I’ve pan-fried blocks of cheddar coated witih panko. yum
Orange # 20 is the coloring added to the powdered cheese stuff that comes with boxed macaroni. 
Can’t stand macaroni (or Kraft Dinner), so I guess I’ll have to forgo the pleasures of orange #20.
djm
Nono, I suppose I should have said “I can grill a pretty mean cheese sandwich,” but I don’t call it a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s grilled cheese. 
Grilled parmesan rinds sounds amazing. Cheese is my favorite food.
They rock. Just a taste of the balsamic, and in true Italian tradition, simplicity reigns.
Wow! Thanks for all the really interesting responses.
I just had some of my left-over chili and I’ve decided that the flavors are really quite good. There are a number of things I would do differently next time, but, now that I’m not quite so flipped out, I would say it was a success.
My reason for doing this is really that a few years ago my husband became aware that he needed to improve his eating habits—low fat, whole grains—exercise and lose some weight. These things have all helped his numbers tremendously and he is staying real healthy. But his cooking has taken a dive in my opinion. I can’t hack the plain brown rice or the dry chicken breasts and the tofu nuggets (that can look just appalling in certain sauces) so I set out to see if I could make something low in fat (as this chili recipe is) that was also palatable. That is partly why the chicken breasts were such a big deal----I am sick of that dry white meat that you might as well compress into a pill and swallow. I wanted to see if I could get them so that the meat actually tasted like something you would bother to eat and I did! He likes to cook but he is not one to go into details–he is really busy, to be fair—he just doesn’t like to fuss around. He likes good food but seems to have an amazing tolerance for what I consider awful food. Anyway, if you complain about the cooking (like I do) then it is up to you to do something about it. Anyone know the “Moose Turd Pie” song?
And now that I think about it, I was Ahab. It works.
Oh yeah, I have been told about this before. I’ll try to make some paragraphs this time .
Wanderer, Dix, Chas—You are right about the recipe being complicated for someone who is out of practice. I cooked on and off (never was my hobby though) long in the past so I sort of know the basic stuff, but I was very inefficient and anxious. Everything just felt so foreign. I think practice is the only solution—you just get ways of doing something and you don’t have to stop and think everything over so many times. Even using the stove was weird—it sort of blew up in my face and then I couldn’t judge how high to turn up the burner, I just couldn’t remember what “medium heat” was—silly things like that. Anyone who cooks deserves the right equipment, Dix. Although those Revereware pots, aren’t they pretty nice? I still have a couple of those my mom got rid of. But I did have a large Dutch oven—that is a nice thing to have. I think anyone who cooked routinely would have found this recipe pretty straight forward—there weren’t any strange techniques, it just went on forever. It wouldn’t be a 15 minute job, but I bet a practiced person could do it in an hour. I guess.
My husband thought it was really good and he felt that the one tablespoon of fat I used was well within our low-fat requirement. I think he was really pleased to have someone else cook dinner too. So I think I need to keep trying—at least once a week which would give us a couple of meals since we’d have leftovers. He likes to cook, but the every night thing gets tiresome. Oh, we did discuss before we got married that I don’t cook so he knew ahead of time that if it was up to me it would be frozen chicken pies. Was it worth it? Well, sort of. I got the chicken breasts so that the meat was edible. That was one of my big goals. And overall the flavor was really almost like something from a good restaurant—sort of complex, not just a single flavor on top of some chicken. I don’t want to get so tired and exhausted again though—that got to be too much.
I think chrisoff’s suggestions are really good.
Another thing is that my recipe was really awfully large. I could have cut it in half easily. That would be wise in any case for the first time you are trying out a recipe. And it would have cut way down on how long it took me to make it. I think you should find some simplish recipes that really sound good to you and give it a try. When I was on my own I used to cook something and then freeze part of it in little containers so I had several dinners out of one cooking session. I, like you, am not ever going to be cooking for a hobby. I think a person can make the experience better though and you can end up eating a whole lot better and more healthily. My husband uses a crock pot a lot and you can make some good things in those without too much uproar. We take that Cook’s Illustrated magazine and it has a lot of interesting information about how to cook. Many of the recipes are too high fat for us—like the insanely wonderful sounding desserts, I could get into cooking desserts but we can’t have them—but the cooking tips are really quite good I think. That is where the recipe for my chili came from in fact. They also have a new cookbook out called The American America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook—big frying pan on the cover—which covers lots of cooking basics in a pretty neat way, they explain why you are doing things a certain way, really quite interesting and good I think. Maybe you could take a look at that cookbook in a store and see if their guidance would make a little cooking enjoyable or, at least bearable, for you.
