Some good advice.

I marinated a chicken and baked it with almonds instead of coating it with breadcrumbs. I promise there is a chicken under all those nuts.

My first risotto!

Go see The Full Plate Collection running at the Theatre Gym Space at the Empire Theatre for the next few weeks. It assembles a fun cast of seasoned professionals and student interns. They mix in beautifully together and come off looking like a Strong all pro cast. This is a witty, smart, hilarious, touching script. It was great to see such a fun celebration of women. Bravo to everyone involved. I expect rave reviews to be coming in shortly so do yourself a favor and get your tickets now! More info at http://www.fullplatecollection.blogspot.com/

In other news my Little friend Steve P. had a big birthday in the middle of last week so our beach group got together Sunday and celebrated at Robert's house. Per Steve's request there were no presents bought for him. So we got creative. I made him coasters out of felt and cork boards (how I wish I had taken a picture of them). Robin gave him a gift she bought him a couple years ago and never gave him - you get the point - we found a way around his rules. I also brought an appetizer that I had never made before.

Saturday night after I was totally blown away by The Full Plate Collection, Steve O. and I went to a lovely cast party for the play he is working on at the Firehouse Theatre called Crumble. At this party there was amazing food including these coconut risotto balls. I wanted to make my own version to bring to the birthday get together. I decided to omit the coconut altogether since Erin is very allergic to it. I found a recipe that included putting Mozz in the middle. That sounded good to me but I made sure to make some without cheese since Robin doesn't eat cheese. Anyway - I highly suggest before making a recipe out of risotto you actually learn HOW to make risotto. To that I just have to say Risotto is hard, y'all! Somehow I pulled it off. I had a beautiful bowl of risotto and I was so proud of myself. I put it in the fridge for a little while and cubed some mozzarella. I eventually rolled the rice into balls placing a cube of cheese in the middle of most of them (harder than it sounds) and placed them in medium hot peanut oil. What came out was pretty darn bad. Bad and ugly. Notice I do not have a picture of them. They were so tough on the outside I could barely chew them - even with my brand new teeth! I put them aside, had a glass of wine and decided I would bring them to the get together anyway and we could all have a good laugh about how bad they are.

So I did that and made sure to make a huge deal about how terrible they were. My brave friends tried them out and loved them. Steve and I looked at each other in total shock - each took a ball of our own and much to my surprise they were good! Something happened to them when they cooled. The recipe did say to serve at room temperature but neglected to say they would really suck until then. What happened is they softened up and the outside remained slightly crispy and the inside was soft and tasty. Now I wish I had taken pics of them too.

Pictured above is chicken I made with almonds instead of breadcrumbs in order to cut down on fat and calories. I was talking about this to Robin A. at Steve's Birthday and she said what about making dust out of the nuts and they would have a more breadcrumb-e consistency. We decided to package it under the name of a fictional character I made up at the beach. So you tell me - who would buy "Shit House Betty's Nut Dust"? I think it has a nice ring to it.

I will leave you with a little food at work advice. If you sit at a desk surrounded by people all day you have to get crafty about snacking without utensils and you can't put anything in your mouth that will cause you to chew for longer than a second. I found these great little yogurt packages that are tubular in shape and you just cut the top off and squeeze the stuff right in your mouth. I won't say the brand name but they are packaged for children with really stupid jokes printed on the long tube things. OK - here's the thing. I thought these would be perfect for work until I actually tried it. Lets just say when surrounded by archivists and homeless people (our major clientele) you don't want to stick the end of a long tube in your mouth and suck on it. It just didn't look right.