I feel like chicken tonight!

I fed Jim chicken yet again tonight. I know. But it's been different every time, so I'm hoping that it's kind of like tofu, in that you can eat it every day so long as you cook and season it differently. Jim had chicken in soup last week and roasted with a tangerine-maple glaze on Monday, two very different things. And today he got Shake n' Bake, which he loves. Plus he had a break from chicken yesterday (he got pizza for dinner and leftover minestrone soup for lunch). Shake n' Bake is one of those convenience food things that I don't like making. I bought a bunch before I realized this and now I'm stuck with it. And it's not as though Jim doesn't love Shake n' Bake, and I got extra bonus points for it being the "extra crispy" variety. Some Rice-a-roni thrown on the stovetop and asparagus, and dinner was done! It was literally less than 15 minutes of actual work, including disinfecting the countertop.

Shake n' Bake is one of those ridiculous convenience food inventions, in my opinion. They give you seasoned crumbs and a bag and sell their 50 cent product you for like $4. I got Jim's on sale for a dollar, which is the only reason I condescended to buy it in the first place (incidentally, it hasn't gone on sale for that cheap since then, so Jim may very well be out of luck). Anyway, I dumped the crumbs in the bag and the chicken breasts dove in with the assistance of tongs. I shook the bag and then placed them on a foil-lined sheet plan. They baked at 400 degrees for 40 minutes.

I varied the asaparagus slightly by roasting it with EVOO, salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese instead of the usual steaming treatment--a Barefoot Contessa recipe. For the record, I absolutely love roasting vegetables. The process just intensifies the flavor so much and the veggies are amazing that way. Jim's never had much in the way of vegetables other than canned, the crap boiled out of them, in green been casserole, or a combination of some or all of the above. I have introduced him to sauteed, steamed, roasted, grilled, and baked into various gratins. Plus he doesn't get to eat anything out of a can (unless it's corn baked in a casserole). Sorry, when you date an Asian, that's just the way it is. Canned vegetables are the most disgusting things I've ever eaten in my life (with the exception of accidental carcass injestion). Sometimes he thinks it's weird, but he mostly likes them.

Anyway, I had to leave Jim's house pretty quickly, so he had to finish the meal up on his own with the assistance of the detailed instructions I wrote down. Apparently the rice burned, but other than that, it was a success.