Budget Woes and Curried Chicken Breasts

Have you noticed how expensive groceries can be these days? The simple necessities can add up. As a food blogger, I notice. The challenge, for me, is not only creating meals to share with you lovely folks 5 days a week but making something that my husband (and sometimes a few others) will enjoy within a small budget that covers lunches, dinners, breakfasts, snacks, party dishes, drinks and so forth. Then, I must try to capture some of the worthy recipes in a photo with some written post attached and all that technical hoopla gets thrown in and pretty soon, it’s another Thursday and I am planning all over again…often telling myself that I will do better staying in the budget next time. I base where we shop each week, to get the best deal, on the ingredients that I need for the following week. I like the challenge but I haven’t been doing very well with the wherewithal. My goal is to improve by staying in our budget and still provide delicious recipes. I don’t post what I don’t like.

I feel like I’m going backward in terms of improvements on the technical side of the dabble. I’m not ashamed to admit that I threw a giant 3-year-old-sized tantrum the other day when my offline version of my site didn’t perform as expected. It felt good, it felt really good. Back to the drawing board that, by now, has no room for doodling-I mean working- from the other times of starting over on that damn board. Maybe I should karate chop that thing into oblivion.

Some of you might be saying “Annie, you don’t make super gourmet things anyway” and I, shaking my head sadly, will say what I’ve said for a long time…some day I will be able to afford the ingredients/cookware/equipment for “super gourmet” recipes. I splurged on saffron, good vanilla, decent extra virgin olive oil, a few kinds of cheese and chocolate in the last few months and if we are to pay the bills, I need to back off. Some of the things I buy are embarrassing to admit as a food blogger but they are cost efficient.

On my to-do list is to make a poster that says “will work for gourmet ingredients.” I plan to walk myself down the apartment stairs, stand on the sidewalk by the new tea place and look very sad. Oh yeah, the new bubble tea shop is open by our place in Northfield. I’m pretty sure I mentioned that some time ago the space was being renovated. I’ll get on that soon.

Do you ever get tired of chicken? I was on my millionth meal with poultry as the main attraction and feeling rather ho-hum about it until I came across this sauce from Lee Durels on Martha Stewart’s website. Not usually up for the sweet and spicy flavors in a sauce, I decided to give it a chance. Greg and I loved it. I paired it with a creamy, cool cucumber salad which complemented the curry. You probably have all of the ingredients so there’s no reason to pass on this flavorful, moist chicken.

Curried Chicken Breasts from Lee Durels
Serves 4

Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, about 4 oz. each, patted dry
4 tbsp butter
½ cup honey
¼ cup Dijon mustard
1 tbsp curry powder
salt/pepper

Preheat the oven to 375F. Place chicken breasts into a square baking dish. In a saucepan, combine butter, honey, mustard, curry powder and salt/pepper (to taste). Cook over medium heat, stirring, until it begins to bubble. Pour over the chicken and bake until the chicken is cooked through, about 30 minutes. Halfway through, you might want to add the sauce over the top of the chicken to baste and also do this when it is finished cooking. Serve immediately.