Modifying Chicken Francese for Two Diets

Well, then, dear friends.  How’s it going?  Is anyone with me on this ride where happy hour is now moved up to 4 p.m. which means you can really start drinking around 3:15?  Do you have workout equipment but no desire to use it? 

Have you considered how badly you actually need a shower? And then considered maybe putting it off until tomorrow, because after all, you didn’t really do anything today?   Have you started eating right out of the cooking pot? Because you’re sick of spending the day in the kitchen cooking and cleaning after every meal? Maybe there is way to use fingers instead of dirtying up a spoon. Hmmm.

Have all the projects you’ve undertaken now tapered off? Now you look at an unfinished project and say “eh”?  Or, on the other hand, are you vacuuming every.single.day?  Are you catching plenty of YouTube?

I was on “vacation” this week, meaning I had to burn up time off or lose it.  You can guess the places I didn’t go. 

Now I know all this sounds like a pity party, so let me say right now.  I am very grateful this flippin’ mess has affected me far less than other people.  I’m grateful for a lovely home, my shedding pets and my bathroom-remodeling husband.  I am grateful to friends who text me and send me funnies and meet me to socially distance walk in my gorgeous town with perfect weather.

I am grateful the stores are open and full of fresh food and we have the money to pay for it.  I’m thankful delivery people are keeping things going as much as possible.  There are really a thousand things I’m grateful for, but you know all that.

What I’m Eating

My DF Connie busted my chops (pun intended) for my mistakenly labeling Evon’s rack of lamb “leg” of lamb.  Yep, I not only never cook lamb, I don’t eat it, so easy mistake.  However, even I am well aware of basic anatomy and know a leg from a rack (haha, bad humor intended).  Connie said she LOL’d thinking about what kind of lamb had that many legs.  So, please accept my apology, but I think the recipe was a keeper.

I made a Rachel Ray recipe this week, Chicken Francese.  I don’t think Rachel is known for her difficult concoctions, but I had quite a mess to clean up when it was done.  It could be the wine I was drinking while I was making it.

The recipe is linked above, but I want to point out a couple of big changes.  I tailored it to our diets, which means gluten-free for John and low fodmap for me.  It calls for a cup of gluten-free all-purpose flour and two eggs and lemon juice in the recipe and that was WAY too much of both and I threw a lot of it away.  Just saying I hate that waste.  Garlic is not low fodmap and I find I’m not tolerating it so didn’t add and John said he might have liked that.  I didn’t add the sautéed lemons and it was plenty lemony without it. 

Like many Rachel Ray recipes, it used ingredients we already had on hand and was easy to modify to our tastes. Technically asparagus is not low fodmap, but I limited mine to a few spears and I had no issues with it.

I always have Better Than Bouillon on hand. It’s so much easier than opening a whole can of stock and less wasteful when you don’t need a whole can. It also tastes a WHOLE lot better.

We decided we liked it enough to add it to our rotation and I’ll make it again.  I served his with mashed potatoes and had mine with crusty French bread.  I will also note here that I set the table and we sat and said grace and ate together without anything to read like actual civilized people.

What I’m Doing

Our guest bath remodel is really coming along nicely!  John has killed it this week.  I’m anticipating a nice, hot bath just about the time the weather gets so hot I won’t want one.  Nor will my muscles be aching with too much exercise.  But!!!  I’m not complaining.  It looks great and he’s worked hard.

While he’s hard at work on that, I’m pulling in all the other chores and I’m going to be firing up the hedge trimmer tomorrow to shape up the backyard a bit. 

The cats are loving the weather and are outside every single minute I let them and some minutes I don’t. I got up to find the back screen opened and saw Roxy had opened the door, let herself out and was snuggled up on the patio chair under the table. Cats!

I plan to get on my bike and do a little neighborhood sightseeing now that I’ve spent that last six hours cleaning my house and enjoy the rest of my afternoon.  Before happy hour, of course.  Which starts at 4.  And I’ll be joined today by my sisters!