Tuesday 24th Feb '09

I stayed home from work today. It was such a relief that the weather was much cooler. I spent most of the day in bed, but got outside for some fresh air to water the plants. I planted a few new seedlings of garlic chives and rocket that I bought from Bunnings on Sunday. I've been saying to myself that I will work on the garden when the weather is cooler, so I thought my half hour outside was me keeping true to my word. Feeling a surge of renewed strength, I spent a few hours outside slowly removing the dead plants. Don't want to overwork myself because I am sick, but the fresh air was really good for me.

I noticed my Thai basil is doing really well, so while I was clearing the dead debris, I tried to think how I could incorporate them into dinner. There's always my favourite, Thai basil chicken, but I wanted to try something new.

Thai basil leaves freshly picked

I decided to make chicken skewers. First, I washed and roughly cut up some potatoes and tossed them in some olive oil and two cloves of crushed garlic. I arranged them in one half of a baking dish and put them into the oven to begin cooking while I prepared the chicken.

In a mortar, I ground some pinenuts, chilli flakes, and crushed garlic. I chopped up the Thai basil and added this to the mortar as well as some olive oil. This mixture will be the chicken marinade.

I diced some chicken thighs and rubbed the marinade all over before skewering them. I cut the skewers to make them short enough to fit in the other side of the baking dish that I had kept empty. By now, the potatoes had been in the oven for half an hour and were browning rather nicely. I put the chicken skewers in with them and in another twenty minutes, they were all ready.

I put together a quick salad of mixed lettuce leaves, whole baby beetroots from a can, and some basil fetta I found in the fridge.

Dinner
Thai Basil Chicken Skewers
Roasted Garlic Potatoes
Beetroot & Fetta Salad

I kept some aside to take to work tomorrow, but Jocelyn saw it and asked if she could eat it.

I said 'Sure'.

I waited until she'd reheated it with the rest of her dinner before I approached her and asked her if she was eating my food. She said she was, so I nonchalantly mentioned,

"It's crocodile".

She let out the most annoyed and disgusted moan while staring at her plate feeling grossed out. She was probably thinking 'how can I eat any of this now that that yucky stuff has touched the rest of my food!?' - HAHA!

After a few seconds, she realised I was joking. Or was I?


I cooked some pasta intending to take half of it to work tomorrow for my dinner, but I was so hungry, I ate it all!

Supper
Seafood Spaghetti