Finally, Hubby Makes a Mistake

I had planned today to write about something delicious that I had recently made.  Then I had an experience so disgusting that I knew I needed to share that with you instead.

On Tuesday morning, as Hubby was getting ready to leave for work, he asked me, "Could you throw a chicken breast in the microwave to thaw for me?"

*Note: He claims he never said microwave.  I know differently.

This is a perfectly normal and natural thing.  We buy a lot of chicken at a time.  We freeze it.  Then we choose a variety of ways to thaw it out.  Some of them are:

-Sitting in the microwave for a few hours to thaw
-Cold water bath for half an hour
-Turbo defrost option on the microwave
-Pulling it out the night before and letting it sit in the fridge

The last option almost never ever happens.  I do not think that far ahead.  In this case, I wish he had.

After enjoying my relaxing morning cup of coffee, I grabbed a chicken breast out of the freezer, placed it in a dish, and threw it in the microwave to sit and thaw while Hubby was at work.

I thought nothing of it until I was getting ready to make dinner, opened up the microwave, and saw the chicken breast.  It was the answer to all my problems.  I didn't need to thaw chicken because this had been already magically thawed for me.

I used Hubby's chicken breast for what I was making and in the midst of the crazy cooking storm that occurs anytime I am in the kitchen I kept reminding myself that I needed to grab another chicken breast to replace the one I had used.

My plan was that when he went to use the chicken breast and asked why it was still so frozen (considering it wouldn't have had a chance to truly thaw out in that amount of time) I would plead complete ignorance.

A wide variety of nonsense occurred when I began getting Hubby's original chicken set up for dinner.  I had two different people calling me, I was trying to book a hotel online, and I had just paused a Giada at Home episode that my grandmother had recorded for me.

No, I don't have cable.

Yes, sometimes it makes me sad.

Maybe not so sad when I think of how much of my time it would waste.

Regardless of all the hubbub that was occurring, I managed to grab Hubby his chicken and throw it into the microwave to thaw.

The night carried out as most of my night's normally do.  Yet, the chicken slipped from mind.  After all, it was Hubby's chicken.  In my mind, that meant I no longer needed to think about it.

It wasn't until today that the discovery was made.  Here's how it went.

It was mid-morning.  I was hungry.  I told myself I shouldn't be hungry, I had just eaten a blueberry muffin for breakfast at 8:30.  Still I was hungry.  Natural instinct said to eat another muffin, but the calorie count on the muffins told me not to.  Knowing I wanted to have a healthier snack, I decided to make oatmeal.  Delicious, I know.

If you cannot sense the sarcasm in my voice, please go eat a bowl of oatmeal and then tell me how much more delicious it is than a freshly baked blueberry muffin.

Point being?  It isn't.

I prepared the instant oatmeal in a bowl and opened the microwave to microwave it.

Then it hit me.  A smell so horrible, so pungent, so inconceivable, I honestly feel bad in just expressing it to you.  The only thing I can relate it to is five thousand bags of stinky garbage all compacted into a one-pound lump.  The smell doesn't sift through gently either.  It's not a smell that you think to yourself, "Hmmm, gee, maybe I need to take the trash out," or "Oooo, better get to scrubbing this out soon."

No.  It smacks you in the face and says, "HELLO! I'M HERE! NOPE, COVERING YOUR NOSE WILL DO YOU NO GOOD! AND BREATHING FROM YOUR MOUTH WILL ONLY MAKE YOURS EYES WATER".

For a second, tossing a grenade in my kitchen and just starting from scratch seemed ideal.

To say I didn't consider shutting the microwave, running out of the house, and leaving Hubby to the hell he had created in my kitchen, would be a lie.

I'm a toughie though, so I manned up.  I wasn't going to let a little bacteria infested chicken wreck my day.  I grabbed the dish it sat in and threw it beside the sink.  Somehow, in my mind, I was still thinking that I would be able to get it into my newly trash bagged trashcan and not have to take the bag outside.  If I had been clearly thinking about this, I would have just slid the chicken into the trash bag, said 'C'est la vie' to the fact I was wasting an entire bag on it and taken it outside.

But no.  I grabbed two Shop Rite shopping bags.  One for picking up the chicken.  The second for putting the chicken into so that I could magically conceal the horror raising smell.  (Note: It didn't work).

The most irking part was how warm the rotting chicken was.  I tried to ignore it, but the transformation that had occurred in that chicken over the course of two days has made me definitely not want to see raw chicken for at least a few days.

The one plus that I choose to see in this horrible situation is that clearly we don't use our microwave as often as I might have suspected.

And now, a few happier times with chicken...

Bruschetta Chicken 

Ranch Style Chicken 

(Uh, yes, that is bacon on top)

Healthy Fried Chicken with Pineapple Salsa

The Twin Dinners

Recipe: Ranch-Style Chicken

Source: The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier

Time: 2.5 hrs total (includes marinating time)

Ease: 2

Taste: 8

Left over Value: 9

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Keep it in the strainer!

*For additional information about my rating system go here.

Raise your hand if this has ever been you.  You're looking for something to cook for dinner.  Of course, it's only an hour before dinnertime because usually you are a great planner, but today you're slacking just a little bit.  You find what appears to be the perfect recipe.  You go ahead to get started preparing it and realize the meat needs to marinate for a million years before you can cook it.

Ok, so maybe that isn't exactly what I recently faced, but I sure came close.  

Monday, my sister-in-law, Kristina, invited me to go out to lunch and since I am constantly looking for any way to get out of eating lunch alone at home I jumped at the suggestion.

Three hours later, we both realized we would eventually have to make dinner for our husbands.  

Kristina leafed through The Pioneer Woman's newest cookbook to 'Ranch-Style Chicken', a recipe that had been on my list of "Meals to Make", and we both said, "Yes!".

Then we read the fine print declaring that the chicken needed to marinate for two to four hours and I ran out the door to get home and get started.  

Kristina's was done about a half hour before mine, and she instantly texted me pictures of her beautiful dining table:

(I was a little jealous of the corn on the cob).

And a close up of the delicious chicken cooking:

It actually ended up being a pretty simple and tasty meal.  The concoction that the chicken marinated in included honey, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, paprika, and red pepper flakes.  I was worried the lemon might be over powering (because that's just how lemon is sometimes...) but it wasn't.  The flavor was perfect and the little addition of bacon and cheddar cheese was the icing on the....chicken.

I was just a little bad and fried my chicken extra long in the bacon grease before putting it in the broiler.

What can I say?  I'm a rebel.

Yes, those are home made french fries in the background.  I'll have to tell you about them another time.