Ok, so it wasn’t (completely) her fault.  It was probably (mostly) my fault too.

As part of my quest to become a better cook, I borrowed Rachael Ray’s 365 No Repeats – A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners from the library.  I perused it eagerly, bookmarking the recipes that sounded both yummy and relatively easy (coincidentally, all the recipes I marked called for chicken as the main ingredient).

Tonight I planned on making “Pretzel-crusted Chicken Breasts with a Cheddar-Mustard Sauce.”  It sounds like what it is – chicken breasts breaded with pretzel crumbs, with a cheddar-spicy mustard sauce.

The prep went great.  I got my ingredients out and lined up my measuring spoons.  (I know Rachael Ray encourages “eyeballing” it and using the palm of your hand as a measurement, but I’m not quite there yet.)  I ground (grinded?) the pretzels in the blender, pounded the chicken flat (per the recipe), and heated up the oil.

Now for the big stuff.  I dipped the chicken in the pretzel crumbs, soaked it in the egg, and back in the pretzel crumbs to stick, then slowly lowered it into the hot oil (I have a huge fear of tiny stinging oil splatters).  While the chicken was cooking, I started on the sauce – butter, flour, milk, spicy mustard, and a ton of cheese.  For a couple minutes I was running around the kitchen – pounding chicken breasts, stirring the sauce, flipping the pretzel-covered chicken, double-checking the recipe.

The trouble started when I checked the chicken in the pan after the allotted (per the recipe) 3-4 minutes.  Nope, still red and uncooked on the inside.  Hmm.  I left it alone for a little bit longer, then checked it again.  Still red and uncooked.  This was definitely not “Yum-O!”  At this point, I wasn’t sure what to do.  The pretzel crust was starting to burn, but the inside was uncooked.  Should I turn down the heat to keep the outside from burning?  But then, wouldn’t it take even longer for the inside to cook?

(Please keep in mind that I am quite the amateur cook.  J is blown away every time I make something awesomely delicious, because 8 months ago, all I could make was chili and rice.  And  the chili came about just a year ago.  So I don’t know a lot of “basic” cooking knowledge you’d assume I know.)

I fiddled around with the knobs on the stove for a while, and soldiered on.  I already had a feeling it was going to be a pizza night, but I figured it was too late to stop.  By the time my first piece of chicken was done, the breading was burned in some places and coming off in others.  I laid it on the serving plate, tasted it, sighed, and went into the living room where J was.  “You wanna order pizza?”

So we had pizza for dinner tonight.  I gave up with 1 finished (and burned) piece of chicken that didn’t taste too great, 3 pieces in the pan - 2 burned on the outside & still red on the inside – and 1 piece still waiting in the pretzel crumbs.  The sauce came out ok, but of course there was nothing to pour it on.  J suggested saving it for the mac ‘n cheese we’re having tomorrow (with veggie burgers), so we’ll see how it turned out.

This isn’t the first Rachael Ray recipe to get a thumbs down in our house.  J made her “Mac and Cheddar Cheese with Chicken and Broccoli” – in fact, he made it twice.  The first time wasn’t as good as we thought it would be, but J chalked it up to a rookie mistake and made it a second time.  It was still just average, so we took it out of rotation.

I’m already committed to making another Rachael Ray recipe this week (got the ingredients) so we’ll see how it goes.  If the next one’s not a winner, I’m probably going to have to take my Post-its out of her book and return it to the library.

By the way, this was a 30-minute meal.  Did it take me 30 minutes?  Of course not – more like an hour.  And I gave up, so it probably would have taken me close to 90 minutes if I’d finished.  The thing with her 30-minute meals is that she has the cooking skills to get the meal done in 30 minutes.  The average person watching her show probably doesn’t.  I mean, if you can chop an onion in 10 seconds without worrying about your fingers, you’re probably a bit beyond 30-Minute Meals, right?

In case you’re wondering, the pizza was delicious.