Tuesday, June 19, 2012

*SPECTACULAR* MEAL - AND PRETTY EASY TOO!

I just made this for dinner:

Cilantro-Lime Chicken with Avocado Salsa

Note:Not my pic!
It didn't last long enough for the camera to turn on!

Without hyperbole, I tell you that this was the best meal I've had in recent memory!

Don't mess around - find yourself some good "Saffron Rice" to go with it as recommended!

I couldn't find anything labeled "Saffron Rice" in my grocery, but they had several brands of "yellow rice" which had saffron among the spices. I used "Mahatma" brand "yellow rice" - the balance of flavors was HEAVENLY!

Watch out though - my rice came out a bit gummy - any more and it would have been bad but I managed to salvage it by taking off the lid and letting it stand and dry out for a bit...

I doubled the marinade and salsa recipe for me, Wifey and 2 mostly-grown daughters (18 & 21) but stuck to the 4 boneless/skinless breasts. This gave us a nice large scoop of salsa to go with each plate.

We chopped our salsa ingredients MUCH finer than is shown in this picture. The onion was truly MINCED, and the tomato/avocado were maybe 1/8" cubes.

In addition to the recipe ingredients, I added the juice of 1/2 a fresh lime to the salsa, squeezing it over the top before putting it in the 'fridge to chill while I cooked the chicken.

I also placed a 1/8 lime-wedge (1/4 of the remaining 1/2) on each plate when I served it. Squeezing that fresh lime on the smoky grilled cilantro/lime chicken really set off the flavors perfectly!

If you're like me, and raw onion is like a nuke-device in your belly, I strongly recommend using REAL vidalia sweets - they don't bother me nearly as badly for some reason... Still, I'll suffer punishment for eating this but... MAN WAS IT EVER GOOD!! Definitely worth at least one cramp per bite!

My 18 year old - who suffers from a possibly terminal case of "Senior-itis"* and has nothing nice to say, ever - was even bubbling and raving about how good it was. That alone was worth the minimal effort required.

Next time I'll likely try using a "cilantro paste" I found in the "international foods" section - mincing cilantro is a pain in the butt... That said, don't cheat on anything else - it was the FRESH ingredients that made it so spectacular!

5 stars - can't recommend it strongly enough!!

*"Senior-itis": That affliction suffered by nearly all 18 year olds. It causes them to think they know it all, to think they're "all grown up" and should be "FREE" (despite the fact that they still pay no bills at all and barely buy clothes to cover their own @$$) - and that their parents are doddering fools whose only mission in life is to embarrass and harass them.

Having now lived through 4 cases of Senior-Itis, I can tell you from personal knowledge that:

(1) This is why animals eat their young.
(2) This is why G*d makes babies cute - so you won't kill them when they're teenagers.
(3) This too shall pass. If they survive their early college years, they'll eventually figure out that you're not as dumb as they thought. If you're lucky, they'll eventually figure things out and once again pay you the respect you deserve.
It's very satisfying to have your 21 year old call for advice - or better yet "just to talk."

4 comments:

RegT said...

Supposedly, Mark Twain said,
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand
to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was
astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

Dedicated_Dad said...

Dang - my apologies to "Chuan Jarng (Kyozokuninja)" - I accidentally deleted your comment trying to dump some SPAM.

Should you see this, please accept my apologies, and my appreciation for the compliments!

The Trainer said...

I went ahead and made this the other night.....very, very good!

Thanks for the recommendation!

Anonymous said...

Yeah you have a point there , nothing recently has given this old man as much personal satisfaction as the night I sat here , and walked several youngster's thru the breakdown and assembly of the good ole Kalashnikov. That they were sitting in my son's hootch in Afghanistan tinkering with a real Kyber Pass weapon , just put the iceing on the cake.