Dinner we'll all like (in a hurry!): Lemon Rosemary Chicken Cutlets

This summer, I posted a favorite chicken recipe that my friend Christine turned me on to when she made if for our one our Wednesday Supper Swaps. Normally, when I am making one of my mom’s go-to chicken recipes, like the one below, I use the same pounding technique on the chicken breasts. It makes the chicken tender, and even. But this week I was short on time, so I bought chicken cutlets. The dish has plenty of flavor alone, and even more if you leave some of the fresh rosemary and a bit of the lemon zest on the chicken when serving. But if you’ve got a kid who is a greenophobe or likes their chicken plain, simply scrape off the “offending stuff” after roasting and before serving them. They'll get a little of the flavor, but not too much...

Rosemary & Lemon Roasted Chicken Cutlets

Chicken cutlets (or chicken breasts pounded thin)
Lemons, zested and juiced
Fresh Rosemary
Garlic, chopped or pressed
Olive oil
Veggie – bell peppers, zucchini, etc.

Combine fresh lemon juice, rosemary (pull the leaves off the hard stalk), garlic and olive oil in a large zip-loc bag. Seal(!) and then shake to combine. Taste before adding the chicken and make sure you’ve got a balance of flavors that you like (feel free to add more garlic, lemon juice, olive oil…). Then add the chicken to the zip-loc and marinate it in the fridge for at least 20 minutes, or up to a couple of hours.

Grill the chicken or preheat oven to 450. Pop the chicken onto a rimmed baking sheet, and drizzle with a little of the marinade. I also like to toss a couple of veggies on the baking sheet. This saves me another pan to clean up! Roast the chicken for about 10 minutes, or until cooked through. (Keep in mind that the thinner the chicken, the more quickly it will cook...) Hope you enjoy this simple, fresh recipe as much as we do!

(Super Simple) Child & Adult-Pleasing Meal: Gingery Turkey Pitas

Perfect dinner tonight that successfully multi-tasked as both kid-pleasing and something we’ll enjoy too. I always give my kids what we’re eating, but it doesn’t always go over well with both of them (wheat berry salad as a recent case in point). But tonight did, so let me pass along this super simple recipe based upon one found in Real Simple Magazine’s September 2009 issue:

Gingery Asian Turkey Pitas with Pickled Cucumbers

This is a two step recipe, but each step takes mere minutes. Both the turkey and the cucumbers could easily be made ahead and you could just heat the turkey up again before serving.

Pickled Cucumber Salad

¼ cup of rice wine vinegar
2 English cucumbers, thinly sliced
1 red pepper, diced
1 jalapeno, seeds removed, diced
Salt and pepper, to taste

Combine rice vinegar, cucumbers, red pepper and jalapeno in a bowl and set aside for at least 15 minutes, ideally about an hour so the cucumbers get slightly pickled.

Gingery Asian Turkey in Whole Wheat Pita

Olive oil
1 pound ground turkey (or pork or chicken if you prefer)
2-3 teaspoons on fresh ginger, grated
2 cloves of garlic, minced
½ cup Hoisin sauce (found in the Asian aisle of most markets, make sure it is free of MSG)
Splash of soy sauce
Whole Wheat Pita Bread, halved

In a skillet, cook the turkey (or pork or chicken), breaking it up with a spatula or spoonula until no longer pink. I grated the ginger and pressed the garlic into the meat, as it was cooking, so the flavors melded nicely. Once the meat is cooked through, add the Hoisin sauce and soy sauce. Stir until the turkey and sauces are combined in the skillet. Serve in pita bread halves, stuffed alongside the Pickled Cucumbers.

(As you can see above, I “deconstructed” my children’s pitas… but my camera battery died before I took a photo of my plate, so you’ll just have to trust me that it’s a pretty meal with the bright cucumbers and peppers and the gingery pork nestled in the pitas as an adult meal too. On my children's plates above you'll see that I also gave them carrots and a small handful of wheat-free tamari almonds.)

