The Kitchen is Still Standing!

    It's always a risky thing when I decide to try something new for dinner. The first night I tried making chicken parmigiana, I was terrified of burning the outside of the chicken but not cooking the middle. Then another night, I tried making pie, which didn't exactly work, but I recognized my mistakes and am willing to try again. 

    Last night, I decided it would be fun to try something new with the chicken we had defrosted in our fridge. Lately, I like to stay away from raw foods, so the fact I wanted to use it was very strange. Since being pregnant, anything and everything raw grosses me out and I can't stand touching anything slimy.

    But I found a recipe for fried chicken and gravy that seemed simple enough! We have all the ingredients (well, all except one, but I know a good substitute for it) and I decided, why not!

    While reading the directions closer, I realized I had to brown the chicken in hot oil. I've never done that before! Burning myself is a common thing to happen in the kitchen and adding hot oil to the mix did not sound pleasant (or like a safe idea). Oh well! I kept on with my plan to try and fry chicken. 

    Like getting in to a cold pool, I wanted to just dip my toes in first...I was scared of what would happen once I put the chicken in the oil. I had the chicken pieces all dipped and covered in the cracker and seasonings mixture, I was just nervous putting them in the actual oil. 

    My cookbook said the oil was ready when it would dissolve a drop of water. So I put in a drop of water to see what would happen. It started popping and shooting stuff up at me! This made me want to stay away from the oil even more! But I got my apron on, pulled my long sleeves down to my wrists, jumped in to the cold pool head first and I put the chicken in (with tongs as I stood as far away as possible). 

    Who would have thought how easy it is to fry chicken in hot oil! I just turned the pieces over every couple minutes so they would cook evenly and they looked (and smelled) great! 

    The next step was weird. The recipe I have is for Maryland Fried Chicken...apparently they like to have their chicken simmer in milk...So I put the milk in the skillet after draining the oil and let it sit for a little bit to simmer. 

I also had potatoes going for a side dish in case Jared came home starving like a cave man!

    I am very happy with how dinner turned out. Nothing burned, everything was cooked all the way through and I made arrangements for our dinner to be a little more special than usual. Our dining room lights have an option where all 4 bulbs can be lit, or just two, creating a dim and romantic mood :) I also got iTunes going with some Micheal Buble playing softly in the background. 

    The food was great!

Our table!

Jared's plate with the gravy on everything :)

I think he enjoyed the meal!

The plate was pretty clean after dinner.

     I'm sad to say I didn't have anything special for dessert. We had a couple oreos left over from family night, so we had some of those for a little treat. Jared was still very full from dinner so he didn't get to enjoy the cookies too much.

    Trying new things is fun and I appreciate Jared being willing to taste my experiments! He really puts a lot of trust in me while I'm in the kitchen and it helps. 

    I told him before as fair warning that if dinner didn't work out, I would cry and he would have to pick something else up for dinner on his way home from work. We didn't even need the Plan B this time!

    No smoke detector alarms went off, no need for the fire extinguisher and I didn't get a single burn mark on my fingers!