"Do you want to go to La Creperie for breakfast?"

"Hmpf! I can make crepes!"



Made with the recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook. They apparently don't sell my version any more, but I don't think any kitchen is complete without a classic Betty Crocker book.

Bonus: you can freeze these just like pancakes.

I'm going to be out of town for a little while. I haven't uploaded a lot of the pictures that go with my posts. So there's one thing I'm not going to worry about for a while.

Things have been incredibly hectic lately. I can't seem to break this bad habit of trying to achieve all kinds of major life changes in a very short period of time. Life is short, but it's even shorter if you're trying to cram it all in to a few years. I'm hoping that when I get back, things will settle down again.

Chicken & Pasta

For lack of a better name, I'll just call this regular ol' chicken and pasta.

This is the quickest, easiest dinner you can make. It will cause you to stock canned diced tomatoes in your cabinet. The rest you can leave to whatever is available.

I must have just gone to the grocery store with this on my mind, because you can see olives and capers.

Here's the basics:

1. Boil your choice of pasta. We've been on a whole wheat, non-spaghetti noodle kick.
   
2. Slice up some thawed chicken. I used to just throw some chicken on the George Foreman grill and go, but lately I've been trying to plan ahead and thaw it first. Either way works, but if you're looking for a quick thaw, just put the frozen chicken on a plate in the sink and run hot water over it.
   
3. Start the tomato mix. If you're trying to be fancy, cook the garlic in olive oil first until it really starts to smell. If you're not, just throw in the can of tomatoes, whatever seasoning you like, and anything else that's available: spinach, olives, capers, veggies.
   
4. Add the chicken and cook for about 10 minutes. You can cover the pan or not; I don't really see any difference.

Ah, an old standby. You can put this together in about 15 minutes. And the tomato mix is somehow very gourmet compared to jarred spaghetti sauce.

Chicken Curry II

I didn't want to give up on curried chicken, especially with the better part of a jar of curry powder left over. So, we have chicken curry part II.

I forgot to take a picture. Don't worry, it looked just like the last time!

This time: I didn't measure anything too exactly. I left out the paprika. I left out the bay leaf. Which is a little unfortunate, since I was pretty excited about having bay leaves. It's one of those fancy herbs that is supposed to glam up the flavor of your food. I think it tastes like wood. I used the same 3/4 cup skim milk (versus yogurt and coconut milk), and at the end went crazy with the cayenne.

Ah, there's the fire.

Now, if they just sell curry powder at the .99 store ...

Microwave Potato Chips

At 10 pm on a Saturday night, I decided I wanted potato chips. No sooner than the words were out of my mouth must I have gotten "that look" on my face.

I once tried to make potato chips before in the oven, but it just didn't work. I think it was the combination of too little oil and too low of heat. But I still have about five pounds of potatoes, so burning off a couple obviously wouldn't break my heart.

And then, I stumbled across this in my search. Rays of light came from the sky, and angels sang. But would it really work? Aforementioned surplus of potatoes made it too good not to try.

Don't be afraid to doubt, my dears. Here are the results.

I sliced the potato as thinly as I could. Singular, because slicing a potato really thin is really, really boring, especially when it stands between you and potato chip eating.

I rolled the slices around in some vegetable oil (subsequent attempts with olive oil were about the same) and squeezed as many as I could onto the largest greased plate I had. They can't overlap, but touching is OK since they'll get a little smaller.

I watched them spin in the microwave for the recommended 4-5 minutes. Mostly because I was pretty sure that much oil for that long would catch fire. It seemed like something was happening just at the 5-minute mark, so I added two more.

Then there was magic:


They came out ... potato chips. Just like Lays. Tasty, crave-killing potato chips. I'll admit that this is 60% novelty, kind of like microwaved smores. But imagine showing up to a party or a barbecue and saying, "Oh, these? Yeah, I just whipped up some homemade potato chips."