Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Cajun Lemon Chicken Strips


Recipe #36: http://www.dietcoke.com/cooking-entertaining/#/recipes

I love the fact that I got this recipe (you'll have to search for it on the site above) from the Diet Coke site. Fear not to those who abhor aspartame: there's no Diet Coke in the recipe. In fact, I have no idea why they have it on their site. I love random internet surfing.

Compared to the horrible day of gingerbread cookies, this recipe was much easier. Maybe I'm meant to be a cook, not a baker? Anyway, not much to this one, aside from realizing halfway through it that I did not, in fact and since corrected, own garlic powder as I was convinced I did.

Thus, a couple of tweaks: no garlic powder (turns out I'm not always right), I used 1 tsp of squeeze-tube basil in lieu of dried, I got a little excited with the paprika by accident, and I randomly threw in a few shakes of cumin so I could finally use the spice that I bought after I had a previous recipe that required it.

I was afraid my zest with the paprika would turn out too spicy for my delicate self, but I'm still alive to say that I was wrong. Again. But this time it's a good thing. Mild wings make my nose run; I'm not a spice girl. I quickly threw the chicken and marinade together in a bag, massaged it for a bit, stuffed it in the fridge, and ran to meet Cat at the gym. The length of time for the marinating was as long as it took me to get there, do the class that was neither power nor barbell, and struggle home in traffic.

I didn't grill my chicken because it was in strips. I'm afraid of the BBQ on good days and you think I'm going to try to figure out a way to grill strips of chicken when I'm tired, hungry, and it's cold out? Ha, fat chance. I baked it a bit longer than 20 minutes to make sure it bubbled as I instructed it to, but that length of time might be why my chicken was a tad dry. That, and the lack of lengthy marinade. Next time, I'll try using tinfoil as a cover in the oven. I served the chicken with a pasta Sidekick and yellow wax beans. Yum!

No comments:

Post a Comment