Beer me a piece of chicken

After a pretty crappy Easter day, Easter dinner turned out to be a success! We will start out with the sides though, after much struggle, I decided to give beets a chance. I’ve always been skeeved out by them but after reading about them on Hungry Meets Healthy, I wanted to give them a fair trial.  Enter this recipe for Roasted Beets with Feta, I thought maybe with the help of some feta cheese, maybe beets didn’t deserve the bad rap I gave them.

Me against the beets

Peeling them wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was going to be. I thought the skin would have been more coarse than it was but soon enough the skin was off and it was time to chop up

I tossed in extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper then roasted for 40 minutes at 40 degrees. Naturally while preparing these I was singing “Give Beets a Chance” to the tune of “Give Peace a Chance”

I tossed with feta cheese, lemon juice and green onions and voila-a new side dish to try!

I really can’t compare the taste of beets to anything I’ve had before as it seemed a bit gritty. But then again, coat something in enough extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and you can’t go wrong. After a few bites of conflicted feelings about this, I ended up loving this new side. Plus, it’s adds a pretty, unconventional color which I am all about.

I made deviled eggs for the brunch that didn’t happen due to me getting locked out of my house. I mashed the egg yolks  with two packets of Dijon mustard and one packet of mayonnaise. I like the heat so I added paprika, black pepper and crushed  jalapeno to give it a little kick.

I topped with green onions and hot sauce, absolutely delish!

 

And these disappeared while making dinner since I was starving!

Which brings me to the main course for Easter-Beer me a piece of chicken!

As a part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program, I recently had the opportunity to create a recipe using New Belgium Beer. I received a stipend to purchase New Belgium beer and the ingredients needed to make a recipe of my choice.

Foodbuzz must read my blog because as many of you know, I am all about the beer.  I like to know a little about the beer I was going to create a meal with and stumbled upon New Belgium’s core values:

Company Core Values and Beliefs

1. Remembering that we are incredibly lucky to create something fine that enhances people’s lives while surpassing our consumers’ expectations.

2. Producing world-class beers.

3. Promoting beer culture and the responsible enjoyment of beer.

4. Kindling social, environmental and cultural change as a business role model.

5. Environmental stewardship: Honoring nature at every turn of the business.

6. Cultivating potential through learning, high involvement culture, and the pursuit of opportunities.

7. Balancing the myriad needs of the company, our coworkers and their families.

8. Trusting each other and committing to authentic relationships and communications.

9. Continuous, innovative quality and efficiency improvements.

10. Having Fun.

This just made me love them even more! Hey New Belgium, if you’re looking for someone I know a girl who is going to be jobless come Friday and loves beer and having fun. Let’s make this happen!

After a failed attempt at fish and chips earlier this week (I didn’t even post it on here due to the enormous fail that it was) I decided to based my recipe off Chicken Vesuvio my mom used to make.

I made my own little creation using New Belgium’s Mighty Arrow Pale Ale

From New Belgium’s website

“MIGHTY ARROW Pale Ale provides lots of pleasurable sniffs from Amarillo and Cascade hops with a fetching honey malt base. This is our brewed tribute to Arrow, Kim’s Aussie/Border Collie mix who ran (literally) New Belgium for 12 years. When she wasn’t patrolling the brewery grounds, she was famous for her office visits: She never met a tummy rub she didn’t like. Atta girl Arrow.”

ABV –

6.0%

Calories –

180

Hops –

Target, Goldings, Cascade, Amarillo

 

Beer me a piece of chicken ingredients:

One bottle Mighty Arrow Beer

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons black pepper

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons oregano

¼ teaspoon ground mustard

1 teaspoon garlic

Chicken leg quarters (I used two and a half)

I poured the beer in a mixing bowl then added the extra virgin olive oil

I added the oregano, salt, pepper, garlic, ground mustard then whisked to create this beautiful sauce

It’s like edible tie dye!

I let marinate for six hours then cooked at 400 degree for an hour

The result?

Chicken that was cooked perfectly— crispy on the outside and succulent on the inside. What I liked about it was that it wasn’t completely overloaded with oil like my mom’s Chicken Vesuvio used to be (sorry Mom, it’s true!)  I will definitely make this again and look forward to incorporating more beer into my meals since I clearly don’t get enough in my weekend activities.

