Chicken with Fried Rice

When my youngest daughter refused to eat this one, I explained to her that she really should give it a good go, as I'd spent a fair amount of time cutting up and preparing the vegetables to go into the fried rice. Now this wasn't exactly true, but I had spent a fair amount of time standing at the supermarket freezer, deciding whether to buy the frozen fried rice and vegetables or the frozen stir fry vegetables in Alfredo Sauce. In the end, the fried rice won out.

Okay, so now I'm struggling. Yes I'm resorting to pre-made meals more and more. Yes I feel bad about it. But I'll get by. I know people who live on this kind of food. It works for them. They don't seem to have grown any extra appendages or started talking in unrecognisable voices. No nasty side effects there. So I figure the odd use of such foods is a fairly safe risk. Although I will admit, it felt wrong - even for me - to be dropping a frozen brown cube into the pan, that would eventually become the sauce. Somehow, the words "stir until the sauce melts" just don't seem right to me.

Of course I did cook the chicken. And that was rather nice. So I don't feel too bad.

Chicken Breast Fillets .... done any way you feel like!

I'll admit it. This is a strange one. You see I had a couple of chicken fillets in the freezer, and no idea of what to do with them. Now I'm not one of those amazing people who can just look in the cupboard, throw a few assorted ingredients into a dish and then come up with something that you'd pay big bucks for in a five star restaurant. My husband - he can. Me - I cannot.

So, like all unimaginative and truly uninspired cooks, I turned to the internet. After scrolling through pages and pages of sites that talked about spices and exotic flavours (these people obviously have no kids - or highly cultured ones), I eventually found a recipe that was just called "Chicken Breast Fillets". A quick glance at the ingredients. Good. Nothing there that I couldn't pronounce, and all I had to buy was bacon. Bring it on!

Now this recipe called for the bacon to be chopped and the chicken to be sliced lengthways. Hmmm. Never heard of that before with chicken, but oh well, when it comes to cooking, there's a great deal I've never heard of before. So I duly followed the recipe.

Begin with a layer of fresh breadcrumbs. Follow with a layer of bacon. Finish with a layer of chicken. Just keep layering. Okay, I can do that.

Meanwhile, make the sauce. I followed the instructions for the sauce, but somewhere along the way, something dreadful happened and I ended up with very little sauce for such a large dish. What to do? I know. I'm rather fond of the old Fountain brand Smokey BBQ sauce, and luckily we had a fresh bottle. So, with all the panache and style of the classy chef that I'm not, I squirted the sauce randomly over the chicken. (That's the brown stripes you can see.)

Forty minutes later, a dish that looked, well, interesting. And the taste? Well you could describe that as interesting too. The general consensus was that the breadcrumbs were the best bit. Let's face it. You can't beat crunchy, crispy breadcrumbs!

Shepherd's Pie - Take Two

Yes I know I've bragged about this one before. But you see, I get very happy when I'm able to cook something without having a mental breakdown in the process. I get happier still when I'm able to cook something that the kids will actually eat. And this dish, gives me both of those happy outcomes.

So I won't bore you with details of how the carrot and onion burned in the pan before I was able to add the meat (they didn't). Nor shall I bore you with details of how the meat mixture refused to thicken in the time they said it would (it didn't). Instead I shall leave you with photographic proof that my kids do sometimes eat what I dish up to them!

Chicken Teriyaki

I've been a bit remiss in my cooking efforts lately. Kinda' been falling back on old favourites, or relying on my husband to cook for me. You see, since I started this blog, I've confirmed something that I've really known all along. I hate to cook. I really do. As soon as I hear the sound of the pantry door opening or smell the fumes rising from the stiry fry, I ask myself: Why? Why are you doing this again when you so obviously hate it? And of course, the answer is that my family must eat. And so must I. So I forcibly drag myself away from the take away menu and tell myself that if I practise this cooking thing enough, I just might get better at it.

But I haven't yet.

So tonight, I must confess, I've cheated. Don't get me wrong; I've cooked something. That is, cooked in the sense of taking something out of the freezer and stirring it in a frypan until it becomes edible. But hey, it's still food. The supermarket freezer is full of those colourful bags of frozen vegetables that you mix with meat to make a complete meal. Despite my initial conviction that I would never prepare food this way, well ... I admit .... I've done it. Yes I used to think that fresh vegies were best. But I did read somewhere that frozen ones are pretty alright too, because they're frozen at the point at which they are best. It makes sense to me. So thank you Mr Birds Eye for the frozen packet of vegetables and sauce that makes my Chicken Teriyaki.

It did smell good. It even tasted good. However I did feel a little strange dropping a frozen square of sauce into the pan. That just didn't feel right. But it was a meal that should sustain us for another 24 hours. Except for my daughter. You know, the one who hates vegetables. She refused it. Totally. Wouldn't even try it. So she ate sultanas. Yep I know. I don't get it either.