back) it at all. I am a gal who needs to wear a bra. However, unless I feel like spending $100 a pop (or is that $50 a melon?) on a bra, they just are not comfortable. Back starts to hurt, straps digging into my shoulders, etc. So, being on my own in the house since leaving the world of the employed, it's been mostly those shelf-bra tanks for me. Just enough support and spandex to make me comfortable, and if I'm not leaving the house, I don't worry too much about the "uni-boob" situation (looking like you've got one mound of boob rather than the proper two).

I'm a bit surprised. I was starting to get worried I might have reached the part of unemployement where you just aren't at all comfy in the regular 9 to 5 clothes anymore.

I am, however, in that lovely part of unenployment where electronics start to break, and you find out a car needs a two thousand dollar repair. Always a fun place.

Oh, and the judgement of Windows 7? All the annoying pop ups of Vista with thefull Polug & Play functionality that Microsoft promised users like ten years ago.

Sooooo glad we just got these new desktops with XP. Soooooo glad.