Yeah, believe me, I was truly wondering what the heck I could have been thinking . Another thing that I think came from being so out of practice is that I really misjudged the recipe—there weren’t any hard or strange techniques, but there were just a lot of steps and I didn’t seem to understand that while I was reading it. If I had, then I would have done some the day before since I know long sessions in the kitchen are hard for me. I would have broken the recipe up into smaller units instead of doing it all in one mind-numbing go. I couldn’t really do two tasks at a time because I just couldn’t keep track of what was going on—that would be helped by practice too.
Well you sure hit that nail on the head ! I’m not a chemist but I worked for many years setting up chemistry lab experiments for undergraduates and I go about cooking in the same compulsive, anxious, perfectionistic way that I had to do that job in order to guarantee that the 300 students in Organic got their damn Grignard reactions to work. I had to have everything all measured and set out in little containers before I started—I couldn’t handle going to the cupboard and getting the salt out when I needed it, I had to measure it out ahead of time so it would be ready. I completely understand your friend. I suppose you don’t use a table knife to level off your 1/4 tsp of salt do you ? You know, I forgot my mantra. Thanks for reminding me. I can’t remember how that came about. “Relax, it’s just chili!” That’s good. Because I was really tense. That’s what was making my back ache. Good insight, dude.
Geez, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is something I love. My husband makes it for a treat for me when I’ve been complaining about the brown rice alot. I have tasted a few kinds of homemade macaroni and cheese that have been pretty good, but none of them have that special smooth quality and weirdly bland flavor of Kraft’s. Not to mention the gorgeous color. It’s cheap too!
I think that cooking, as well as other household activities, such as cleaning the house, doing the laundry, taking out the garbage, etc., can be approached with a relaxed, mindful attention, so that even the seemingly most mundane tasks can be elevated to an art or a dance. With regard to cooking, I generally don’t follow recipes anymore. I look to see what I have fresh in the refrigerator, and then I think about what I can make with these ingredients. I want to be creative, knowing that some of my ideas are better than others. I allow myself to enjoy the process, to be aware of holding the knife in my hands, dicing the vegetables, and holding the beautiful stainles steel skillet with one hand and the stirring spoon with the other. I don’t want to be rushed. I don’t want my time in the kitchen to be merely a means to an end, namely, the meal. My goal in my life is to approach most of my activites in this manner.
For about 20 bucks, you can get a little electric mini-food processor for choppin’ chilies and onions. Ours is an Oster but here is something like it [chopper]
In consists of a clear plastic canister, with the lid being the removable motorYou’d still have to cut out the seeds and stuff, but it would save you a lot of time and capsicum fingers. It’s great for quick jobs like that. Good for the herb mincing too… That would speed up your job a lot.
Lock the cat outside and harass the husband about hygiene.
Stickin a thermometer in a chicken breast is probably the least applicable use for it. .Thing is, they cook so fast its nearly impossible to undercook 'em, but way too easy to overcook 'em. They were basically cooked when you browned 'em. At that point, you were goin for texture, I guess. And the only way they would shred would be if they were kinda steamed. That was the part of the recipe I couldn’t fathom. I wondered if you were cooking them covered near the end…
All this talk of eating healthy has pushed me over the edge! Its Friday night. I do not feel like cooking. Looks like its time for me to turn into - POUTINE MAN! 
djm
You know, I do talk to myself about this approach when I have tasks to do. I tell myself to feel meditative and to be in the moment. I tell myself not to struggle, that the struggle against what I am doing is what is making it difficult. I tell myself that in the eyes of the universe all activities are the same and that it is just the undeveloped state of my mind that makes lying on the bed reading seem more interesting and pleasant than cleaning the kitchen counters. I am sorry to say that I have not made much progress. But I do think that if one could approach the daily routine tasks this way life would be more pleasant.
You know, my husband has one of those little mini-food processors and he mentioned that I might have found it useful. I have never cooked with machines, but yesterday I was starting to think that I could see why people found them useful. I might give that a try. I know Jim likes it a lot.
[New paragraph]. Yes, about the cat. I would have to do something there. It is too cold for outside just now and she will cry so much if I close her out of the room, but next time I will simply have to close the doors when I am doing steps where I can’t keep her from jumping up. During parts of the cooking, I could have easily prevented her from jumping up at all so I would just have to hear her cry for certain periods. But, I’ll tell you, this little kitty can really cry, it’s pretty heartbreaking. Our other kitty never jumps up on the counter for some reason.
