As time as moves forward, and changes are taking over, I’m getting organized, and back on track. I missed regularly talking to you guys, writing for you guys, and joking with everyone. It’s slowly coming together.

Getting back to cooking was a joy, and now I have my mondays back(since my girl scouts night changed), you guys have the new recipe night back, and crockpot night is saturdays. With that said…

LETS GET INTO IT!

I wanted to start making my own marinades. I know we touched on it, but I thought about using foods we haven’t had in marinade form. I’m not too much into lime, unless with seafood, but if I tell my kids to try new things, I need to as well.

One thing I think anyone who cooks on a regular basis knows, chicken and turkey are bland meats. I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s actually a good thing. It means you can make just about anything with these meats. What that also means is the possibilities are endless!

To really show we are embracing our new digs and new area. One awesome thing about being in California now is that it’s rare you can’t find produce. If you are willing to drive, you can find just about anything. In this case, I went to my local store that rocks on prices for produce, Jons.

Cucumbers normally you think go into just into salads, or a snack with dip/salad dressing. Not this time…..

I was very eager to use my food processor and put her to work! I cut up chicken breast into cubes, washed the off, and into a ziploc bag. Next I added 2 chopped cucumbers, juices from 2 limes, salt, pepper, olive oil, honey and a little water to my food processor and let it go!

Pouring the mix over the chicken, it marinaded in the refrigerator overnight Now, I made this on my stovetop. I’m thinking this would be an excellent mix for the grill too. Give me time…..LOL

While sauteing the chicken, I decided on a bean/rice/corn mix for a side. Black beans, cream corn, and jasmine rice. After since I introduced my kids to jasmine or basmati rice, that’s the only rice they will eat now. No more regular white rice. Either those two or in some dishes brown rice.

Adding water to my saucepan, I drained the black beans, and added them to the rice, and the cream corn as is. I wanted the rice to take on the flavors of the beans and corn.

We heated some tortillas, and 30 minutes later we were ready for dinner. I may tweak this in the future. since the kids thought the lime was overbearing, but I shared this with my extended crew(my hulk fam bam), and they loved it as is. I loved it since it was tangy and sweet. The rice mix was fabulous on the side, and since it marinaded over night, only took 30 minutes to throw together.

Try it out and give me some feedback!

Until next Monday: Carribean Jerk Steak…..

~CSM~