Unfortunately, my camera has suffered a fatal accident and so I will not have photos for a couple of days. Hubby tried to take a photo of our dinner tonight with his phone, but it turned out AWFUL and completely devoid of color:
I was downloading photos from Girl’s volleyball tournament this weekend (her team won first place!!!) and it (the camera) fell off the counter where I was working. Now the lens won’t go in and out anymore. I’ve attached a GREAT volleyball photo of Girl for you as a consolation prize – luckily I got those photos all downloaded before it was too late!
Girl, in the middle of the front row, with glasses.
I was DESPERATELY in need of a new camera, anyway (the power button had been repaired with a thumbtack – I am VERY tough on electonic equipment), so Hubby has promised that he will buy me a new one ASAP. Being a “techie”, though, he feels the need to research and comparison-shop before buying any new electronics, so it may be a week or so before I have one. I did want to mention this meal, however, since I tried a couple of Epicurious recipes.
The first was the Basil and Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Breasts from Gourmet magazine (July 1996). This recipe was really good. I added a little parmesan cheese to the basil stuffing, as a couple of the reviewers on Epicurious suggested (I didn’t have feta on hand today). I always work better when I have a photo, and this recipe didn’t have one, so I’m not sure that I assembled the chicken breasts precisely as they were “supposed” to be (and, alas, I’m not providing a photo for you, either), but they were still tasty and fairly attractive. I did have to use some toothpicks to hold the bacon on the chicken in the oven, and almost burned myself trying to put them in, but it did hold together, eventually. The bacon imparted a different flavor to the chicken that I wasn’t super-crazy about, but Hubby and kids LOVED it, so I think it was just my own bias. I’m used to having bacon-wrapped filets, but had never had it with chicken before, so I think it was just “different” for me. The chicken was, however, VERY moist and juicy.
This Green Bean recipe (from September 1999 Gourmet magazine) was really good and VERY easy, although I did adapt it a little. I didn’t have almonds on hand, so I substituted pine nuts, which were quite good. The butter did foam alarmingly while I was saute-ing the garlic and nuts, but it turned out fine in the end. I cooked the green beans in chicken stock for a little extra flavor. Sometime, I’ll post my recipe for making homemade chicken stock. It’s time-consuming, but WELL worth the effort, if you haven’t ever done it, and is a rewarding thing to do on a rainy day.
I know that Fried Okra doesn’t “go” with this, but the kids love it and had been asking for it. I made some a month or so ago and had it frozen, so I pulled it out to make them happy tonight. It freezes much better than I would have expected (this was the first time that I had tried it), although nothing compares to having it right out of the hot oil. When I froze it, I placed it in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper and then put it in the freezer until the individual pieces froze, then put it in a Ziploc bag. To reheat, I put it (straight out of the freezer, not thawed) on a cookie sheet (lined with foil and sprayed with Pam) and baked it at 400 degrees for 15 minutes – that was the time and temperature that tonight’s chicken had to bake, so I just put it in there with the chicken.
We had some Pizza Bread, from Great Harvest, also to go with this. Yummy.