Feta Chicken...it's what's for dinner

Wanted to make a nice dinner for my sweetie tonight, it being our anniversary and all. So, I dragged out this old recipe that I think I cut out of a magazine many years ago. I've made it a few times and it's quite tasty. Plus it uses feta and I love that salty bit of cheesy goodness.

Broiled (or baked) Feta Chicken

Ingredients:
1 cup plain low-fat yogurt (I used regular Greek yogurt because that's what I had on hand.)
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon leaf rosemary, crumbled
1/4 tsp black pepper
4 skinless, boned chicken breast halves (about 5 oz ea)
1/2 c crumbled feta cheese (2 oz)





I elected to use fresh Rosemary from my yard, so I had to chop it first.




 

Next combine yogurt, garlic, rosemary and pepper.

 

Wash your chicken breasts. I only had three in my package instead of the 4 the recipe called for, so I just used what I had.

 Place chicken in a shallow pan or a marinade container (as shown). Coat with the yogurt mixture.
Refrigerate 1 - 3 hours.
Remove from refrigerator and let come to room temperature for not more than 30 minutes.
Remove chicken from marinade; reserve any remaining marinade in dish.






 Preheat broiler. Line broiler pan with aluminum foil. Arrange breasts, smooth side down, on foil.





Broil 4 to 7 minutes. Turn over. Spoon any  remaining marinade over chicken. Crumble feta over top. Broil just until cooked through and lightly browned, 4 to 6 minutes longer.

Since I have an overactive smoke alarm and a not very good broiler I elected to bake these instead. I put them in a preheated 350 degree oven and baked about 15 minutes on one side. I flipped them, added the feta and baked another 15 minutes, increasing the temperature to 400 degrees for the last few minutes to brown the feta a bit.

 Voila! The finished product. Served with French green beans. The recipe notes that the feta chicken is good cold or at room temperature, so leftovers don't go to waste. kali oreksi!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I was in a baking mood on Sunday. I made an oldie but goodie: easy no-knead whole wheat bread which instructions I posted just the other day. While I was in the mood I asked my dear husband what kind of cookies he might like if I were to make some. He said there is only one answer to that: chocolate chip cookies. These are his favorite. He will down just about any kind of cookie. He used to be quite fond of my shortbread cookies with hot tea on a winter's night. He will chow down on my three-ingredient peanut butter cookies and has been known to consume a significant number of oatmeal raisin (MY personal favorite). But given his druthers he'd take chocolate chip every time.

I got this recipe back in the early 80's. Found it in a consumer reports magazine of all places. They had done a taste test on varying recipes for chocolate chip cookies and this one came out as the staff favorite. I taught this recipe to our daughter very early. I think she was 8 or 9. She very quickly turned into the family baker. He prefers her cookies to mine, but mine will do in a pinch. She lives 1 1/2 hours away and won't come home every weekend to make them for the old guy so he has to resort to whatever I'm able to pull out of the oven. He still seems to like them well enough. He's tall and thin so can go through his evening ritual of filling a dinner plate with cookies and sticking them in the microwave for a few seconds to heat them up and make the chocolate all melty again. That plate and a glass of milk and I have a very happy camper on my hands. He also doesn't seem to gain an ounce...unlike the cook. Sigh.

The Practically Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie...from Consumer Reports
2 1/4 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3/4 white sugar
3/4 dark brown sugar, packed
2 sticks (1/2 lb) sweet butter at room temperature (Use butter. Don't use margarine in cookies.)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1-12 oz pkg semisweet chocolate chips

 

I like to gather all my ingredients at the beginning. Then I put them away as I use them.

Preheat oven to 375.

 Mix the flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside.

Measure out the two sugars. Use a stand-type electric mixer to mix the 2 sugars briefly at low speed.

Make sure your brown sugar is packed.

Both sugars briefly mixed together.

 Next up: Butter and vanilla extract.

Add small gobbets of butter at a time.

 Add the butter in small gobbets, mixing first at low speed, then high. Continue until all butter is incorporated. Beat the mixture until it is pale, light and fluffy. Then add the vanilla extract at the lowest speed, then beat at high speed for a few seconds.

Add the tsp of vanilla extract.

  

 Next add the eggs, again at low then high for a few seconds. The eggs should be well beaten in and the mixture should look creamed, not curdled.

Dry mixture ready to be added.

Add in the flour, baking soda and salt mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing at low speed for about 1 minutes, then at high speed for a few seconds.

 Scrape down sides with a spatula.









Pour bag of chocolate chips into batter.

Fold in chocolate chips

Fold chocolate chips into batter by hand. Don't use beaters.

                    







Bake on ungreased cookie sheet until pale golden brown.

Takes about 9 minutes in an electric oven and 10 - 11 minutes in a gas oven. Cool on a rack.

