Product Reviews - Presorvac Marinator, Maverick Voice Alert Anticipation Digital Thermometer, and Mediterranean Chicken Recipe

First, The Recipe:

Mediterranean Grilled Chicken

(serves 6)

2 lbs of boneless chicken breast (either whole or cubed)

4-6 cloves of garlic

½ cup of lemon juice

2 teaspoons of thyme

1 teaspoon of paprika

¼ - ½ teaspoon of cayenne pepper (optional)

1 teaspoon of salt

½ teaspoon of black pepper

½ cup of olive oil

Combine ingredients in a bowl (plastic with a cover), pour over chicken, and refrigerate 6 hours or over night.

Bring the meat to room temperature.

Prepare the grill or preheat the broiler.

Remove meat from the marinade, reserving the marinade. If using chicken cubes, thread on to skewers. Place the chicken on the grill rack or broiler pan and grill or broil until cooked through, basting with reserved marinade while cooking. Cooking time will depend upon the size of poultry pieces. Do not let the meat become dry.

I love this recipe. It's tasty, easy to whip up, and I usually have all of the ingredients on hand, but I hate the marination time, so when I saw the Presorvac Marinator on Woot.com I had to try it (especially since it was only $29.99 with shipping)! 

 

I cleaned the chicken and put it in the marinator's dish:

added the garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and other assorted seasonings:

 Popped the top on and started it up:

This thing is VERY loud. Don't use this if you have a sleeping baby! The marination cycles (there are 5) lasts about 10-15 mins. After it ran once I flipped the chicken over and ran it again. This is what it looked like after 2 cycles:

Normally I would grill the chicken outside, but since this is December in Michigan, I decided to bake it instead. I preheated the oven to 400 sprayed a baking dish with olive oil cooking spray then placed the chicken in the dish:

Clean up is pretty easy, both the lid and marinator dish are top rack dishwasher safe. the motor part isn't so I just wipe that down with a wet cloth (not that it really gets dirty). I baked the chicken until the internal temp reached 180. 

I also have a new cooking thermometer, also bought via Woot.com:

I put the probe into the chicken and it will let me know when it is ready.

It's a little weird having the cord in the oven plugged into the "brain" on top of the stove, but the probe/cord are oven safe up to 450, and I have another for the grill that is safe up to 600. The thermometer is pretty easy to use and it came with batteries so that's always a plus. When the food is done the thermometer actually says "your meal is done" however it doesn't remind you the probe and the cord are hot. I burned first the back of my hand on the cord, and then the pads of my right thumb, forefinger and middle finger on the probe (yes, I'm that much of a dumbass that I didn't learn my lesson after burning myself the first time).

The end result:

I completed the meal with Garlic Mashed Potatoes (from a box) and some steamed broccoli.

So you must be wondering...what is the verdict on the marinater? Thumbs Up! It's a winner! The meat was juicy, tender, and well marinated! If you like marinaded meat, this is a must have!

I Baked! - Lemon Ricotta Cookies (Giada De Laurentiis)

I love lemon cookies. They are probably my favorite, so when I found this recipe I was very excited!

I followed instructions exactly to bake the cookies, and used fresh lemons and zested them myself.

I mixed the flour, baking powder, and salt together and set them aside. Then I creamed the butter and sugar together:

added the eggs one at a time:

added lemon juice, zest, and ricotta cheese and blended:

added the dry ingredients slowly:

Dropped the dough onto parchment paper covered cookie sheets and baked:

While the cookies were baking I made the glaze. I put an extra 1/2 lemon worth of juice.

The recipe calls for 15 minutes, since I used one of those insulated or double layer pans it took more like 25 for them to cook completely. I let them cool for about 10 minutes then I put the glaze on:

I should have waited a little longer. The glaze kinda melted off and pooled around the cookies.

These cookies are very cake like, almost like eating the top of a muffin.

The cookie didn't have much of a lemon taste, but the glaze with the extra lemon juice was awesome. This recipe is a little complicated, so it's not a recipe to make every day, but for special occasions it is a perfect sweet treat!

I Cooked - Grilled Chicken Parmigiano (Rocco DiSpirito)

I found this recipe for Grilled Chicken Parmigiano. I've always been a fan of Rocco DiSpirito's, I even have his books, but I've never made any of the recipes. I always feel overwhelmed when I open the cookbooks.

The recipe calls for making marinara. Well, that wasn't going to happen. I bought store bought generic organic marinara. And what's the point of buying canned Roma tomatoes then dicing them yourself? I just bought a can of diced tomatoes with Italian herbs. I couldn't find low fat cheese so I used regular cheese, and I wasn't buying new panko crumbs so I just used what I had at home. Yeah, I know I defeated the purpose of this being low-cal, but I'm about convenience.

 I pounded out the chicken the best I could, and seasoned it with salt and pepper:

 I grilled it on my stove top grill:

According to the recipe the grilling should have taken 1.5 minutes per side. I found it took much much much longer.

I then placed the chicken in a dish with marinara, diced tomatoes and basil:

 Then topped with cheese and baked:

 These are the products I used:

When it was done I sprinkled the panko crumbs on top:

I have no idea what purpose the panko crumbs serve, but since the recipe called for them, I put them on. I made a pot of rigatoni since I can't just eat chicken and cheese.

This turned out surprisingly good! You can't go wrong with fresh basil though. Overall this recipe was pretty easy, quick, and tasty. If you have kids you might be able to get them to eat this one.

I Cooked - Potato Cheddar Cheese Soup

I love potato cheddar soup. I recently discovered this at a restaurant (surprise, surprise), so when I stumbled across this recipe I was excited to try it. It was a DISASTER!

Everything was going fine, until I boiled the potatoes. The recipe says to boil them for 15 minutes, and to use baking potatoes because "we want some of the potato to break down into smaller pieces and thicken the soup, baking potatoes are the perfect choice." Yeah, the potato broke down alright! It broke all the way down into mashed potatoes and absorbed every ounce of water in the recipe! Heck, there weren't even any potato lumps like homemade mashed potatoes are suppose to have! And why 4.5 cups of water? no milk, no cream, nothing to give it a smooth creamy texture like potato soup is suppose to have.  The only word to describe this mess is GLOP! To make matters worse, this glop has no flavor! I tried throwing all of the bacon bits in the glop to try and give it some pizazz, and nada! It still tastes like flavorless glop with bacon bits. I think the glop actually made the bacon flavorless!


So right now I have a big bowl of potato glop in my fridge. I am going to try to doctor it up, but I don't know how well that's going to go. I'll keep you posted.