Thanks New Belgium and Foodbuzz for giving me the opportunity to create a recipe!

Do you add beer to any of your recipes?

What did you make for Easter dinner?

Jittery

 I’m a jittery person. Most of the time I’m on edge due to the amount of caffeine I take in during the day and kind of like the shaky feeling I get with it. But today, I’m a different kind of jittery and not in a good way.

I ran a bunch of errands this morning and was about five minutes from my house when I was driving on the loop around the city-277. I merged and when I did, the car in front of me came to a fast break and Iwasthisclose to hitting him. I quickly swerved left through two lanes and was fish-tailing around. Thank God when doing so, no one was behind me but I thought I was going to wreck or even worse, die. I’ve never had a driving experience like that before and am still shaky, four hours after the fact. I quickly got off the loop at the next exit and felt sick to my stomach, I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I came home, couldn’t sit down or even process what had just happened and couldn’t concentrate. I am still in shock of what happened and am very on edge right now.

I went to the gym about an hour after I went home and tried to work out but my mind was not all about that. I did 10 minutes on the Precor AMT and couldn’t stop shaking and all looking around me as if something bad were going to happen. I did some strength training afterwards but was still jittery-I spilt water all over one of the machines and ran smack dab into a guy while walking upstairs. I did another 10 minutes on the Precor Crossramp but that was a struggle to even do that. I had a decent work out but my heart wasn’t in and I just felt nervous the entire time.

I drove to CVS after that and broke down crying in my car in the parking lot. I just couldn’t believe that had happened earlier and how lucky I was to be ok and ahem, alive. I guess it just put things in perspective for me, how quickly something or someone can be taken away from you.

Just a bunch of rambling going on here but I just had to put down what happened this morning, more for my peace of mind than anything. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.

Now back to some normal Simply Shaka blog stuff.

FOOD & FUN!

I’m getting back on track with my meal planning and this past week was a great week! I tried Rachael Ray’s Chipotle BBQ Chicken recipe that I saw in her magazine. I don’t really cook with chicken thighs too often but it was fun to mix it up with the thighs this time around plus you get so much more flavor with bone in chicken.

Chipotles cooking with garlic and onion

I let the chicken cook for a few minutes in the sauce to brown them a bit

Then transferred to a baking dish and let cook about 35 minutes. The recipe calls for 30 minutes but I don’t have a meat thermometer and get skeeved out by the thought of chicken not being cooked all the way.

I heart beautiful poultry!

I made some mashed potatoes when the chicken was cooking and they turned out, um, pink?

Nothing wrong with pink potatoes right? The plan was definitely not for them to turn out pink but when I was mashing them, I realized that I had red food dye on the masher and forgot to wash it off, oops. Oh well, they were festive and tasty! Instead of cream, I added a Laughing Cow wedge to the potatoes along with butter and pepper.

I made banana bread so I could have a quick breakfast throughout the week. I saw Christina make it on Hungry Meets Healthy awhile back so I decided to copy her and also leave out the chocolate.

I love that the recipe didn’t call for oil but used yogurt instead and egg whites. It is absolute perfection and I think I’m going to make another loaf this upcoming week!

On Wednesday night, I got home from work and was about to start cooking chicken but then I remembered it was Ash Wednesday! I’m such a horrible Catholic. I was quick to look through my cupboards to find something veggie friendly and settled on a refried black bean cheesy salsa tortilla bake.

I spread the refried black beans, salsa and cheese on a tortilla then topped with another tortilla and repeat

Baked at 400 for 15 minutes and there you have it-a deliciously cheesy meal!

Seriously, I don’t even know the name of what I made it was absolutely tasty and perfect for a Mexican meal in a pinch!

Thursday night, I attended a Yelpy Hour at Bask on Seaboard–they provided a spread of appetizers and drink specials.

 Offer free food and I am there! Offer free food and discounted drinks and you have my heart.