Enjoy!

Easy No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread

My dad was a newspaper man. Journalist, editor and curmudgeon-at-large he was a man dedicated to the written word. Being a newspaperman he often kept odd schedules and had odd days off. The life of a newspaperman is not a Monday through Friday 9 to 5 kind of job. More often than not he left for work during the day while we were in school and didn't return home until after midnight. Some weeks he had Thursdays and Sundays off. Other weeks he had the occasional Friday off. On those weeks we were treated to some of Dad's cooking.

Dad was a decent cook. I recall fondly the teriyaki chicken he used to make back in the early 60's when ethnic cooking at home was virtually unheard of. Regretfully I never was able to get that recipe and so it is lost to family memory as far as I know. He also was quite the bread baker. I can recall Friday nights when he would bake up a loaf or two and we would have a nice thick slice generously buttered late Friday while waiting for Shock Theater to come on. Being the youngest of the five of us kids I was, quite frankly, far too chicken to watch the scary movies that were shown. However, I was also far more afraid of going to bed upstairs all by my lonesome. So, I would put on a brave front and watch the very beginning of the movie and then, belly full of warm, buttered home-baked bread, would fall sound asleep before the scary creatures made their presence known on our old black-and-white Zenith.

Bread making became a family tradition. Not only did Dad and Mom bake bread, but once we kids were old enough we learned to bake as well. During the 70's we transitioned from plain white bread to whole wheat bread. I confess I am a little heavy handed when it comes to bread baking. I have a tendency to use too much flour and end up with loaves just shy of door-stop consistency. Fortunately I had a friend who shared this no-knead recipe with me and it comes out light and airy. No doubt because ham-fisted bakers like me can't ruin it with over-handling and an excess of flour.


Easy No-Knead Whole Wheat Bread

Makes 1 - 2 loaves depending on the size of your pan.
Preheat oven to 375 (350 for glass pans).
Using solid shortening, generously grease one 9 X 5 or 2-8X4 in loaf pans.

Ingredients
1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
2 1/2 - 3 c unbleached or all purpose flour
1/4 c sugar (may sub 1/4 c honey)
1 TB salt
2 pkg active dry yeast
1 c water
1 c milk
1/4 c cooking oil
1 egg

Instructions:
Combine in a large mixer bowl:

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour

2 Pkg active dry yeast

1 TB salt

If you're using sugar instead of honey, include the sugar with the other dry ingredients.
Combine liquids in a saucepan on the stove. Make sure to use a thermometer and heat the liquids slowly. You don't want the liquids warmer than about 130 degrees. If you do get the mixture hotter than that make sure to cool it down to 130 before you add it to the dry mixture. Excess heat can kill the yeast and then you really will end up with a doorstop.

Saucepan with 1 c water in it. Add 1 c milk

Add the 1/4 c oil and the honey

 

Heat to no more than 130 degrees

Pour the warm liquid into the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients. Blend at low speed until moistened; beat 3 minutes at medium speed. Add the egg to the mixture and make certain it's well incorporated.

WW flour and liquid mixture

 At this point you want to use your bread hook. If you don't have a bread hook for your mixer then do the next step by hand.

+2 1/2 c flour. Ready to rise

Add 2 1/2 to 3 c unbleached or all purpose flour to form a stiff batter. (Batter will follow spoon).

Batter covered with moist towel

Cover batter with a moistened towel. Let it rise in a warm place (about 80 - 85 degrees F) until it's light and doubled. Takes about 50 minutes.








While waiting for the batter to rise prepare your pans. Use a pastry brush to add a layer of margarine/butter so the bread will not stick to the pan.

 

Stirred down and ready to split between pans.

 Stir down batter; spoon into greased pan. This batter doesn't rise a second time before baking.

In the pan ready to go into oven

Immediately place in oven. Bake 9 X 5 pan at 375 for 45 to 50 minutes and the 8 X 4 pans for 30 - 35 minutes. Loaf should sound hollow when lightly tapped.  Remove from pans immediately to prevent it from over-cooking. Cool on a rack. Brush top of loaf with melted butter if desired.

Ta-da...the finished product.

Uncle...enough already.

I am soooo tired of this political season I could spit. I knew who I was going to vote for months ago. The "debates" are not clarifying as much as they are annoying. Now, for the first time they've been turned into a shout-fest. No doubt the"brilliance" of Karl Rove at work. Jeeeez Louise can we have a little decorum returned to the forum?
I am sick of political ads. I don't look at any of them for either side.
I am sick of the junk mail painting all the opponents as devils with or without a blue dress.
JUST END THIS MESS!

