large chicken breast, roasted poblano sauce, seared green vegetables

The breasts are too large. They're not even sensible. They're like small turkey breasts I thought there would be four or six in the package but there were only two. 

Chicken breast, buttermilk gravy, peaches

Man, this is easy and fast and fantastic. It hits the spot. It hit the nail on the head like a chainsaw, blam, satisfied, just like that.

There is no preparation, just throw a chicken breast into a pressure pot. That's all.

The gravy was started as 2 cups cooking water for the chicken breast with poultry spices added, a mixture mostly sage, plus salt and pepper plus scant chipotle for its smoke and two tablespoons powdered butter milk. All that whisked and allow the chicken breast to marinade awhile right there in the pressure pot then the heat cranked up to cook. It cooks incredibly quickly. 

All that's left is whisk in some kind of wine, I used marsala, butter for body and flour to thicken. No need for a slurry or careful addition, with the whisk everything always turns out fine. The gravy forms as soon as the liquid boils again. That fast. 

Peaches are tinned. It doesn't get any easier than this. 

It needn't be a pressure pot. The same thing can be pulled off with chicken breasts flattened and treated as schnitzel fried in a pan, with buttermilk gravy done the same way.

Chicken breast with panko, tonkatsu sauce, daikon carrot relish, eggplant

Tonkatsu sauce is intended for pork (ton) but this is chicken. It is a sauce made of mostly other prepared Western sauces. 

• Catsup mostly
• Worcestershire sauce, less than catsup [these two main Western things are then Asianified]
• Soy sauce, less than Worcestershire
• Mirin (sweetened rice wine) less than Soy sauce
• Sugar, less than mirin
• Mustard, less than sugar
• Garlic, less than mustard

I used chile powder and ginger.

Tonkatsu's first ingredient is catsup, but I'm out of that so a tin of whole tomatoes is pureed and boiled down and flavored. 

You will notice in catsup's ingredients both vinegar and sugar. This indicates catsup is actually a sweet/sour sauce. So brown sugar is added with cider vinegar and few other things that I like. 

Now this mixture boiled down to sludge and flavored is portioned off and flavored additionally for tonkatsu sauce as already mentioned, but this part had to come first, because no catsup around here right now. 

Then flour, and the flour helps the egg adhere and egg helps the panko adhere.

This is the best chicken breast I've ever prepared and ever eaten and that is no idle brag. I'm serious. There is something about pounding the breast halfway that tenderized the breast meat perfectly. This particular tonkatsu sauce is the best I've tasted. I am not bragging because I am starving again. I'm bragging because it is true. The breast is a cheap battery type chicken with nothing to recommend it but it worked beautifully for this. The flavors added to it are strong. 

I guess I should add that the thickness is determined by anticipated cooking time on medium low heat. I'm thinking how long will it take to toast the panko in butter each side, taking it slowly so the chicken cooks through. Just that much frying and not more. And certainly not less. See the balance going on? The time is determined by toasting the bread in a pan, and the chicken is pounded to match that. This is my manner of visualizing and guessing and it works. 

Split chicken breast, corn on the cob

Like buttuh, this chicken. 

I used an oblong stone, gave the knife a few swipes and it went through like buttuh. 

Unrelated photo just sticking right in here. I'm eating these things since I'm near them and they sure are good in this form. They just are. This size and form are perfect for chocolate because you must have the whole thing at once and deal with a mouthful. They say that about sushi, but who can do that? Who's got such a capacious mouth they can shove a whole sushi in it? Apparently Japanese people do. It's the same idea. You have this thing in your mouth and you're feeling it take time to melt. It's an experience. I ate a whole box today. That's six. Six teaspoons of white chocolate. 

I might not give all these away. I like them too much. I might eat the whole pound of white chocolate myself. I deserve it. Cocoa butter. You could rub it on your body. Smell like a candy bar. Get a tan.

Lazy. The foil that wrapped the chicken so I don't have to clean a plate. Plus, I hate using  aluminum foil. It makes me feel like such a creep. We can't keep doing this. For you see, *strikes an oratorial pose* I am a child of the universe no less than the tress and the stars and I have right to be here...unfolding... wait. I'm sorry. That's was something else. What I meant to say every time I have a brand new box of aluminum foil I think, and I think this really hard not just regular superficial think, "Man, look at all that aluminum! And they got it so flat! And so perfectly rolled." The industrial precision of it blows my mind that the impressive effort is all for household use seems to me, a born ecologist as are we all, sinful. Like each piece of foil should be precious. Should be treated as precious. Or something. It's an emotional response to brand new rolls of aluminum foil that feels like a big clunk of metal. It' bad for the Erf. To be so precise about exploiting its treasures.

So the more foil that is used the closer I get to a brand new shiny heavy impressively tight and flat roll and that feeling of wasting natural resources for household convenience and doing that with industrial precision. God, it's great to be 1st World Western Culture American but the burdens of social guilt are unbearable. 

So. Double duty for the tin foil, plate for the dry ingredients or lid for the pan.

Nah, Brah, just wad it up and throw it out. 

Chicken breast with roasted poblano, Spanish rice

What? If I knew it was 50% less fat then I wouldn't have bought it. 

Cajun chicken breast

For onion powder, I had dehydrated onion that never gets used, so finally to avoid waste the dry bits were run through the coffee bean grinder to powder, and that does get used.

Cajun spice turns out to be rather basic, hot powders with a few dry herbs. Honestly, nothing extravagant. No need to buy specialty spice that is rarely used. Stick with the basics, I say.

* garlic powder
* onion powder
* salt
* pepper
* oregano
* thyme
* cayenne (for heat)
* paprika (for smoke)

Chicken breast scallopini, mashed potato and chicken gravy, green beans, dinner roll

The sack of mussels was unpriced. A clerk ran back to the fish and chicken counter for the package to be priced. 

At home I noticed the package of chicken is labeled and priced for mussels. Their chicken is unreasonably expensive, I must say, and mussels for some reason less so. Priced either way the number is not so far off. 

Additionally, these were the best mussels yesterday that I've ever eaten, and I'm eager to share a meal like that with other people, and likewise, this chicken is among the most tender I've ever had. It is cut coarsely, coated and fried rudely and crudely but it cuts on the plate and it tastes as if it had been marinated tenderly in buttermilk. This is only half the dinner prepared tonight so now my attitude about it being unreasonably expensive is checked. Both purchases are worth the cost, worth the difference in cost between Tony's and regular grocery. If you can notice a difference between grocery store chicken and Tony's chicken, then it is worth the difference in cost. If you are as a child and cannot notice such differences, then it will not be worth the difference in cost.