(source)

Jalapeno Poppers and Pita Chips with Black Bean Hummus

The poppers weren’t the best I’ve ever had-they lacked flavor and spice but the black bean hummus was off the hook. I would definitely go back for that alone. What I like about Bask is that they offer simple, classic dishes with a mix of comfort at affordable rates. Not like Denny’s rates or anything but reasonably priced for the quality of ingredients they offer. Their menu isn’t huge but just the right size and they offer medium and large-sized platters.

Random question of the day-Anyone go from a WordPress blog to being self hosted? How big of a pain in the butt is it? I’m thinking of getting my own domain!

PS-If you won my I Love My Dog giveaway-I sent out almost all the bumper stickers today. Sorry for the hold up, I really didn’t forget about you all! I have been working almost 50 hours a week, so that with social events factored in things get hectic and busy–thanks for your patience!

Chicken Head

Thanks all for your warm wishes for Lincoln (ok ok and props onmy zebra print dress!), he is doing a lot better but that situation is just frustrating. It did not feel good to go back to work today. I was a tad hung over, didn’t have time to prepare my coffee and the bus was 20 minutes late which brought me into work just as our meeting was starting. I hate when we do early morning meetings and I don’t have time to start my computer or have my coffee. I was a brat and pretty much sat there with a scowl on my face the entire time b/c that’s how I stick it to the man. However I got an email when I got back to my desk saying there was free Starbucks coffee a few rows down from me. So maybe I shouldn’t try to stick it to the man anymore.

Breakfast was good though-simple eggs with ketchup and a side of toast with cranberry preserve

I officially put the candy bowl away today and locked it in an overhead bin at my desk that I need a special key to unlock with.

 This has been the bane of my existence the past two weeks.

I got a new read for my flight to Phoenix this wk

But I’ll also be bringing my laptop since I got Dexter Season 4 Disc 1 and 2 today-booyah!

So I decided to pimp myself out today for some Chick Fil A Fat Free Honey Mustard. Anyone who reads this knows I sing the praises of their crack-laced fat-free honey mustard. The fact that is fat-free just makes it even better. I went to Chick Fil A for lunch since I had a free coupon for a drink when you buy a sandwich and I asked if I could possibly get a packet of the FF honey mustard. I went on to tell the cashier how much I love the stuff and how they should sell it in stores. I may have leaned over a little to show some skin in high hopes he would give me more than one packet of the stuff and it worked! I waited for a few seconds and he flashed his smile with six teeth and told me he threw in some extras —–four total—holla!! I guess showing a little cleavage at a Christian backed fast food place doesn’t hurt huh?

I was planning on having the sandwich and my salad for lunch but I wasn’t too hungry so I had the original chicken sandwich with buffalo sauce and a nectarine.

Today wasn’t that busy at all, I took a relaxing 20 minute break in the afternoon and just sat outside and looked around. I breathed in the air, looked at the flowers and just was. It was so nice and peaceful. Then I saw Lisa’s post on taking pleasure in the simple things in life and I just smiled.

Some observations from sitting outside

*It should be illegal to be blaring Savage Garden from your radio while you’re cruising. Savage Garden—really?!?!

*Why do men think if they grunt at you, you will talk to them? Baffles me every day

*I love old couples who hold hands, it’s just cute and it makes me smile.

*It smelled like patchouli outside yet there were no hippies in sight. Funky.

I had a BIG salad with the same ingredients as yesterday with my beloved Fat Free Honey Mustard. I thawed some Trader Joe’s Chili Lime Chicken Burgers and cooked them up on the stovetop

Thumbs down on the chicken burgers-they were straight up nasty. If I still had the box, I would return them but I gave the rest to Lincoln and he thoroughly enjoyed! I guess I was all about the chicken today. I don’t have too much fresh produce on hand since I’m going out-of-town so I can’t make anything. I could’ve made a bowl of oats but wasn’t feeling it and was in the between stage of hungry and satisfied.  And that just sucked.

With that, I tried Breyer’s Smooth and Dreamy Chocolate Caramel Brownie Sandwich.

This was a perfect portion for what I was looking for-a light snack that would satisfy my sweet tooth.

And ladies —Happy 19th Amendment Day! Today is the the 90th anniversary of when the 19th amendment passed and gave us the right to vote.

Thought I’d share the love– click here to get 16 free tracks from Spin’s September Issue (this is legit, I downloaded it to my iTunes)