At the risk of being repetitive I will post here the poem I wrote last election season. It still seems fitting. Just imagine it's November 1 and we have a few short days to go:

Wednesday

I can’t wait for Wednesday and the silence of the phone.
No incessant ringing and the politicians’ drone.
I’ll be unencumbered by the shrieking of the ads
That play on t.v. and on radio; they’re driving me quite mad.
I will treasure all the silence; I will revel in the quiet
I can’t wait for the non-ringing, yes I really want to try it.
I will thank the stars above for bringing to an end
Yet another endless cycle of the politicians ginned-
Up promises of votes they’ll make on issues big and small
That they tell us will improve the lives of not just one but all.
So bring on the silent Wednesday, and give my ears a rest.
Then take the promises that each has voiced and put them to the test. 

We need some serious revamping of our political system. Anyone else for term limits and limited contributions and a shortened political season? Who's with me? Anyone? Bueller??

Sigh....

Love/Hate Relationship

I have a love/hate relationship with Google. What do I love about it? The name for starters. It's fun and funky. I also love the search feature. It's one of the easiest to use. I've used others and I always go back to Google. I just like the way they compile their results.

Now, what do I hate? The invasiveness. I hate their tracking every inquiry. I particularly hate them asking me for a cell phone number just in case I forget my password. Guess what Google? I don't live on my cell phone like some folks do. In fact I generally turn it on only when I have to make an outgoing call. If I lost my password to my bloggy account my cell phone number is probably one of the slowest ways to contact me. I also know why you want that number. You want to be able to sell it to folks who want to send advertising to my cell. I use a pay as you go phone, so I really don't want you to use up all my minutes with your crappy ads, so again, no. You may not have my cell phone number.

I also have a gmail account. I find it clunky and not very user friendly. You really should copy the features of Outlook more closely. I suspect that's one of the most used email configurations out there. It has a ton of features and is very intuitive. On the rare occasions when I do open up my Google mail account I get so frustrated that I just close it without really using it. When you can't find the "send" button on your email then there is something seriously wrong.

I doubt Google much cares about me and my preferences, but it is good to voice these complaints. Doing it on Google Blogger makes it that much more fun!

The Deer Deterrent

We live in the country. We have deer. Lots of deer. We have entire deer families who come out and gambol across the lawn, and generally wreak havoc nibbling on our plants and trees. Pretty though they may be it's very annoying to have the last lovely bloom of your favorite plant plucked right off its stem by some pesky Bambi. For years we have tolerated this.

Finally I thought "enough's enough". So when the deer started in on MY DAYLILIES I decided it was high time to fight back. I took to the internets to try to find a cure and find it I did. I made up a batch of this thoroughly nasty mixture and splashed it on the plants. Then I made another batch and added some cayenne and chili powder to it for good measure. The end result? The end of the season plants are intact. The deer don't even come close to that flower bed any longer. Success!

Here's the evidence. You can see the stems where the deer started to nibble on the leaves of the Hostas.

After a couple of applications of the deer deterrent the Hostas started to leaf out again. Finally they bloomed with these big showy flowers.

This is a close up of one of the flowers. Its scent is reminiscent of honeysuckle. I have taken extra special pleasure from them this year since I had to fight for them.

The Secret Sauce:

1 TB milk or yogurt

1 egg

2 - 3 cloves of garlic, smashed OR 1 TB powdered garlic.(Warning: do NOT use garlic salt. You'll kill your plants. Only use garlic powder.)

1 TB chili and/or cayenne powder

Mix ingredients and dilute in gallon jug. If you used garlic cloves you'll need to just shake the mixture over the plants. If you used garlic powder you can probably get the mixture to go through a spray bottle. Apply to plants. Let dry (it's pretty stinky stuff). Since I was covering a small area I only used about 1/2 of the gallon jug. I applied the rest of the mixture a day or so later. The instructions I found on the internet said to reapply after a rain. I have not done that. The deer have stayed away since I put this stuff on the plants in July. I don't know if it's the stinky egg and garlic or the chili powder burn but they sure don't like it. Maybe next year I'll get to enjoy my daylilies a few weeks longer.

Good luck. I hope it works as well for you as it did for me.

Just add it to the list...

So around these parts we don't guess at gifts. It took me a while to get used to it, but my husband's family always asked (out loud!) what you want for Christmas and birthdays. Coming from a family where we played the guessing game and liked to spring a surprise on the giftee it took me a while to get used to this. But I have and I've gotten better at it. He asked me last week what I wanted for my birthday. I finally got around to writing a couple of items down on a piece of paper and left it on the kitchen counter where I figured he'd see it. Got home from work tonight and noticed he had added one more item to the list. So, I stroll over and pick up the list for a look-see. What has he added you might ask? "Shaving Cream". Hmmm...maybe I should have listed a depilatory. I can only hope he thought it was just a random shopping list rather than a birthday list. Or maybe HE'D better hope that I think that!