The Mayra Files: Chicken...the Kosher white meat

Week 4 (January 27, 2010)
It is my turn to cook this week and since the past couple of weeks have included beef dishes (weird, because we rarely cook beef), I decided to make chicken. I found a super easy recipe for Cilantro Chicken and decided I wanted to try a new salsa recipe as well (Roasted Tomatillo-Mango Salasa with spiced tortilla chips). Fearing that the chicken would turn out dry, I decided a good side dish would be Black beans and rice.

I started with the chicken since it needed to be marinated for at least 1/2 hour.

Then I worked on the spiced chips and on roasting the items for the salsa (great technique and super easy, btw).

When I had a free moment, I started the beans and rice dish.

At this point, it was chaotic in the kitchen, especially when I had to get out the food processor for the salsa and get the chicken on the grill. I was surprised that I didn't make a mess with the food processor so much so that I proudly told Geoffrey "Wow, I didn't make a mess" and moments later, as I was pouring out the salsa into the serving dish, the processor blade fell out, bouncing off my hand and to the floor. This resulted in me tilting the serving dish and spilling half the salsa on our toaster and counters. Yes, I had officially jinxed myself.

Overall, I think I was a little ambitious with tonight's dinner (tested 3 new recipes!), especially since it was a long day at work and I still had to go grocery shopping. It took longer than I would have liked (1.5 hours), but the dinner came out pretty good. Overall, we give it an average of 7.875 (Mayra: 7; Geoffrey: 8.75). Geoffrey really liked the salsa, although it turned out pink (note to self: do not use purple onions) and I only used 1/2 chopped mango (I prefer my salsas savory not sweet). I halved the beans/rice recipe but forgot that in the beginning, so the rice had enough salt and EVOO for 2 cups worth, which was disappointing even though it was only 1 tsp salt and 1.5 tsp of EVOO (next time I will just use plain white rice--the beans had enough flavor). The chicken came out nice and juicy too, which surprised us.