garlic chicken

Emeril Lagasse’s fans may cheer when he breaks out the garlic, but I believe that’s only because they don’t have to chop it themselves. (Side note: Why would you cheer for garlic? I like asparagus, but you don’t see me turning cartwheels when O’Charley’s brings it out with my steak tips Monterey. Perhaps Emeril’s audiences were chosen for their lack of hobbies. Also, where did Emeril go? He was the Biggest Star in the World for a while, and now I only see him on toothpaste commercials.) The Dumbass Gourmet likes chopping garlic because it allows me to perfect my Food-Network-reject technique (definitely not as smooth as Guy Fieri), but hates chopping garlic because it makes my fingernails smell for days.

Anyway, today’s Kroger shopping trip yielded some bone-in chicken breasts that were on sale for more than 50% off, so I picked them up despite having never cooked chicken with bones in it. The Husband and I looked at it for a while, trying to decide what to do with it, and finally decided on an olive oil/garlic/salt and pepper concoction that would taste fabulous tonight, but wouldn’t affect the taste of the chicken when I break down the leftovers into soup. (Garlicky chicken corn soup = OK. Barbecue chicken corn soup = barf.) I’m hoping the olive oil will make the skin crispy and that the garlic won’t be too overpowering.

I’m thinking I might be getting better at this cooking thing, especially since the only stupid thing I did tonight while making dinner was search the entire house for the sea salt/peppercorn grinder when it was right there on the kitchen counter, behind the box of Triscuits I left out last night. Hey — you never know when one of us has nuked something for dinner, then wandered into the bedroom with the shaker in tow to eat in front of the computer. We’re just classy like that.

Speaking of classy, here was dinner last night:

A lovely shrimp ring, some Brie, a little leftover sharp cheddar from the mac’n'cheese I made a while ago, and a new cheese we’d never tried called kasseri. It was interesting — a little too hard and dry for my taste, but not terrible. A lot of Brie I’ve had in the past tastes vaguely of dirt but this stuff was pretty good, maybe because the rind wasn’t on it. Needless to say, I enjoyed the champagne very much and had a fit of giggles on the couch before falling dead asleep and having some really strange dreams.

And here’s dinner tonight:

I accidentally grabbed the wrong package of green beans at the store — these are “italian” green beans, which are (as you can see) wider and flatter than regular green beans — but they taste about the same. I also decided to try low sodium Rice-a-Roni, which doesn’t taste a blessed bit different than normal Rice-a-Roni. I did have to fashion a lid for my pan out of aluminum foil because my pan doesn’t have a real lid, but that was about as dumbass as I got in the kitchen today. I’ll try to do better next time!