Monday, February 8, 2010

Quick Dinner

I had planned on making stuffed chicken breasts tonight, but lost my motivation. I still need to cook dinner, though, and those chicken breasts are still staring at me in the fridge. I also have no time tonight and dinner needs to be done by 5:00pm as we are being forced to go to a stupid "Wellness Night" at school where the administrators will all parade around in designer track suits and the gym teachers will act like they are important to our children's education. Oh, and they will promote their frozen organic low-fat baked chicken nugget lunches. I might want to puke. But I won't because we will have eaten a fabulous meal beforehand and I won't be tempted to eat their plain yogurt topped with granola and raisin snacks. I decided to pan-roast the chicken breasts with some sage and lemon and serve them with sauteed mushrooms and roasted carrots and sweet potatoes. Dinner's in the oven right now, it took less than twenty minutes. Here was my plan of attack:

1. I peeled six carrots and cut them into pieces. I cut two sweet potatoes into chunks. I threw all of it on a baking sheet, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled salt and pepper, dusted it all with cumin, tossed it in the oven at 425.
2. I heated 2 T of olive oil in an oven-proof skillet. I removed the breast bone(the long white one) from the breasts that still had it, but left the rib bones. I will re-iterate for those of you who may have forgotten: BONELESS, SKINLESS CHICKEN BREASTS ARE THE STUPIDEST FOOD ON THE PLANET, if you don't count spam, or organic, low-fat, baked chicken nuggets. The skin and bones add flavor and keep it from drying out. Which it will, if you take them off. I sprinkled them with salt and pepper and put them skin-side down in the heated skillet and let the skin get nice and brown. While they were browning, I threw in some chopped sage. When the skin side was brown, I turned them over, squeezed a lemon over them, threw the rest of the lemon into the pan with the chicken, and then put the whole thing in the oven. It will be done in about 40 minutes. In a few minutes I will start sauteing the mushrooms in butter, making sure not to crowd them so that they brown so nicely, a la Julia Child. See you at wellness night. I'll betcha to get there in time you made organic, low-fat, baked chicken nuggets. Sucker.

8 comments:

Deb said...

You are so funny, June.

Here, everyone, watch June grow some quick hives:

I'm gonna boil me some Rosetta beef raviolis to feed to the girls before karate tonight.

Anonymous said...

Thank god, the Mendon Foodie I know and love is back - even without the use of the word "Penis" - although I would suggest that if you substituted that word for the word "chicken" in "organic, low fat, baked chicken nuggets", you would probably be more convincing in your argument that this is not an appropriate addition to school lunches.

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The Reader said...

Love this! I have some chicken breasts (although, sadly, boneless & skinless...) to cook tonight. I can't do the roasted carrots/etc (out, sorry, and my produce delivery is not until tomorrow), but I do have lemon and various herbs (not sage) so I will tweak yours and make it my own and tell you how it turns out. Not as good, I'm sure.

Last night we had pizza. From Pizza Hut.Y-U-M. We had the nuggets for lunch.

The Mendon Foodie said...

@Heather: Love pizza. Hate chicken nuggets, unless they're the homemade kind from the Frugal Gourmet, which I haven't made in years.

AND, if you roast boneless skinless chicken breasts you will only come out with leather. Give them a quick pan sear or better yet, poach them and serve with a nice remoulade. Or better yet, don't buy them in the first place. ;)

The Mendon Foodie said...

@Deb: frozen ravioli are acceptable, but you have to buy the handmade kind from the chi-chi italian deli.

Anonymous said...

I had yogurt with granola for dinner last night, but it was granola I made with oats, cashews, cherries I dried this summer (which are really more chewy than dry), and some molasses and shredded coconut for sweetener. It is better than whatever the school served, I'm sure. The things they serve at my godson's school are, I know, appalling.

The Reader said...

Hey June - I pan seared the breasts, in a pan of butter/onion/garlic that I sauteed first. Smooshed the onion stuff to the side, turned the heat to low (because everything cooks hot anyway) and cooked the breasts until done, flipping a few times. I put in some diced tomatoes with them to serve over top. It was yum.

How do I poach them and what is a remoulade??? I feel like I have so much to learn......

(and I know you hate the nuggets. That's why I told you we had them ;))