This is who I am

Today was grocery shopping.  I’ve been trying to clean out my spice cabinet and refrigerator 1 – 2 items at a time.  My refrigerator door is really crammed full of outdated and no longer used items and I don’t want to wait until it’s time to move to worry about stuff like that  (my whole house will be receiving this treatment over the next year).   My spice cabinet is so full and disorganized that not only can I never find anything and I’m getting aggravated while I’m trying to cook, I have multiples of things because I couldn’t find it when I was meal planning and grocery list making.  It’s aggravating, wasteful, and could be unhealthy.  It was a little frightening to look at some of the expiration dates!

So, I threw away about 8 bottles of spices, replaced 2, and wrote the expiration dates on the new ones and on about 10 more.  I still have another shelf to tackle. 

A couple of spices I don’t throw away, even it they’re expired, are cinnamon sticks and whole cloves.  I keep those to brew with stale apples!  I just fill up my small sauce pan with water, place it on the smallest burner on my stove, and turn the flame as low as it will go.  Toss in a couple of cinnamon sticks, about a tablespoon of whole cloves, then slice the meaty part off an apple and toss that in there.  My kitchen smells great.

Now on to the subject line!  I love my “fair” grill.  M and I love walking through all the buildings where they’re selling things that you just can’t live without.  We also love watching the demonstrations.  We bought 2 things this past summer.  One was a vegetable/salsa chopper.  We’ve used it a few times, but not near as many times as we’ve used our stovetop grill.  I L.O.V.E. THIS THING!

I’m cooking, ignore my dirty stove! 🙂

I had a chicken breast in the refrigerator and didn’t want it to go to waste. This grill is perfect for it! M starts his Half Ironman training program today. When he gets home from his one and a half hour bike ride he’s going to be tired and hungry and needing some protein. While I was puttering around the kitchen I pulled out my grill,

tossed that chicken breast in 1 teaspoon of olive oil, sprinkled it with some garlic pepper and a little chipotle pepper and tossed it on the grill.

I turned it after 5 minutes

5 minutes later (remember, I’m putting groceries away) I cut it in half lengthwise since it was kind of fat, and because I wanted to be extra careful it was cooked through, I turned off the grill and put the chicken back on with the cut side down.

I left it there for about 1 minute then sliced it up. I think I’m going to warm a couple of whole wheat tortillas, smear them with guac and roll that chicken up in them. It sure smells good and is always so moist!

Cleaning the grill is super easy and takes only a couple of minutes.

I did some ‘research’ online and there are several places you can get them, but we’re going to hunt for them again this summer and buy a second one. I normally cut my meat into smaller pieces when I use the grill, but I left the breast whole so you could get an easier picture of the grill’s size.

My groceries are put away, I’ve said ‘hello’ to blogland and now it’s time to start some laundry, make myself some lunch, and sit down with my needle and cheer on Chicago (M was born in Chicago) and the Jets (goooo LT!).

And before I forget, Jasper is about 90% better. Still some swelling under his jaw, but he looks and behaves soooo much better.