Sicilian Blood Orange Salad

It's blood orange season! Yum! I got so excited to see these beautiful things in the store that I bought quite a lot. And for dinner I tried this recipe from The Splendid Table for a Sicilian Blood Orange Salad..something I only vaguely remembered from my mission days. It was delicious and beautiful.

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ice
water
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
2 blood oranges, thinly sliced
1 navel orange, thinly sliced
1/2 cup kalamata olives, roughly chopped
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tbsp olive oil
very smalll quantities:
black pepper
salt
paprika
cinnamon

Place the sliced red onion in a bowl of ice and water, leave in the refrigerator at least 20 minutes to take away their "sting".

In a shallow bowl, mix the different colored orange slices. Drain and pat dry the onion slices and mix with oranges. Add juice and drizzle with olive oil. Add olives. Season to taste.

Nutella Day and the Great American Snowpocolypse

I spent a few days huddling under a blanket on my couch because the newscasters--and my mom--all told me DON'T GET ON THE ROAD. IT'S BAD OUT THERE!

Bill and I tried to hold off on going to the grocery store and pretty much subsisted on very warm things like chili and chowder.

Oh, and Nutella.

It was a happy day when I got to the grocery store and I bought some bananas to go with my Nutella. Nutella with bananas is the best.

That was Friday. And just in time to celebrate Nutella Day on Feb 5th!

Not that I really celebrated (Bill and I do have a Nutella limit, turns out), but I DID enjoy browsing the sites of these bloggers who whipped up something special for the occasion.

Do yourselves a favor and just look at these gooey, chocolatey, sweet...yummmmm!

And one day I may have to try this recipe for homemade Nutella submitted to the site by pastry chef, David Lebovitz:

Texan Chicken Fried Chicken

Bill has been really great about taking on dinner lately--which is awesome. I love to watch him in the kitchen.

On Saturday he was very excited about a food convention that was in town; Zest Fest--sponsored by Chile Pepper Magazine. (who knew?) It was a convention of the spiciest food products out there. Of course Bill and his friend participated in the Atomic Hot Wings eating contest

and stepped up to sample the outrageously hot Jolokia pepper hot sauce

but he also brought home some locally made dry seasonings for barbecue dry rubs, etc. and decided to test it out in some down home fried chicken. It came out great, very moist and juicy and the seasoning was really yummy.

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4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

3 cups flour

3 Tbsp Angelo's Poultry Seasoning

(we're gussing a little paprika, salt, pepper, cumin, garlic powder would do just as well)

2 eggs

1 tsp vinegar

4 Tbsp shortening

1/2 cup oil

Between two sheets of wax paper, pound chicken to flatten and tenderize.

In a shallow bowl, combine flour and seasonings.

In a smaller bowl, beat eggs and vinegar together.

In a deep skillet, heat shortening and supplement with oil until 1/2" deep, covering the bottom of the skillet, on medium-high heat.

Alternate dipping chicken breasts first in egg then in flour mixture, so that they are dipped in each mixture twice and well coated in the dry mixture.

Toss chicken into the oil--if oil is not immediately bubbling and sizzling around the chicken, turn up the heat!

Cook until deep golden and flip chicken breasts to cook the other side. When both sides are golden and crispy, check chicken to see that it is cooked through. Serve with veggies!