[New paragraph 
]The recipe had me brown the bone-in (the bones were supposed to add more flavor to the broth) breasts skin side down for 4 minutes and then turn and brown for 2 more minutes, over high heat. I am almost certain they were still quite raw inside—although I don’t know what the temperature was—but they were pretty big thick things. Then they had me take off the skin and discard it. The browning with the skin on was to create a fond in the bottom of the Dutch oven that would add flavor. Then I cooked the whole breasts in chicken broth and the softened vegetables with the Dutch oven covered—maybe that is called poaching. When they reached 160F I took them out and put them on a plate to cool and added the beans and let the chili (without chicken) cook for a short while. Then I took the meat off the bones and added it back in. The recipe said this would avoid rubbery, dry chicken meat and it did seem to work. I think it wouldn’t have mattered if the breasts had been underdone because the meat would have cooked very quickly once it had been torn apart and put back in the chili–instantaneously really since it was in bite-sized pieces. So I guess I was trying to avoid over-cooking them and getting that real dry meat. I probably could just go for about 20 minutes now based on what I observed. For smaller breasts, maybe I would go 15. Any slight underdoneness would be corrected once the meat was back in the broth. I hope this makes sense.
Well, it’s too bad you don’t live near me. I just happen to have a whole lot of left over white bean and chicken chili I could offer you for dinner. My husband is out of town for 8 days so I’m going to be eating all of it—another reason to cut a big recipe in half. Good thing it tastes good.
I saw someone eating poutine in Nova Scotia. I had been thinking of trying it but, when I saw it, it just didn’t seem to appeal to me. I can’t seem to get my head around fries, gravy, and cheese curds all in one container. Each of those things is very commonly eaten around here—but not at the same time. I will probably try it next time we go up there, just to say I tried it I guess . I have to say it don’t look that healthy, though.
My arteries clog at the very thought of it. The fries and gravy have to be very hot in order to melt the cheese. If the curds aren’t melted into the gravy its no good at all.
Actually, its pouring here, and I decided I didn’t want to stand in the rain at the chipper, so I had grilled salmon steak instead.
I know. I know. Not nearly as unhealthy as poutine. I’ll try to make up for it by having breakfast at McD’s tomorrow instead.
djm
Next to Joyce, or maybe Beckett..that was one of the most elegant and stylish bits of prose that I have ever read..and I got a few tips for chicken breasts.
I salute you Cynth..
Get out from under that bushel and rattle those pots and pans..
Slan,
D.
I’m glad I was able to convey the harrowing nature of the experience . I’ll be sure to keep you posted on the results of my next effort which I plan to make in no less than two weeks time and possibly a great deal more. I’m going to take that nice compliment with just a little grain of salt , but I’m going to take it just the same .
I like to cook on the weekdays after an ugly day at work. Sharp knifes, a little bit of wine, and something else other than thinking about to-do lists, CAD models and the like relaxes me and takes my mind off of work.
Wagner does that to me.
Also: Jimmy Fallon.
Uh…who?
…Aha. A comedic sort, it seems (I had to do a Google search)…I am so not “with it” any more.
Cynth,
Oh do I sympathize with you. I don’t cook either, unless compelled by company coming that I can’t take out for food or starvation for real food on the odd occasion. I did actually cook a chicken dish this evening. It’s one of the few chicken dishes I like, and it’s from a healthy heart cookbook- the chicken is browned in only two teaspoons of oil, then the rest of the cooking time is spent stewing in apple juice, carrots are thrown in last, then seperated out and the liquid left mixed with honey mustard, poured over the chicken and carrots and topped with crushed honey roasted peanuts. It is simple and one of the few things I cook that everyone else in the family will eat-another reason I don’t cook. (they turn up their noses at my favorites like cooked cabbage and cornbread)
I should cook, my mom is a fantastic cook. For some reason I just never liked to cook. There is always something else I’d rather be doing. Oh, and I did all the lab work as a vet tech for many years, the precision of it made it a favorite of mine, but I rarely measure any ingredients when cooking. Hmmm, maybe I’d get better results if I did? 
You are a brave woman to tackle such a recipe. I’d have probably smoked a pack by the end of that ordeal!
Wasn’t he the guy that got kicked out of China for playing the gong?
djm
Ah, you were using actual whole chicken breasts. I am so used to the Costco boneless, skinless, tasteless, chicken breasts that I couldn’t imagine worrying if they were done.