Friday, June 29, 2007

Grilled chicken... and my Granola recipe- YUM!

The chicken last night was delicious! Unfortunately, the marinade didn't really flavor it, so next time I do it overnight instead of the 4 hours it recommends. It took about an hour to cook, and the last few minutes I put it over direct heat to brown it up more. So moist and wonderful! I browned and roasted some small new potatoes seasoned with a French mix of garlic, lavender, basil, chervil, marjoram, parsley, rosemary, sage, tarragon, savory, and thyme. I bought the mix at Aldis of all places! I also steamed some sliced carrots and sauteed broccolini. No pics of those of course, too busy eating! I do have chicken and veggies leftover for lunch today, if I'm even hungry.

I haven't been sleeping terribly well lately, tossing and turning all night long after taking at least two hours to fall asleep. I have tried different sleeping pills and such, but nothing is really working. I have been getting so tired, I find myself waking up later and later every morning- today was almost 10am!! I'm sure a big part of it is that I'm not getting any exercise. It's been so rainy that I just haven't had the opportunity to go for walks and when it isn't raining I've been working more! Hopefully next week it will stop/slow down so I can walk.

Checked in this morning... 189.2! That's even after having banana bread at breakfast yesterday, so I felt safe enough to have granola this morning. I made some homemade last week and it's very good! Here's the recipe:

Granola

7 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup raw wheat germ
1/2 cup each sliced almonds and chopped walnuts
1 cup SF maple syrup
3/4 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp vanilla
Mix the dry ingredients in a huge bowl, whisk the wet in a smaller one. Pour the wet onto the dry and mix well (use your hands!). Divide mixture between two large rimmed baking sheets and bake at 250 for one hour. Stir the mixture and bake another hour. Remove from the oven and cool completely. You can add 1 cup unsweetened coconut to the dry ingredients, but Joe doesn't like it so I left it out. Also, after it cools you can add some raisins, dried currants, or even mini chocolate chips! It's not very sweet, so it's perfect I think. I bet it would work really well as a crunch topping for apple pie or something like that. Great in a bowl of milk too!!!

We're going to a play tomorrow night- Yay for sitters! ESU is doing Plaza Suite, and of course we have free tix to the summer theater shows. This will be the first time in ages we've gotten to go out ALONE, so we're greatly looking forward to it!

The new store is not going well. All this rain- at the worst possible time- is delaying the finishing of the drive-thru area. Can't pour concrete when it's pouring rain! The inside lights won't be in until Tuesday, meaning the electrician will be hanging them on the Fourth of July, so he isn't happy. They were supposed to have arrived weeks ago, but got lost somehow??? They also found out Wednesday that the pop machine Joe ordered a month ago has disappeared from the shipper? Luckily it was a second unit, but that means there won't be one out in the lobby for customers to fill their own cups. It's nuts! Like I said before- whatever COULD go wrong HAS! They had scheduled a "dry-run" for the drive-thru for Monday night. All 17 employees got 5 coupons to give their friends and family for free food from the drive-thru. They won't be ready for it Monday! Joe is stressed, I am stressed for him, and the poor workers putting this store together are getting stressed too. Can't wait for it to be over! It''l be worth it when it's over, but until then- SHEESH!

I weighed the huge cuke from yesterday- it weighs 3.5 pounds! That's insane, dontcha think? Sure is going to make a lot of sweet & spicy pickles! I will make those tomorrow.

2 comments:

Nau-Dee said...

The chicken looks good, sorry it didn't have as strong of a flavor. I agree that an overnight soak in the marinade will do. (the position of the chicken looks rather human-like and a bit profain btw, ha ha)

sorry to hear Joe is having such a time..... hopefully it will all start falling into place soon! What word do you have on a new office?? What ever happened to the one you feel in love with?

Kitchen Goddess said...

you should have see "her" before i readjusted her broken hip! that was much MUCH worse!