Make Ahead Side Dishes: Wheat Berry Salad with Cranberries & Pecans

Having some interesting sides already made, in my fridge, makes putting lunch and dinner together a snap. Here’s the recipe for a wheat berry salad I recently made that was absolutely delicious. You do need some time to make this, since the wheat berries have to cook for 1 hour. So, it’s a good one to make when you’re home for the afternoon, overseeing homework, etc. Admittedly, this was a side I made for us, more than for the kids. The night I made it, I served it with a simple mustard glazed salmon and some edamame. Then during the week, I had it for lunch, and I did put a scoop on my children’s plate a couple different meals. My older child loved it; my younger child picked the carrots, cranberries and pecans out of it. Not bad. You pick your battles, right?

Wheat Berry Salad with Cranberries and Pecans

4 cups of water
1 ½ cups of wheat berries

Handful of shredded carrots
Handful of diced celery
Hanful of diced onion or scallion
Splash of olive oil
Handful of cranberries
Handful of pecans
Splash of red wine vinegar (start with just a little, as you can always add more)
Salt & pepper, to taste

Bring the 4 cups of water to a boil; add wheat berries (shown above, before they've been cooked).

Reduce the heat to low and cook the wheat berries (uncovered) for about 1 hour or until they are tender and moist (as shown above, see how they puff up and turn a pretty, rich brown color?). Drain any extra liquid.

Return the wheat berries to the saucepan and toss in remaining ingredients. Stir so everything is nicely combined. Once it sits for a couple minutes and the flavors meld, feel free to add a bit more vinegar (to make it more zesty/tangy) or you can add another splash of olive oil if you went too heavy handed on the vinegar the first go round!

I'm not lying: Brain stimulation boosts people's deception skills

There's been so much excitement and hyperbole surrounding the promise of brain imaging as a lie detection technique, but what about the needs of the cads, thieves and vagabonds of this world? Has contemporary cognitive neuroscience nothing to offer them? It has now. In an exciting development for fibbers everywhere, Ahmed Karim and his team have shown that the application of transcranial direct current stimulation over the anterior prefrontal cortex - the front bit of the brain - improves people's lying skills.

Twenty-two participants role-played stealing money from an office before being interrogated by a researcher acting the role of police detective. The participants were given extra incentive to deceive the 'detective' with the promise that they could keep the money if they succeeded. Crucially, the participants answered some questions with a mild electric current applied over their prefrontal cortex via scalp electrodes. The effect of this 'cathodal' stimulation, which lasted about 13 minutes, was to inhibit brain activity in the affected area, thus creating a kind of temporary, 'virtual' lesion. By contrast, they answered other questions in a 'sham' condition, involving all the same kit but with the current switched off after just thirty seconds. The interrogator and participants couldn't tell whether they were in the stimulation or sham condition.

Past brain imaging research has shown that some forms of lying are associated with increased activity in the anterior prefrontal cortex, and one prediction was that inhibiting this region would impair people's lying skills. In fact, compared with the sham condition, the stimulation improved participants' lying ability: they lied more skillfully in terms of only lying when they needed to; lied more quickly; and remained calmer whilst lying, as reflected by their sweating less.

A second study used 'anodal' stimulation, which unlike 'cathodal' stimulation, excites rather than inhibits underlying brain cells. This had no effect on the participants' lying ability. A third study showed that 'cathodal' stimulation had no effect on the famous Stroop task, which requires participants to name the ink colour that a colour word (e.g. blue) is written in. In other words, the effect of the stimulation appears to be specific to deception, not to cognitively demanding tasks in general.

So why does knocking out prefrontal cortex activity improve people's deception skills? The researchers can't be sure, but stated crudely, one possibility is that the stimulation puts the conscience to sleep, freeing the mind to lie without the usual inconvenience of moral conflict. This would appear to tally with research suggesting that psychopaths have reduced grey matter in the anterior prefrontal cortex and also with a recent study showing that people with brain damage to this region make more utilitarian moral decisions.

'If neuroscience research can demonstrate that deceptive behaviour and moral cognition are not only associated with the activation of specific brain areas, but may even be modulated by noninvasive stimulation of these areas, what implications will such findings have on our concept of personal responsibility?' the researchers asked.
_________________________________

Karim, A., Schneider, M., Lotze, M., Veit, R., Sauseng, P., Braun, C., & Birbaumer, N. (2009). The Truth about Lying: Inhibition of the Anterior Prefrontal Cortex Improves Deceptive Behavior. Cerebral Cortex, 20 (1), 205-213 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhp090

Re-Post of Citrus-Infused Black Beans

By popular demand, here's a re-post of the citrus-black beans recipe that I served alongside the chicken enchiladas. Make them as spicy or zesty as you like by adding more chili powder/cayenne (spicy) or orange juice/cider vinegar (zesty). I had a couple extra bell peppers on hand when I made a batch this afternoon, so this time they'll have more texture and they're a little more colorful.

