Oh YUM!

Dinner tonight was fantastic! Half of it was home made, the other half wasn't. The part that took the longest was the rolls, and that's because we used the frozen kind. We had to defrost them and let them rise. Delicious though! Definately worth it.

Fresh steamed green beans
Grilled chicken
Buttered rolls
Stuffing (imitation stove top stuffing)

I picked the green beans from the garden. We had exactly enough for one serving. You probably don't have green beans in your garden, so go ahead and get some fresh from the store if you want to make this delicious dish. Keep in mind, this is intended for fresh green beans, not canned or frozen.

After washing the beans, we snapped off the ends and then snapped them into two inch lengths. We placed these in a steamer basket and then in the pot. Filled the pot with half an inch of water. Then, we drizzled 1 tablespoon of melted butter onto the beans, added salt and pepper. We stuck that sucker on high heat, and steamed those beans until they were nice and tender.

I can't tell you how nicely these came out. They were so butter tasting, without being oily. Most of the butter wound up dripping into the water, as well so it wasn't nearly as fattening as if we had boiled them instead of steaming them. They didn't sit in the butter. I can't wait to try the carrots next year, or even spinach this winter!

Okay, now the chicken. First, I went and picked some green onion from the garden, as well as 8 springs of dill. I dug up a bulb of wild garlic as well. After washing the veggies and dill, I cut up the onion into small pieces, washed, crushed and minced the garlic and took the dill off of the stems. I added all of this to about 3/4 cup of olive oil and set that on the stove on medium high heat. I wanted it to be nice and warm. If I had thought of it sooner, I would have done a cold infusion process instead of hot infusion. We simmered this for half an hour.

Then, I pulled out the Foreman grill. I am not fond of that thing, but if done right, food does taste nice. I preheated the grill on a medium setting. If you set it too high, then the outside of the meat cooks, but not th e inside. Too low, and nothing cooks in a decent amount of time. Once it was  heated, I took a pastry brush and brushed the warmed oil onto both sides of the Foreman grill.

I did not use any of the veggies or herbs that were in the pot. I only used the oil. I threw the chicken breasts onto the grill, added salt and pepper to them and cooked them until they were done. (Once you cut it open and see the meat is done and there is no blood, it's done.)

For the stove top stuffing, we simply followed the directions.

There is nothing quite as satisfying as providing a beautiful, resteraunt quality meal, to my family. I don't know what it is, but to me, nothing says "I love you" like filling a plate with good tasting nutritious food. Granted, half of it was pre-prepared. But the part that I made, I even pulled from our garden. I can't tell you how much better that tasted!

Okay, I'm done gushing about dinner. I had to find something worth writing about!