3rd Time's a Charm

I was trying to toast some pecans to put into my tuna salad for lunch earlier today. I like making tuna salad with a bit of chopped apple, green/red onion, miracle whip, mustard, salt, pepper, AND toasted pecans. My grandma always made tuna salad this way...and I've come to really like it.

Well...I ended up burning the first batch...

And the second batch burned even faster, since the toaster oven was already screeching hot.

Round three...this time, I didn't leave them...and finally, I have lightly golden brown pecans ;-)

Susan, please let me know if this is enough of a flop for you.

Crunchy Oven-Baked Orange Chicken with Orange Dipping Sauce

My friend Susan said I needed to post a recipe where I burned something. Tonight's dinner wasn't burnt, but it was a flop.

I tried to use crushed, shredded wheat cereal as a coating for chicken (as suggested by a recipe on the back of the box of cereal). It didn't have any flavor at all. Frankly, it tasted like dry cereal without milk. I was hoping the orange dipping sauce I made to go along with the chicken would rescue it, but alas...the sauce didn't hardly any orange flavor, even with the addition of some Grand Marnier. At least the Roasted Broccoli with Pecorino Romano Cheese came out fine.

This is something I won't be making again. The kids ate it...after all, anything tastes decent with a lot of ketchup. But I was disappointed, and there was a nice big mess in the kitchen afterwards! Oh well.

I am posting pictures of the chicken to prove I do mess up from time to time. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I told y'all I really am a normal person. Susan, if you're reading this, I will try to burn something in the future--just for you.

Here's the crushed cereal...do not attempt at home...repeat...it's no good people!

And here's the sauce in the works...it only held a hint of orange flavor and the promise of tasting like...well...like chicken broth (which was one of the ingredients).

See...it doesn't look bad. I liked the fact you can see the bits of orange zest in it.

But the only thing good on this plate was the broccoli and the orange slice for the garnish (assuming you like roasted broccoli). Now we have to eat the leftovers tonight :-(

God Bless your table tonight!