Day Two: Results and Recipes - It's all about the Timing

Today was interesting. The food turned out great, but I got a major reality check about the time it takes to cook normal food in what is, essentially, a functioning toy oven.

In the great words of Inigo Montoya, "Let me 'splain. No... is too much. Let me sum up."

Pretty much everything I cooked today took about 25 minutes. The one thing that didn't actually took longer than that.

Here's the scoop:

Breakfast was two blueberry pancakes. I used the basic pancake recipe found here, and just added fresh blueberries. I made the batter a few days ago and cooked those pancakes the regular way, on a hot griddle. they were pretty fluffy and didn't need any syrup or butter. They had great flavour all on their own. I knew I'd probably want to try pancakes during this project, so I set aside about a cup of the batter.

So, I just sprayed the pans with the non-stick spray and poured the batter in. Another lesson-- if you want your pancakes to take 25 minutes to cook, by all means, please fill those cute little pans up to the top. That's what I did, and it was definitely a waiting game.



I would have done better to fill the pans about half way and just make four thinner ones. It probably would have taken the same amount of time, and they would have come out more like pancakes rather than just... well, cakes. Now, I've got nothing against cake, but there's a reason your momma won't let you have it for breakfast.

However, I will say, they tasted pretty darn good. They cooked all the way through, were pretty fluffy on the inside, although not as fluffy as the pancakes I made earlier.




Although I ended up not going to a movie today (opted for a nap on top of an ice pack, instead), I did make the turkey and cheese roll ups. I just couldn't be bothered to cook while it was that hot.

But dinner... well, dinner made up for it.

Dinner was cheesy jerk chicken and avocado bake, along with roasted balsamic grape tomatoes.

The Chicken Recipe:
Somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 cup of diced thigh meat chicken
1/4 C of diced avocado
2 1/2 fairly healthy pinches of jerk seasoning
1 pinch of sea salt
2 T of shredded cheese
1 tsp of mandarin infused olive oil for marinating



I know I said I wasn't going to use oils inside the EBO, but this was added as a vehicle for flavour and not as a fat--it was part of the marinade. The chicken and avocado sort of just soaked up all the citrusy goodness of the oil along with the jerk seasoning, but didn't get oily. Also, just in case you're curious, I used dark meat chicken for a couple of reasons.

1) It does have more flavour because it has more fat. Don't be afraid of fat. I'm not, especially in such small servings of food. I want to cram as much flavour as I can into everything I eat so I'm satisfied with one serving. I also wanted to make sure the meat didn't dry out due to a longer cooking time (25 minutes).

B) It's cheap. I can imagine making this recipe again in the big oven later, and it just makes sense to me to use meat that's going to scale up economically.

I think you can all pretty much assume I'm going to spray the pan with non-stick spray every time, right? So I can stop saying that bit from now on, right? Cool. Thanks. You're awesome.

So the chicken cooked in about 25 minutes. The pieces of chicken were tender and juicy, and gave off some great juices that mixed with the slightly broken down avocado and all the seasoning and was just... nom nom nom. The cheese melted perfectly, but didn't really brown, which is fine. Melty goodness works for me.



The Tomato Recipe

10 grape tomatoes
Sprinkle of sea salt and a couple grinds of pepper
1 T good balsamic olive oil drizzled over the top



Note: I say GOOD balsamic because, well, I'm a food snob, but also because when the flavour intensifies as the vinegar reduces, what do you want to taste? The more intense flavour of crappy stuff or the sweet, tangy, deliciously syrupy goodness of the good stuff?

I'll give you time to think about that question....

Go ahead. Think. I'll wait.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

See? You know I speak truth.

The tomatoes took a little more than half an hour. (I actually did get to use the warming chamber today, to keep the chicken warm while the tomatoes finished.) I will tell you, though, it was sooooo worth it. The tomatoes actually browned a little on the bottom, and gave off some awesome liquid that mixed with the balsamic and ooooooommmmmmmmgggggggg. I seriously drank the leftover liquid. I did. I would do it as a shot. SO effing yum.



I honestly thought I wasn't going to be able to get too creative, but today I learned that I can't have ANY preconceived notions when it comes to cooking this way, I just have to forge ahead and learn from my mistakes.

I also learned that you don't have to wear pants when you cook with the Easy Bake.

tmi?