Temptation Thwarted

Tonight was the first night since starting the diet that neither of us felt like cooking dinner. At all. We both got home from work somewhat later than normal, and the 33 degree temperatures outside made doing as little possible a much more appealing option than standing over a hot stove or oven. Throw in the relative lack of food in our house at the moment and not only were our options even further reduced, but motivation fell to an all time diet low.

So naturally we thought about going out. There are a fairly large number of restaurants in Toronto that strive to use as many local ingredients as possible (check out http://www.savourontario.ca/) and many do a pretty good job. The problem is they are almost all on the pricier side (at least for us) and only one is near our house (well, actually two but the second is both pricy and Italian so we'll avoid that for now). Now, we're not exactly shy on spending more than we should on a good dinner, especially for a good occasion, like celebrating a birthday or finishing a final school assignment. Or coming back from a vacation, preparing to leave on a vacation, celebrating the end of spring, celebrating the start of summer, celebrating friends going on vacation, or payday, or pretty much any friday or saturday night...

Despite our historic lax with spending money in restaurants, dropping what would likely be close to $80 or more on dinner simply because we were lazy we just couldn't justify, even though Holland's win in the world cup today is reason to celebrate! So we decided on a chicken dish pan fried in an egg and parmesan coating with beet greens, beets, and carrots. Sounded good and fairly simple, but we didn't have any eggs so off to the store. Now the store right at the base of our street carries eggs from within our radius, so that's not really a big deal. But we decided to first walk down to the Shoppers (drug store) to get a few items we needed for the house and then just stop by the Globe - local restaurant - in case maybe the menu didn't look as expensive as we remembered. It was so it was short visit, but by the time we got back to the store for eggs it was 9:06. The store closes at 9. Damn.

Plan B. Sushi? It was tempting. So were the smells from the Greek places we walked by on the way to the store and the Brass Taps' (a favorite pub) weekly $10 pasta special. But we held out deciding we could forgo the eggs and instead make a corn meal breading using yogurt to bind the corn meal to the chicken.

By the time we ate it was 10 and we were both ridiculously hungry, but it was worth the wait! We found a new use for red fife flour, it made a great coating on the raw chicken and the yogurt stuck to it perfectly. We mixed some parmesan with the corn meal and coated that over the yogurt covered chicken. It all held together wonderfully even throughout the pan-frying. The parmesan melted a little as it cooked binding with the corn meal and making a delicious cheesy corn crust and the chicken stayed nice and juicy. We topped it with a garlicy ranch sauce and served over a bed of cooked beat greens with a side of carrots and beets in a maple syrup and thyme glaze. Not too bad for being tired and not inspired. We just need to remember this when we're not doing this diet and stop spending so much money at restaurants just because we don't feel like cooking. Certainly glad we decided to cook tonight.