Tonight I did not plan a big meal. I pulled chicken out of the freezer, but was not quite sure what I wanted to do with it. I am beginning to feel a tad bit of pressure to make outrageously impressive meals, because now my dinner audience is not only a 4 year old and the occasional guest. It is you! And I strive to impress you! Well, kinda. I strive to do my best and make this blog an enjoyable experience all around, but like I said before: I am no chef! New recipes aren't going to happen everyday, though I strive for them at least twice a week. Monday is almost definitely always going to be a new recipe day. At least until I get to the point of having to redo some favorites. This is about the everyday mom who doesn't like to cook plain and bland.
So tonight's dinner consisted of 3 basics. Chicken, potatoes, and corn. I marinated the chicken in the Hawaiian flavor of Lawry's 30 minute marinade. I highly recommend Lawry's marinades. They are very inexpensive and lots of times you can find a coupon. I have used the Hawaiian, Steak and Chop, and a Lemon Garlic flavor. 30 minutes is the minimum for the marinade, but you can have it in longer. I put mine in for about 2 hours. If you store your frozen chicken in a Ziploc bag, pull it out of the freezer the night before you cook it and add the marinade then. It will infuse the chicken as it thaws and you will be able to cook with it right away after work without waiting the 30 minutes to marinade.
I tried to jazz up my mashed potatoes a bit. I boiled and mashed 4 medium sized potatoes. As they were getting mashed, I added a tbsp margarine, some milk, rosemary, and garlic powder. Usually I just use milk and butter or margarine, but I was in the mood for something more. Sophia was not too thrilled over the strings (rosemary) in her mashed potatoes. Next time I want to jazz up the flavor of my mashed potatoes, I will go with flavors that are less visible. She loves to use the mixer to make mashed potatoes, so I am no longer allowed to do that by myself. Once the potatoes are done being mashed, she loves licking the mixer prong. We call it a mashed potato lollipop.
I didn't do anything to the corn. Just steamed it in a bit of water. No butter needed. Who wants those extra calories? My mother is what I call a Butterington. She likes to add a ton of butter to everything. At least that is what she did when I lived there; it drove me nuts. Any vegetable that was steamed would be covered in butter. Now that I am able to cook for my little family, I use the least amount of butter possible. I tend to use margarine if butter is needed.
Sophia's favorite vegetable combination is mashed potatoes and corn, so this dinner was bound to be a winner before it was even served.
You can boil garlic cloves with the potatos as they cook. This will allow the garlic to be mashable or "smashable" as I prefer to smash my potatos. Boiling the garlic mellows the flavor slightly, think how mellow roasted garlic turns out, but still a more natural flavor to complement the potato than powder. I love garlic powder, but you mentioned cooking with fresh ingredients is preferred.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I thought about doing that, but wasn't sure how potent the flavor would be. I wasn't in the mood to have to make a back up batch and I had already told soph I would make her mashed potatoes and corn. Cooking fresh is always prefered if possible. If not, the least amount of ingredients in something is better. Specifically ingredients I can pronounce! Maybe next time I could boil the potatoes with the rosemary to extract the flavor and then most of it would drain out so soph cant see it....ideas to play with!
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