What's for dinner tonight? Jerk Chicken with Roasted Vegetables and Pineapple
Tonight, I invited my friend Lydia over for dinner. She and I work together on 8100 at Duke and started on the same day. She's very sweet. I told her all about my 365 day challenge and she couldn't wait to come over to sample the cooking! Prav met Lydia for the first time tonight. They hit it off right away (everybody loves Prav). Lydia is awesome...she bought me and Prav our own Rachael Ray cookbooks! Comfort food recipes for me and guy food recipes for Prav! So nice of her! I chose to make jerk chicken because that is one of the meals being served at mine and Prav's wedding. We had a chance to sample it 2 years ago and we both loved it! Also, Prav absolutely loves pineapple.
Well, I learned a very interesting lesson while cooking tonight. Apparently, a blender and a food processor are very different things. I have a blender. Mostly, I use my blender for making my famous margaritas. Really there is nothing "famous" about them except that I make them pretty strong and add a dash of orange juice to the mix to hide the extra tequila flavor. Anyway, my blender has never really been used for more than making margaritas and milkshakes. Prav insisted on buying the Magic Bullet last year because he promised that he would use it for everything. He said he'd be making salsa and omelets for me, etc. So, I surprised him and bought the Magic Bullet for him as a gift! Well, R.I.P dear Magic Bullet...here lies the Magic Bullet, covered in dust in the back of my pantry, useless. Tonight, however, I pulled out the ole Magic Bullet hoping I could use it instead of a food processor, which I do not own. I was wrong. Plain and simple, you cannot substitute a food processor for a Magic Bullet, Slap Chop, or a blender. I have learned my lesson.
I am a mess. I sincerely thought that I could substitute another kitchen gadget for a food processor...nope. So, I have added a very expensive food processor to my wedding registry. Please, please someone buy me this item!!! I only hope it comes with VERY clear instructions on how to use it. I registered for the biggest, most expensive one I could find. I figured the more expensive ones must be better...maybe they are easier to use, maybe they do the work for you? Haha... Ugh...anyway, I apparently really need one.
For tonight, I used the blender...what a mess! It took me 30 minutes just to clean the goop out of the blades! And, my jerk sauce for the chicken doesn't look anything like Rachael's. I must say this, the chicken tasted amazing despite not being exactly like Rachael's and sans food processor. I think I can earn creativity points for tonight's mishappenings.
The meal was excellent!!! I cheated with the fresh pineapple. Rachael definitely used fresh ones, but I chose canned. Rach always says, "you control the quality of ingredients." Yep, I sure did...and I went cheap, easy and syrupy! I didn't have the strength to cut open a pineapple and core it. I've never done it before and I didn't want to end up in the ER tonight due to knife issues. FYI, Prav ended up in the ER last year attempting to cut open a watermelon. We affectionately call this the "Ninja incident" because Prav refuses to admit that he cut himself. So, he blames it on ninjas. I avoided all ER's tonight by purchasing canned pineapple. Done.
I served the meal with black bean soup (also from the can...come on, do you really think I made it from scratch...lol) and brown rice (boil in a bag, of course) in order to try to stretch out the leftovers because this can be rolled over into another meal tomorrow night. I'm going to try to do the rollover meals for as long as I have leftovers. I made 5 chicken breasts. Hopefully, that will be enough to roll it into a few more meals!
Lydia and Prav loved the meal! This one is definitely a keeper for the future. We have a winner for dinner!
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