State of the Shelanman

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October 24, 2006

Misadventures in Cooking, Part IV -- We're Getting There Now...

And so the journey continues.

So, Sunday, I return from iHop... despite the yummy sauce, I feel let down. But mostly frustrated. That was definitely the primary emotion.

Fast forward about 2 days... it's Tuesday night, and I'm recovered... ready to try again. (Monday night I was exhausted when I got home... Pizza was all I could manage...)

So... Recipe du jour? Kahlua Jerk Chicken with Hawaiian-style Sweet Potatoes. Sound delicious? Again the recipe isn't that complicated -- about 7 ingredients and 3 steps. Let us begin:

Take some chicken breasts (boneless-skinless), coat them lightly with flour. Easy. Although, just a thought, but why does flower come in big paper bags with no way to reseal? Just opening the thing I got flour everywhere... anyway...

Then, dump the chicken in a skillet w/ a bit of olive oil... while the chicken was cooking (I had several 3ish minute intervals), I started the sweet potatoes. That recipe is pretty simple... take out all the ingredients and dump em in a pan. The only thing that took effort was slicing the bananas... and that's pretty darn easy.

OK, chicken's done! Actually, I think I burned one side the tiniest bit... (remember, coated in flour... that can actually burn). OK, take the chicken out, put it on a plate, and grab the rest of the ingredients to make the jerk sauce. 3/4 cup of Kahlua? Oh Yeah! Half a bottle of Jerk Marinade? Well, that's why the recipe's considered fast & easy. Brown Sugar? sweet! (sorry, couldn't resist), and... wait... am I reading this right? 2 tablespoons of Chunky Peanut Butter?!?!. O. K. Whatever, let's try it...

Mix it up... until you cook out the alcohol, then dump the chicken back in and finish cooking. Back to the potatoes I go... oops... too hot... dried up the liquid... ok... uhm... let's add a bit of water. Done. Now, drop in the macadamia nuts, and try to keep it hot till the chicken's done.

All told, cooking took 50 minutes -- way longer than the "20 minutes or less" advertised by Ms. Sandra Whatever-her-name-is-who-wrote-the-book -- but not as bad as Sunday. And now... Drum Roll Please...

Hmm... who'd have ever guessed that chunky peanut butter was just the thing to go with the coffee liqeur and the jerk marinade... but it sure is! I declare this dinner to be a complete and total success! Chicken is awesome. The hawaiian sweet potatoes are even better. The garlic bread's very meh, but whatever... I'll just eat extra potatoes.

The coolest thing about the dinner, aside from being delicious and having enough leftovers for two average-size meals, was that I honestly felt it was substantially better food than what I would have ordered had I gone out to eat. So, I didn't feel like I'd "compromised" in order to cook at home (which, while theoretically cheaper, really costs a bit more).

So... Things Are Looking Up.

Oh, and I lied.. .the coolest thing about dinner was that it didn't involve iHop.

So, this is starting to look just a bit less like a complete misadventure after all.

— The Shelanman

Posted by andrew at October 24, 2006 09:10 PM

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