Kitchen Experiments

One thing that we noticed as we were packing... we have a lot of food that we never eat. Some of this is due to free GM samples that just don't appeal to us. But mostly it's because we forget what's in the cupboards. So, we are changing our ways and trying to eat what we have.

Friday night we were planning on having soup. It was a dried mix of split peas, barley, Lima beans and seasoning. It was supposed to take 2 hours. But after 4, the beans were still not soft. We were hungry so we gave up and got Chinese take-out. (I think we cooked it at too low of a temp in case you were wondering). Yesterday for lunch we decided to put it back on the stove. We added some salt, pepper and chicken bouillon because when we were tasting it on Friday night it was a little blah. Turned out pretty good. Next time instead of buying the mix, we are just going to make it ourselves.

Yesterday morning we were hungry (unusual for Ben, not me). We didn't have milk, so we decided on oatmeal. We didn't have a lot of add-ins, but we did have brown sugar and chocolate chips. Turns out that this is a tasty combo (a little weird on the texture front, but tasty all the same).

Our final cooking adventure for the weekend was last night. We had some frozen chicken breasts that I had seasoned with "Santa Maria" seasoning before freezing it. I put the frozen chicken in a covered baking dish, added about 2 tbsp of butter and water and a bouillon cube and put it in the oven. In the past when I have done this, the chicken has turned out slightly dry. Not last night! It was great! Even Ben was impressed. He asked what I did so we could duplicate it again. Not sure what the trick was - it could have been the oven (we now have convection, so I put it on "Convection Roast"), or it could have been the things I added. Not sure, but we will cook it that way again. (Note: It was in the oven for almost 2 hours since it was frozen).

Last night we also had sweet corn. Yum! It is the best I have had in a long time.