Monday, Monday

I like Mondays. I am lucky enough to love my job and I like getting back into the swing of the week. I like routine and I like the happy feeling I get in my belly when I'm at work and I think about going home and pouring myself a glass of wine and cooking a nice meal. Sometimes I even cook in heels and a frilly apron. It wouldn't be nearly as funny if it weren't true...


This morning I had the rare presence of mind (and let's be honest, the time) to put together a marinade and chuck my chicken into it. This is a wonderful marinade that I could have sworn already made it onto the blog, but I didn't have time to go through all of my postings, so if you spot the duplicate you get a cookie. It's like the blogging version of Where's Waldo.

Caribbean Chicken

1 teaspoon allspice
1/4 cup red onion, chopped
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup orange juice
zest from 1 lime
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons thyme leaves
1 medium jalapeno, seeded
2 teaspoons freshly grated or chopped ginger
1 clove garlic
4 chicken breasts, bone and skin on or other assortment of chicken parts, bone and skin on

Toss all of the ingredients except the chicken into a blender and blend until pretty smooth. Pour marinade into a plastic baggie with the chicken and marinate 4+ hours but not over 12 in the refrigerator. Grill on your grill. We've also made this with pork loin instead of chicken and it's really good that way too.

We put some corn in a foil packet with salt and pepper and butter and stuck those on the grill too.

Grilled Green Beans

2 handfuls of green beans
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed and diced
salt and pepper
1/4 onion, diced

Place all ingredients in a foil pouch and cook over medium high to high heat for at least 20 minutes, turning the packet at least once.

The Results: Delish of course. Marinaded and grilled chicken, corn and green beans? How could it possibly go wrong? I'm sure we could have gotten fancier, maybe added cayenne pepper and lime juice to the corn or lemon pepper to the green beans...but I really just like butter and salt and pepper on my corn and I love garlic saturated green beans. Why mess with the classics on a Monday? B+ meal.

The Breakdown: I used the last red onion, 1/4 of another onion, corn and green beans from the CSA. The chicken came from the farmer's market, and everything else came from the pantry or grocery store. So pretty darn local I think, I give myself a B+ on this too.