Lazy Girl Recipes: Honey Ginger Chicken

When it comes to cooking, I'm pretty... relaxed. I love doing it, but I'm no gourmet cook. I mean, come on, I'm in college; I can deal with Descartes before noon, but ain't nobody got time for fancy recipes. But if college has taught me anything, it's that variety is the spice of life, particularly when it comes to food. So I've been experimenting, and I've come up with some pretty good recipes for those of us on a budget.

Without further ado, may I present my Honey-ginger Chicken recipe?

Ingredients:

2-3 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ginger paste
1 Tbsp honey
Salt and pepper
1 frozen, skinless, boneless chicken breast

Equipment:
pyrex dish
foil

What to do:
If you are ambitious you could thaw your chicken, but if you're a lazy bum like me, you can pull it straight out of the freezer. Dump all the ingredients on the chicken. If you want to be fancy, you could mix the olive oil, spices, and honey in a small bowl, but I usually just pour them straight on to the meat. Cover with foil and cook at 350-400 until the chicken is done through. *If your chicken is frozen it can take up to an hour to cook.*

Okay, so I totally took a bite before I took the picture. It was just too yummy!

Tidings of Comfort and Joy: Part 2

I wrote this yesterday, but I passed out before I could post it. What can I say? It's hard to be the birthday girl!

Today is my birthday, and like Sydney says, one of the good things about having a birthday so close to New Years is that you get two fresh starts at once. 2013 was a pretty crazy year for me; in fact, it's hard to believe that I crammed so much into one year. 

Right after my last birthday, I jumped on a plane and went to a foreign country. I thought about turning around and running away from the security lines. I thought about not going, but I got on that plane and took off into the great unknown, called Italy, and for four months, I lived in the Italian countryside, sharing a room with two other girls.

I explored Rome, eating gelato and drinking delicious coffee. We studied art and visited museums. We saw beautiful churches, got lost a lot, and became very familiar with the Roman metro system. We also just took time to wander: to drink in the sights and sounds of the eternal city. 

Then one Monday morning, as I was sitting in Art History thinking about lunch, as lovely pasta smells wafted from the Cafeteria, Pope Benedict resigned. It was the saddest thing I'd ever heard, until we realized the we were going to be there for the conclave... 

But we did say a proper good bye to Pope Benedict. I was one of the first hundred people into St. Peter's for his last Mass on Ash Wednesday. We went to his final papal audience, and, of course, we wished him a very epic good bye from our football pitch. 

Photo Cred: James Bernard

Then we waited. Our group went to Greece while we waited, but not without much grumbling. There probably would have been a mutiny if the conclave had started while we were there.But, luckily for us, God worked around our schedules, and the conclave started right after we got back to Rome. 

Then one day I blew off my homework to go into Rome. Of course, there was no point, because they weren't going to pick a pope that day, and of course, I know these things. Oh how wrong I was.

 I was standing in a huge crowd, trying desperately to be under a random Italian man's umbrella without being too obvious. Then everyone started screaming, but I was like, "Oh. Black smoke. Lame." Again, my psychic intelligence was working like a charm. 

Photo Cred: Grey.

Then this guy turned up. This photo still sends chills up my back. I can't believe that we just happened to be there! It was the craziest things that has ever happened to me. Every time I think about it I wanted to run around screaming, which is basically what I did at the real thing. 

After all the excitement of the Papal election, I couldn't possibly write a paper, so I wrote it about an our before it was due, turned that sucker in, packed my bags, and headed off to Germany! 

And, boy, was it ever cold! We spent a couple of days in Munich, and then our group split up, and four of us headed to Salzburg where we spent about four days, hanging out, hiking, and generally having a good time. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the Mozart museum is not exactly the most riveting thing in the world. 

Then we went back to Rome, and it was crazy how fast the rest of the semester went by! We took a trip to Florence and Venice. I loved Venice, but it just is not the city for those of us who are, ahem, directionally challenged, but I absolutely fell in love with Florence! I actually went back because I just had not had enough time to soak in all the art! 

Then we hit finals, and before we knew it, it was time to go! So my now-roommates and I headed off to the UK! This was definitely the wackiest trip I took, but it was also one of the most fun. We hit London, Edinburgh, and Dublin in a week! Of course, we just didn't do these cities justice, but we did the best we could. 

I should also mention that we saw the Sutton Hoo helmet, which was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen. I may or may not have had a total fangirl moment in front of this display case. 

Then my friends went home, and I went back to the city where I grew up, which was amazing. I hadn't been back since we moved ten years ago, and it was so nice to just see familiar sights. I had a lot of time to myself, so I just wandered around, but after four crazy months, it was nice to slow down for awhile.

Then, finally, I came home. In that same week, I went to work at camp, and my dear Joy moved. You hear that crack? That's my heart breaking. But she's doing a great job caring for her grandmother, so even though I miss our crazy shenanigans, I guess I can spare her. 

Then after a very long and exhausting week at Camp Cheery, I went to work at Nerd Camp. Also, in case you were wondering, camp and jet-lag don't mix. Nerd camp was a ton of fun. My two coworkers were fantastic, and all thirty of the kids were terrific. So I spent my summer running all over the country: NC, Texas, Tennessee, and back to NC!

Then it was time for school to start, and suddenly I was a junior, which was a little confusing because I was pretty sure that I was just a Freshman, but hey, I made it through one of the craziest semesters of my life. I studied Elizabeth Bishop and Chaucer and even some old English. I caught up with old friends and made some new ones. This semester had some all time highs, as well as some all time lows, but I got out more or less unscathed. 

 I can't really think of an unsentimental way to end this ridiculously long post, so here goes; 2013 was a big year for me. I grew a lot as a person, and I had some really great experiences, but it was also a very trying year with a lot of heart break. So I'm not exactly sorry to see 2013 go, and we'll see what 2014 has to offer. 

Tidings of Comfort and Joy: Pt. 1

Christmas has been... frankly amazing. Admittedly, I've spent most of it in bed with my trusty box of kleenex, but even that's been pretty great. I'm more of a PJs kind of girl. I mean, I love clothes, don't get me wrong, but if I have choice to go out or to stay in, in my sweats and binge watch episodes of Arrested Development, we all know what's going to win (hint: sweats always win). So Christmas in the King household involves a lot of vegging, but not in the food department...

In the food department, we have mostly sweeting. Before I went to college, and, you know, got busy, I used to spent all of Advent madly baking Christmas cookies. Now finals make a major dent in my annual baking frenzy, so it has to be done on Christmas Adam or Eve. This year I discovered some pretty rad animal cookie cutters in a drawer and may or may not have gone utterly crazy with the cute sugar cookies.

Aren't they adorable? I don't have very good luck with pretty looking food. Usually I'm dishing up some ridiculous looking dish, going, "I swear, it tastes fine!" So I'm really happy how these turned out. 

We also made our house as fair as we were able, trimming the hearth, setting the table, and all that. Mom usually puts up most of the decorations around St. Nicholas Day, so I came home to this:

Those red balls are actually pomegranates, and there are little nativity sets and Santas in the greenery. 

We usually wait pretty late to get our Tree, not all the way to Christmas Eve, but pretty close. We had a hard time finding a big enough tree this year, but this one isn't bad at all. 

Hopefully you can't tell, but our tree is firmly lashed to the wall. We used not to do that, but every. single. year. without fail, we would decorate the tree, get it absolutely perfect, and stand back to admire our handiwork. Then, every year, the entire tree would crash to the floor. So now we aren't even allowed to put the lights on until it has been tied to the wall.