Like Something That Came out of a Microwave Meal

Despite being dog-tired Sunday night, I was itching to try something new for supper. I didn't have much of a hankering for any flavor in particular, nor did the boys. So into my trove of recipes that have piqued my interest I dove...and I pulled out a dud.

Orange-ginger Skillet Chicken1 C chopped orange sections
1/2 C orange juice
1/4 C chopped green onions
1/4 C low-sodium soy sauce
3 T fresh lemon juice
2 T olive oil
1 T honey
2 t grated peeled fresh ginger
1 t ground coriander seeds
1 1/2 lb. chicken breast tenders
8 C cooked rotini (about 1 lb. uncooked corkscrew pasta)

1. At home, combine the chopped oranges, OJ, chopped green onions, soy sauce, lemon juice, olive oil, honey, grated ginger and ground coriander in a large heavy-duty zip-top plastic bag and seal.
   
2. Place the chicken and cooked pasta in separate large heavy-duty zip-top plastic bags and seal.
   
3. At the campsite, add the chicken to marinade, seal the bag and marinate in a cooler for 3 hours.
   
4. Heat a large cast-iron skillet over hot coals (or over medium-high heat if at home).
   
5. Add the chicken mixture to the skillet, and cook it 15 min.
   
6. Add the pasta and simmer 5 min. or until the chicken is done and the pasta is thoroughly heated.

Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 2 cups)

Nutritional Info
Calories: 473
Fat: 7.3 g
Sat fat: 1.2 g
Protein: 36.2 g
Carbs: 63.7 g
Fiber: 3.7 g
Cholesterol: 66 mg
Sodium: 433 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
No, Gentle Reader, the boys and I weren't camping last Sunday, and we sure as hell weren't having some kind of outdoor culinary experience. (I've slept out-of-doors twice in my life and have no desire to add to that number.) I apologize if I disappoint you in any way when I say that I prepared this dish in the comfort of Chez Boeckman-Walker. No open fires were involved.

Maybe, though, an open fire would have made this dish more interesting. Or maybe if I'd followed the recipe more closely, the final result would have had more zip:

• I didn't let the chicken marinate for three hours. I think it maybe got 30 minutes.
  
• I used just under a tablespoon of olive oil in the marinade. Two tablespoons struck me as an awful lot.
  
• I was fresh out of green onions, and after a long weekend, I was not pedaling down to HEB to pick some up.
  
• I completely forgot to add the soy sauce to the marinate. It went in not long after the chicken started to cook through.
  
• I used bottled minced ginger, so sue me.
  
• I squeezed two whole lemons into the marinade. Don't ask me how close that might have been to the required 3 tablespoons.

As for the bed upon which the chicken and its sauce rest, I wasn't interested in eating this dish on rotini or any other pasta. I'm just not a pasta person, as I believe I've stated before. However, the boy is a pasta person. He thinks its exotic. (Hell, if you really want to knock his socks off, make him bad old-fashioned Americanized spaghetti. Talk about a blissed-out boy!) Me, I think pasta is rather dull and incapable of really absorbing flavors. And really, it's not supposed to. From what I've read here and there, particularly in Bill Buford's Heat
, pasta traditionally is the center of a meal at which it is served. It's not interchangeable with rice or another grain, to be smothered and lost under some sauce or other concoction as it is in America. But given how shitty American pasta-in-a-box is, that's probably the only way to make it palatable.

But I digress. I had a boy to feed and my own palate to please, so I made two bedding materials: I boiled up the last of the penne I had on hand for the boy (and the husband, who expressed an interest in trying the meat and sauce atop it), and I prepared 8 ounces of whole wheat couscous for me and the husband. Why couscous? Because I thought that some of the content of the marinade--the chopped oranges, in particular--would work well with the grain as they do in the orange couscous salad I love so dearly.

Sadly, I was grossly mistaken. I don't know if the greatly reduced marinating time foiled the flavor of this dish or if adding the soy sauce at the last minute did it, but I just didn't think the chicken and sauce had any...well, pop, for lack of a better word. I was expecting some tanginess from the citrus and some savory from the soy sauce and maybe a hint of sweet from the honey, but I didn't detect any of those notes. No, to my taste buds, the whole dish was just bland-not really orangy, not really gingery, not really anything at all. I felt like I need to apologize to the couscous for wasting it on this dish.

The husband reported the pasta didn't add much to the experience. For his part, the boy wolfed down his pasta. May the FSM help me the day he discovers Chef Boyardee. ::shudder::