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

What to Do With Leftover Champagne

As you might know from my recent post about my Christmas, we decided to ring the New Year in with a little champagnia.

Say it: Sh-am-pan-e-ya.  Feels a little more sophisticated, wouldn't you say?

I know, I'm strange.  But secretly you know you'll say it like that from now on.

And as nice as it was to enjoy a little champagne in my wedding flute for the first time since my wedding, there was still plenty leftover as the day slipped from the celebratory first of January to the mundane, back to work, second of January.

I had no other alternative but to discover recipes where I could put my leftover juice to good use.

Recipe: Champagne Chicken
Source: http://www.food.com/recipe/champagne-chicken-187370
Time: 30 minutes (or longer if you cook while paying bills and waiting for your hubby to get home)
Ease: 1
Taste: 6
Leftover Value: No leftovers!
Down the Drain or Keep it in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

This recipe falls into the category of things I'd like to try again, but more than likely won't.  Which is why I rated it as a Keep in the Strainer item.  The only reason I probably won't make it again is that hubby wasn't thrilled with it.  But, I have to give the disclaimer that hubby doesn't really like any chicken and cream sauce meals.  This one was not an exception.

I did make a few adjustments, only one of which I know effected the sauce greatly.

I realized the morning of the day I planned to make this (that would be boring, mundane, January 2nd) that I didn't have any heavy cream.  In fact, I realized that I had just recently thrown out the remaining dregs I did have of heavy cream when I cleaned the fridge out of items with questionable expiration dates.  (Trust me, you do not want to know what that means to me in my world).  

Note how the sauce looks rather watery in the above picture.  This is due to the fact that I substituted half and half bought at the grocery store down the street from me since they failed to have any heavy cream in stock.  The flavor was still good, yet it lacked the thickness that this sauce clearly should have.

Second, the recipe called for six tablespoons of lemon juice.  That's a lot of lemon juice!  

For fear that it would taste completely like lemon with chicken instead of champagne chicken with a hint of lemon, I used roughly four tablespoons of lemon juice.  To my surprise, the lemon was not overpowering, and next time I would try it with the recommended amount. 

It wasn't until I had chopped up potatoes to bake as a side dish that I realized the recipe suggested serving the chicken with rice, wild rice, or spinach fettuccine.  I was a little sad because those suggestions all seemed perfect.

But then I bit into my perfect roasted potatoes and all was right in the world.

Up next: Day Two of Leftover Champagne: Cornish Hens