Chicken Lazone

Reality sunk in today. After spending the last two days primarily exploring photo editing software to make my own blog background and helping others set up their own blogs (my aunt and grandma would like to start blogging too, and I promised to help them set everything up), I realized that I still need to find a job :/

It has been a glorious summer, probably the last real summer I'll ever have. And I have certainly taken advantage of that: I've started cooking, blogging--well, I guess just cooking and blogging mostly--it sure feels like a lot more than that. And I've been having so much fun, particularly these last couple of days, that I have forgotten about hopping on the job hunt bandwagon. It is simply really difficult to get a job when you live in a major city with hundreds of thousands of qualified college and grad school grads, many of whom are ivy league.

That difficulty is then compounded and magnified when you don't have any networking connections because you just moved somewhere new. I've had three job interviews so far, and they've all gone well, but there seems to be always someone who is more experienced or more qualified. I had an interview on Thursday of this last week that I feel went well, but (as has been the case for the last three jobs I interviewed for) I was one of the first people they interviewed, so I probably won't hear back for a couple of weeks.

After thinking about this and applying for another job this morning, I decided I ought to go cook something. If I'm not bringing in a salary, I should at least procure a delicious home-cooked meal, right? So I did. And it was really quite tasty for how simple and easy it was.

1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
4 whole boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 cup butter, divided
1/2 cup heavy cream

Combine the first four ingredients and coat the chicken breasts. In a large saute pan (I used my electric skillet) melt half the butter and cook the chicken over medium heat for about 8 minutes, turning once. Pour your cream into the pan, reduce the heat, and let simmer for several minutes, stirring until the sauce thickens. At this point, add the remaining butter. Once your butter is melted, you are ready to serve!

Apart from any taste factor, I thought this recipe was great for two reasons. First, everything you need you probably already have on hand, and second, it only takes like maybe 20 minutes to throw together, including prep (cutting fat off chicken, assembling your few ingredients, etc), if you make your rice at the same time.

One criticism I should mention is that the sauce, although really good, is pretty strong flavor-wise. You really need to serve this with rice or pasta (probably rice) to mellow out all the flavor. I served it with yellow rice, but even that has a reasonably strong flavor of its own (compared to plain white rice), so next time I think I will serve it atop white rice cooked with butter. I didn't make any vegetables but you can certainly add some as a side. The Englishman in Josh truly comes out whenever I make anything that has a lot of flavor like this--he'll have a huge pile of rice or pasta on his plate with only a couple drips of sauce. It's actually pretty funny. Everything considered, the recipe is certainly going in the box!

Speaking of recipe boxes, an update on my amazon purchases: A while ago I got this beautiful recipe box made out of acacia wood and I LOVE it! It's selling for $30 now but I got it for $23 and free shipping, because I had also purchased some cute recipe cards and some clear plastic covers for them to protect them from my cooking messes and mishaps. There's nothing I hate more--well, that's not entirely true--than nicely writing out a recipe card only to have it bathed in sauce two days later. (My sister somehow managed to accidentally spill almost an entire bottle of vanilla extract on my mom's recipe binder, and that's when I knew I would never let my cards go uncovered!).

Also, for my pregnant and/or mom friends, I think I may have stumbled upon the most amazing bib! One of my aunts is pregnant and I sent her some baby gifts, including this apparently indestructible bib. Of course, I thought I would be a fun niece and send her one bib and a toy as opposed to two bibs (boring), which I did, only to find out later that she is having twins :/ Anyway, I was excited to find her a gift that was as intensely practical as I am :)