Did everyone see my post on Health Blog Helper about Twitter? I had so much fun writing it…that’s how big of a nerd I am for Twitter. I was really thankful to Matt for giving me the opportunity to share what I’ve learned in my professional and personal use of Twitter over the past 10 months or so. I hope people found it useful and can refer back to it as a resource as needed.
If you’re stopping by my blog from HBH, welcome! I hope you like what you read. And if you’re one of my peeps and you haven’t checked out Health Blog Helper, it’s a great resource so I highly recommend reading it if you want to make your blog better, or you don’t have a blog yet and want to start one.
The other reason that I’m so resourceful? I read on Melissa’s blog that the secret to well-cooked and juicy chicken breast is pounding the meat (TWSS) before cooking. Well, I don’t have one of those mallet-tenderizer thingys, so I had to be creative:
That friends, is my water bottle covered with a towel that I used to flatten that poor piece of chicken. Does it work perfectly? Nah. But it works well enough. The first time I did this, I used a jar of tomato sauce instead of the water bottle, but I decided that if I smashed the jar down really hard and it broke, well, that would suck. So my trusty CamelBak was the tenderizer.
TThis was about 4 oz of grilled chicken that I spritzed (technical term) with Bragg’s Liquid Aminos and my salt-free Trader Joe’s seasoning before grilling for about 5 minutes on each side. I overcooked the chicken a bit, but I still ate it and it was quite tasty with the Sriracha I added after taking the photo. I roasted these vegetables this morning while I was getting ready for work and they came out incredible with the fresh dill I sprinkled on top of them before roasting, Yum, yum yum.
I mentioned on Twitter that there was supposed to be lettuce there too. This was going to be a glorious salad, and just while i was thinking to myself, “is is really bad of me that I don’t always wash my organic produce?” I saw a big fat worm hanging out in my lettuce.
EW. I’ll wash away little bugs here and there, and I know that when you have critters in your produce, it’s actually a good thing because it means there are no harmful pesticides or scary stuff sprayed on your food…but…EW. I debated just washing it off, but in the end I couldn’t do it and my worm friend and the lettuce on which he came ended up in the trash. I hate to waste food, but it had to be done.
What do you do when you find a bug in your produce? Have you ever been “creative” in the kitchen when it comes to cooking gadgets/appliances?
My kitchen looks like a bomb went off in it so I’m going to make it worse by fixing some dinner for Mitch and getting my food ready for tomorrow. In my next post, I’ll let you know how today’s weigh-in went for bootcamp. It didn’t go fantastically…but I don’t really care and I’ll explain more in the post! Later gators.
Related posts:
- Meal Prep Extravaganza Is this week dragging for anyone else? I know it’s...
- “Hallie Likes It” Giveaway Welcome to my first post on my “new” blog! Thanks...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Ewwww! I don’t mind bugs and worms, but once they’re near my food – YUCK. I’m glad you skipped the lettuce.
I haven’t ventured into the world of Tweeting yet, but I may just have to do that. Thanks for the suggestions on HBH.
[Reply]
Ok so my bf Nick, who is servesafe certified and OBSESSED with having a safe kitchen, says you should not use a towel to flatten your chicken. He says you should use plastic wrap
That’s what he learned in servesafe! Or you could use wax paper.
As for finding bugs in produce, yes, it’s happened to me a few times. I found tiny knats in my lettuce several times, so I started buying the bagged lettuce instead, no knats! I was buying the fresh lettuce, straight from the ground before
NO MAS!
[Reply]
Hallie Reply:
October 9th, 2009 at 11:11 am
I didn’t mention this but my chicken was thawed from frozen in those indivual packs…so it’s not like the towel was right on the chicken. It was on the plastic, does that make sense? Does it matter? I’ve tried using wax paper but it shredded on me…or on the chicken, to be specific. Ehh, I should just get one of those mallets…but I’m SO cheap
[Reply]
Haha I am turning into a tweet geek, too
[Reply]
Hallie, ok, yes that makes a HUGE difference!! Thanks for the clarification
IN that case, use a towel!
[Reply]
haha what a clever tenderizer! love it. i asked a similar question awhile back, i use a pastry blender for guacamole! happy friday chica!
[Reply]
I found your blog through HBH and am adding you to my reader. I don’t have a rolling pin and have used glasses thinking it would give me the same result, it doesn’t.
[Reply]
ha – i love your homemade “meat tenderizer mallet.” i think i would’ve just washed off the produce and eaten it anyway. maybe cooked it. but i dunno, i wasn’t in your situation – perhaps it was a really gross worm!
[Reply]
So excited you tried my “pounding” method. Use plastic wrap! Put a piece of plastic down, then put the chicken (shiny side down) on top…then put another piece of plastic on top of that. Then pound. This way the chicken is even thickness and will cook evenly and faster. Juicy perfectly cooked chicken!
It takes some practice but once you get it, it will change your life. 
Enjoy!!
[Reply]
Hi Hallie! Glad you got a chance to enter my giveaway! I’m announcing the winners on Monday!
Glad you skipped out on the lettuce, haha…yuckkky!
I am officially addicted to twitter, too…love it!
[Reply]