Back On The Wagon Again

After spending a whole week pretty much cheating on the diet, The Bride and I resumed the awesomeness (there REALLY does need to be a sarcasm font) today.  The Bride wanted chicken today, so while I was home during the day I prepared Honey-Mustard Chicken Breasts from page 249.

I made the marinade and then went about making the sauce.  It was easy, tasty, but a little lumpy.

It is here where I introduce another fun toy of mine...the immersion blender!

It made the sauce a little smoother and helped to combine the flavors.  This was a good move on my behalf.

With everything in order for the chicken, I prepped the side I had choosen, Stuffed Zucchini on page 373.

In making my mise en place, I remembered to take pictures of a technique I picked up recently: the chiffonade.  It starts by separating the leaves from the stem:

Then stack the leaves in a neat pile:

The tricky part is to roll the leaves tightly and then use your knife to cut "ribbons" of herbs.

From the chiffonade it becomes rather easy to finely mince the herbs.

Okay...I know this is a lot of pictures, but hey, I'm on vacation!  I have the time!  My mise en place was now complete:

As a side note, I used a melon baller to scoop out the flesh of the zucchini with pretty good success.  I made the stuffing, and the following picture is with half of the stuffed zucchini covered in the final layer of cheese, and the other half about to be so that you could see what it looked like.

I pulled the breasts from the Ziploc bags, and was ready to grill.

It was a beautiful day and the grilling experience was quite enjoyable. 

Did you notice something?  Take a quick look at the two most recent pictures...something is missing.  Can you find it?  Here's a hint:

Oh well.  I plated and we were done!

This was a nice meal.  What I really liked was the two-flavor depth to the chicken.  As soon as you bite into the bird, the immediate flavor is, of course, the honey-mustard notes.  However, as you chew for a few seconds, the second level of flavors arrive that are derived from the mint and lemon marinade.  It keeps the meal interesting.  The zucchini was also a surprise.  I had choosen this side because it contained mint, just like the chicken which created a nicely themed meal.  What was most surprising about the stuffing was the toasty flavor from the bread crumbs.  The cheese was a fun element as well.  In summation, I would say that I liked meal, but it's not high on the list to be repeated.  It served its purpose in keeping things different every day while we are on the diet, because I doubt I could stay on the diet otherwise.