The reason why I (re)started this blog was so I could document my experiments adventures in cooking and food. So it’s only appropriate that I give such a tasty topic an equally tasty title. Thus, here is my Tuesday evening gift to you: the start of the “nomnomnom” series!
Most of us 20 somethin’s are young professionals. Some of us have more specialized professions. Some of us are in school for our undergrad or graduate degrees. We all have two things in common: one, we are constantly running out of time, and two, we are always trying to save a little cash.
For me, personally, making dinner can be really quick or it can take forever. It really depends how detailed you want to get into it. But say you want something good and filling to eat, but not something that will cost you at least 10 dollars for. I was thinking about this while grocery shopping a few days ago, so I decided to try to buy something that I could make within 20-30 minutes and make extra of in advance to save time for later. As I was shopping through the meat section, I noticed that chicken breasts were on sale. I was able to pick up 6 large pieces for 6 bucks. That’s a dollar a piece that’s big enough to cut in half for two meals, or two sandwiches. Some of us like to eat, you know.
I was also able to get 5 tomatoes on the vine for $0.75 and a head of lettuce for about the same. Look for sales, shop at local ethnic markets (like a Mexican or Chinese market) to save lots of money on vegetables. Lastly, I was able to pick up wheat hamburger buns (12 buns) for 4 bucks. Add that all together and you have a healthy, unprocessed chicken sandwich, for about $1.25. Yes, you can pick one up at McDonalds for a buck, but last time I checked, a homemade chicken sandwich didn’t cost me 500 calories.
But just a chicken sandwich for dinner wouldn’t cut it. But what’s a main course without a side or two? Potato chips would’ve been too… well, boring. Growing up in California, avocados immediately came to mind, (I don’t know anyone in their right mind that doesn’t like avocados, and whoever does should have their head checked ASAP) but instead of taking my first thought and making guacamole, I remembered an avocado salad appetizer with bell sprouts that I had at a Shinsengumi Shabu-Shabu restaurant. It was really simple, just avocado chunks with bell sprouts, cucumbers and a miso dressing, but it was so good. I took that idea and added in a more of a local California flavor with tomatoes, corn, shallots and jalapenos.
The basic ingredients/recipe for an avocado salad is really simple. I mean, it wouldn’t be an avocado salad without avocado, right? Below is a list of the veggies and ingredients I put in mine.
- 3 Haas avocados (cut into chunks)
- 1 or 2 your choice of tomatoes (diced)
- 1/4 of a cup of canned yellow corn (kernels)
- 1/2 a shallot (finely chopped)
- 1/2 a jalapeno (finely chopped)
- juice from half a lemon (1/4 cup)
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- a pinch of salt
Just add all ingredients into a large bowl and mix well. Obviously, feel free to add or remove ingredients as you want. If you don’t like tomatoes but love cucumbers, just replace one for the other. I’ve always thought that a recipe was just to give you the basic idea of how to make something. What you do with that recipe makes it your own. Since I didn’t have the chance to take pictures of each step, here’s a photo of the end product:
nomnomnom
After finishing the avocado salad, I went to work on preparing the chicken breasts. The ones I bought happened to be about 3 or 4 inches thick, so there was plenty of meat to slice the breast in half for two servings. Make sure you cutoff the excess fat and lining on the meat. I don’t think anyone wants to be eating a sandwich and then a mouth full of chicken fat, unless you’re into that kinda thing…
After cutting off the excess fat and slicing the chicken breasts into your desired sandwich pieces, put all the pieces into a large bowl and add some salt (as much or little as you like) and about a half cup of flour or corn starch. Use your hands and mix well; while making sure all pieces are coated with flour. After you’re done with this, wash your hands and slice a tomato and peel a few lettuce leaves for your sandwich.
Do you see the plate of mushrooms that’s cut off on the left? Mushrooms are good for one thing, soaking up flavor like a sponge, which you’ll see later.
Set your stove to medium high heat, and make sure to oil your pan well so that your chicken doesn’t dry out quickly. I used about 3 tablespoons, which came in handy after cooking the chicken. Once your pan is nice and hot, place your chicken in the pan carefully, and allow one side to thoroughly cook until you start seeing the juices of the chicken push up through the meat. Once you see that, flip it onto the other side with a spatula, and let the other side cook until the chicken does not give too much when you push it. If that’s still not good enough for ya, stick a thermometer in the meat and make sure it hits 150 degrees Fahrenheit. After this, you’re pretty much done with the meat, so put your pieces onto a plate and let the meat rest.
Remember the mushrooms from the earlier picture? Yeah, you’re going to use those now. You should still have a little leftover oil from the cooking the chicken in the pan, so throw in about 1 cup of chopped, diced, however-you-wanna-cut-it mushrooms. Feel free to use any kind you want. Add a pinch of salt to taste. While you’re cooking, you’ll notice that your chicken breast is “juicing”; basically, the meat is still cooking from the leftover heat and is letting out it’s juices. Take all of this juice, and pour it into your pan with the mushrooms. The result is nothing short of orgasmic. Don’t cook your mushrooms too long, because once they start to wilt they will let out a lot of water. Take them out of the pan while only starting to wilt, to avoid making mushroom soup instead.
I know that seems like it was a lot of work, but the idea behind this meal is to make something fresh and easily/cheaply purchased at a local supermarket. Do you think this is too much work? Then just make the chicken sandwich and leave out the sides. My goal was just to show that something as simple as a chicken sandwich can be made quickly and cheaply, and can also be made into a complete dinner by adding a few sides that you can even make extra of for later meals.
Before I leave you to start nomnomnom’ing, I leave you with a photo of the final product, happy nom’ing!
