What's For Dinner

First, you have to put on some inspiring music, and tonight's feast is brought to you by

3 Leg Torso Radio on Pandora

The marinade:

some plain yogurt
some mustard
some tabasco

Add chicken breast, cut into chunks (think Nuggetts!)

Marinate as long as you can, I like to let it sit for an hour or two but tonight I got started late so I just moved on to the next part right away, which is

Dredge coated chicken pieces in Breadcrumbs.

Put the crumby nuggets on a cookie sheet that has been hosed down with oil. I like my canola spray for stuff like this, because you can spray a bit of oil on the tops of the nuggets too.

Bake in a medium hot oven (350, 375? my oven is all wonky) till the chicken is no longer pink inside. This could take anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes depending on how big your nuggets are (and how hot your oven actually is!). If you feel like turning them over halfway through the cooking time, they will be crispier all over. Delia says the bottoms are too soggy if I don't turn them, but I don't always have the patience to gently rotate 25 pieces and not scrape off all the breading in the process. The worst thing anyone can do to chicken is overcook it, so check them after 15 minutes and take them out as soon as they are no longer pink inside.

This is basically the recipe for Oven-Deviled Chicken from The Working Family's Cookbook by Irena Chalmers, except she uses bone in chicken pieces (and she measures stuff, which I do not). I have had this cookbook for so many years that it is missing some pages. I also have been making many of these recipes for so long that they have become as natural to me as frying an egg. So it is with this recipe.

To the mustard and yogurt, this time I have added a sprinkle of curry powder. Not too much because Delia won't eat it if there's too much. You can play around with different mustard too. The original calls for Dijon, but I have lately been using sweet hot mister mustard.

And so they come out of the oven and go onto a plate with a baked sweet potato (one of the three remaining vegetables in the universe my kid will eat) and some salad (which she won't eat, but I will). And Dinner Is Served!


It is so hard not to get frustrated with my willful picky eater. I know she will not starve to death if I don't make things specially for her to eat. When Keith works nights and it is just the two of us girls at the dinner table, I am almost always so mad by the end of the meal I am shaking (unless I cave and let her eat Ramen or that God Awful macaroni & "cheese" that comes in the blue box and is made from orange powder). Tonight she refused to eat the sweet potato. I let her put some butter and brown sugar on it, only a little, but she ate the damn butter and pushed away the potato. GAH! Sometimes it isn't a fight, but lately it has been every single night...

Anybody have any suggestions?