Thought of the Dayā¦When you youāre fixing dinner and the little voice inside says, āDoes this really make sense?ā LISTEN! ~me
My day doesnāt feel complete unless Iāve read my favorite blogsā¦ Iāve been incomplete a lot recentlyā¦ Iām still trying to get caught up from working long days and vacationā¦
ā¦Iām closer each dayā¦ But I am cheating and reading current entries along with older onesā¦ This morningās The Pioneer Womanās Cooking feature was Grilled Chicken with Lemon Basil. It made my mouth waterā¦
I didnāt follow Reeās recipe to the letterā¦ She marinated her chicken, I didnāt have time ā I wanted to fix it for dinner tonight, before I was asked Whatās for dinner?
I stopped at the store on my way home from work and bought fresh chicken breasts, lemons, half-and-half and heavy cream. As I was driving home, I called and asked for someone to light the grill so that it would be ready when I got home. Fortunately, I made perfect timing and got the chicken on the grill literally as I walked in the door.
If you recall from my Coleslaw recipe post, I mentioned the slicer/shredder attachment for my mixer. I also have a juicer attachment and you wouldnāt believe all the juice a lemon has in it!
Remember that voice mentioned in the Thought of the Day quote above? Well, I knew better when I was juicing the lemons that I had too much juice. I make a great Lemon Loaf recipe at Christmas. The first time I used my juicer attachment, I had sooooo much juice the lemon loaf was WAY-WAY lemonyā¦. almost to the point of too much (can you have too much lemon?)ā¦
Well, although I quickly read Reeās recipe this morning, I only printed the recipe in full-page using her linkā¦ it was missing the picturesā¦
ā¦I usually do OK making other peopleās recipes, wellā¦.
The printed recipe read āSqueeze in the juice of 4 lemons.ā***ā¦ So as I said, I juiced my lemons with my juice attachmentā¦. OOOOPS! BIG OOOOOPS! If you look at Reeās full post with pictures youāll see she HAND squeezed the lemons into the pot! OOOOOOPS!
Hubby said, āDid you taste this?ā I stopped and said, āDang it! NO! Chef Ramsay (Hellās Kitchen) would yell at me for not tasting!ā I then said, āItās too lemony, right?ā The Offspring said, āYep.ā I tasted it and it wasnāt too badā¦ LOL! It was REALLY lemony. Not terrible, but not really palatableā¦ actuallyā¦ yeahā¦ it was not good enough to eat ā¦ š
So, my instincts kicked inā¦ I still had half-and-half, cream, butter and cheeseā¦ I dumped it all in and tried to dilute the sauceā¦ it worked, wellā¦ it was better, but not perfect. The Offspring and I thought it was good. As I was eating dinner I exclaimed, āYou donkey!ā The Offspring and Hubby chuckledā¦ (itās another Chef Ramsay Hellās Kitchen quote) The Chef calls people that when they make stupid mistakes, especially when they donāt taste their food before serving it.
Note to selfā¦ when that voice is in your head sayingā¦ this is toooooo much lemonā¦. it IS too much lemon!
Do you ever hear that voice, too, when youāre cooking? If so, what does it say to you?
***UPDATE: Reeās blog post (http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/07/grilled-chicken-with-lemon-basil-pasta/) listed FOUR lemons, the TastyKitchen recipe lists THREE (http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/main-courses/grilled-chicken-with-lemon-basil-pasta/). I made this from her BLOG POST. Itās possible that at some point the blog post will be updated. I noticed that someone had made the comment that she only used 3 lemons. Leads me to believe that the recipe was updated on TastyKitchen.