Almond and Flaxseed Crusted Chicken

Sounds exotic, right?

I feel like I can pretend to be a snooty chef who makes amazing things just by repeating that title. I got a super close up here - doesn't that look so good?

It's so simple and oh-so-yummy.

So, here's the recipe - are you ready for this?

Frozen Chicken breasts
Dijon Mustard
Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix the mustard, salt, and Pepper.  I don't say how much here because it depends on how many breasts you want to make.  The mustard just coats the chicken so the nuts have something to stick to. If you run out, it's easy to make more.

As a side note: you're really looking for a light coating.  If it's too thin, then it tastes pretty bland.  If it's too thick, well, who wants to eat straight up mustard?

Next, you need the nut mixture. We make 5 breasts, so this is what I use, but use more or less depending on how much you want to make.

1/4 cup flax seed
1/4 cup almonds

Grind that up in a food processor, which gives you both smaller pieces and a good, even mixture.  Then dip the chicken in the mustard, followed by the nuts.  The nuts will stick to the mustard, and if you have spots that are missed, then just scoop them on the chicken when it's on the pan.

Cook at 300.  We're in Utah, and with our altitude we're looking at about 25 minutes.

Done!

Homemade Mad-Scientists

A friend and I, convinced that kids brains do not need to turn to mush over the summer, decided that we'd make some real efforts to keep them learning.  Of course, they can't know that they are learning - it's summer break!  They'd never cooperate.  So, we have to be sneaky about how we made it happen.

Since I only have sons, I get to bypass the girlie things like doing hair and playing dress up.  I can focus on adrenaline rushes and competitiveness. But what should we do that would capture the boys attention while still getting them to move around and use their minds?  After much consideration,  we decided we simply must blow something up!

But first, you can't be a proper mad-scientist without the right attire.  So, we had them draw on some yellow tee-shirts (see how I snuck art in there?).  This was our mad-scientist uniform, yellow in color because people should be warned that we're going to be doing something crazy.

Second, no self-respecting mad-scientist is going to not make a mess - so we made bubbles.  These were not any ordinary bubbles - extra glycerine made them bonus big and long lasting.


Each of the kids got a turn using the big bubble maker, and then we had little bubble makers for them to use later on their own. It was fun to see them chase after the giant, bloated bubbles, or run along with their tiny bubble makers held high in the air, a stream of bubbles forming a trail behind them.  But soon, it was time to move onto the next thing.

Since we were going to blow something up, obviously, we had to be in our top physical shape.  We couldn't have any weak scientists, too slow to run away when our explosion went horribly wrong.

So, we ran some races, and threw some hoops over some rings.  As the lead mad-scientist, I evaluated their speed, encouraging them to compete against each other until their little legs were exhausted. We tossed our rings again and again, until I had them convinced that they met the official standards of the National Society of Crazy Mad-Scientitsts.

After they proved that they had the necessary skills, it was time for the grand finale.

I love mentos. I love coke.  What would be a better combination?  We let the kids put a bunch of mentos into a coke bottle, and then they squealed with joy, running away as coke shot up into the sky and rained down around their little heads.  Messy?  Check! Crazy-blow-up-reaction?  Check!  Required bath afterwords?  Check!

Secretly working out the kids mind, causing learning without their knowledge?  Check!

Muahahahah...

    ....mom's are so sneaky!

Getting real

The other day I received a sample back from an editor, and loved what she had to say. I loved it so much, in fact, that I booked her to edit my whole project. All day I was bouncing off the walls, so very, very excited.

Except then I got home, and sat down to compare her changes, I realized that I wanted to start this editing process all over again from page one. I have less than a month to go through it, and polish it as pretty as it's going to get, before she sees it.

What have I done?

And did I mention I'm trying to graduate in the next two weeks? That definitely doesn't add any pressure. I need to squeeze in some hours at work, too, while I'm at it. Noooo prooooblem!

I do this to myself, and I can't understand why. I set myself up with a bunch of individual expectations, which, taken on their own, are very reasonable. Sure, I can graduate...how hard can it be? I'm only taking two real classes this semester anyway. Oh, write a book? Well that shouldn't be too bad either. I mean, just those two classes right? I've had it rolling around in my head for a couple years now. How hard can it be?

Well, it's not hard, unless I've forgotten that there's only 24 hours in a day, and I am only one person.

I start graduate school this summer. Unlike much of the rest of the college going population, I am too old to just take the summer off and graduate later. I'm going to have a son looking at college in five years. I really can't be still playing this game when he gets going. So, I'm starting an intensive business core, with a two hour commute the first week of June. There's not going to be time for much besides this for the summer. I'm going to be lucky if I can take my editors work, and have a finished product before fall.

Intensive semesters are not new to me. When I went back to school, I did a year of Arabic in one semester, and it was brutal. I've had 16+ credit loads most of the time since then. Last semester, I spent the time in the great country of Jordan, trying to get half way fluent in Arabic. Stress is not new to me.

So I'm back to having to finish this main edit by the end of May.

I say this to remind myself that I always manage to come through. This is intense, but doable.

I got this.

Feeding the Muse

I must have been living deep under a rock to have never heard this expression, but there's a reason why people say it.  I think it captures the current state of my almost dead muse as I have pushed through the exhausting task of an intensive accounting class.  Nothing shrinks that poor muse into a shriveled unhappy raisin as the close and intimate interaction between me and a master budget sheet.  Even trying to look at it as a creative Sudoku puzzle didn't help me finally admit that perhaps numbers and I were not the friends we used to be.

I've not edited hardly at all this week, just trying to pass this class.  I miss my characters!

Mercifully, accounting finally is over.  In the last two days, I read one of the current Cinderella spins making the rounds these days.  Some of it I really loved, and other parts I didn't enjoy nearly as much.

What I was struck by most was my inability to just enjoy a novel because I didn't have to be me for a little bit and I could step into the shoes of someone else who had never even heard of accounting.  Oh, to be her.

Well not really.

If her life was cake, then I would probably not have much interest in it, so hurrah for her misery!

The most frustrating thing about my relaxing reading is that I can't seem to just enjoy a book without my mind catching on details that don't quite make sense.  I am finding myself unable to just let them float out of my mind unnoticed like they once used to.  I notice when a character is acting slightly out-of-character, and I'm constantly thinking to myself, why does this not work for me, and did I do that in my book?  Improving my craft is important, but I miss the joy of reading something without those annoying thoughts.

Whatever I didn't like about the book, it was good enough to make my muse full and happy.  I don't feel the stress I did, and now I can get back to work.  Reading, for me, is my muse's Thanksgiving dinner, and she is sitting fat and happy now.