New Food Crush: Rico M. Panada's Empanadas

I love stories like this: boy goes from being high school discus thrower to Argentinean land surveyor to clarinet player in the States…and then has an epiphany while riding the subway, watching two other passengers slop through burger and a slice of jiggly pizza while he neatly eats a homemade empanada. Fast forward through business school, a well-crafted business plan and an entrepreneurship award, and now we can all enjoy Rico M. Panada’s delicious empanadas. Bliss, I tell you. Keep these portable half moon shaped turnovers (which are baked, not fried) in your freezer for a super-easy, portable meal or hearty snack.

Again, as long as you know what’s in them, there’s no guilt in letting someone else do the cooking—particularly if it’s something that would far more laborious for me to whip up, and this guy’s already got it mastered.

The crust of the empanadas is made of: organic whole wheat flour, organic wheat flour, water, canola oil and kosher salt. The fillings are varied. Choose from: Beef, Chicken Pot Pie, Black Bean & Beet, Sweet Corn and Cheese, Spinach & Tofu, or Red Beans & Rice. So far we’ve tried the Black Bean & Beet ones, and the Sweet Corn and Cheese ones. Both were totally different and absolutely delicious, and were gobbled up (one-handed, while shoveling mud) by my little one!!

I found them yesterday when we were running errands out yonder at Whole Foods in White Plains, where a big end aisle freezer display that caught my eye. But good news CT readers: Rico M. Panada's Empanadas can be purchased at Whole Foods Westport, Greenwich, Milford (and soon-to-open Darien). Since I often like to shop in town, I'm going to see if we can't get Alex to stock them at Walter Stewart's as well....

P.S. My camera is off on a father-son Y Guide campout this weekend so these two photos were poached off Rico M. Panada’s blog (which is worth reading for both entertainment, and to be transported to Rico’s tasty business journey).

Too many island photos!

Okay. Question.

How do I consize two thousands photos into one single blog post?




I mean, jeez. I am browsing through all my diving photos and there are so many types.




There are the on land ones, there are the underwater ones, there are the touring around unknown islands visiting village ones... I mean. How the heck do I select from 2k photos and conclude them into one entry.




It's almost impossible.

So... Let me know, what do you want to see first? Yup, I'm letting you choose what do you want to see in the next entry on this blog.

Do you want to see...

1: local island kids jumping around in smoke and villagers building boats

2: Underwater photos and videos that consist of great marine lives

3: Pretty and weird things we spotted or happened on land, like starfish mating, or me getting seasick




Give me your answers in the commentary below.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I can't believe JAL (Japan Airline) is filing bankruptcy. o.O

I mean, they're Japan Airline! And.. and.. they're Japan Airline!!




opps. Wrong photo. But this was a stewardess whose photo was taken and posted on the internet by an "acquaintance of hers".

This one is the right JAL uniform.




And now Airasia is thinking of extending their service to Japan? God are they trying to conquer to world or something? And they can't catch the better timing.

I like this phrase from them.

"This has not taken off in Japan because (travel) is still very expensive...If I can offer promotional prices cheaper than your cost of a taxi ride from Tokyo to Narita, then people would say 'oh, yes! Ten thousand yen to Kuala Lumpur, that would be very exciting.' So that's the opportunity we see," he said.

Or this

"He wants young Japanese to regard overseas travel as a popular culture, like in Southeast Asia where a quick weekend getaway to, say, Bangkok, Singapore or Bali has become a norm due to the availability of cheap flights."

Haha! How true. But then... I like seeing pink tour bus, pink group shirts, and pink cameras all flashing together with plenty of peace sign and cutesy pose.

I even saw this group of underwater Japanese tourist divers all wearing pink and yellow custom made wetsuits in Sipadan, and each of them with a flashing underwater camera with them. Haha... So obvious they're Japanese. The only think they lack of is a pink underwater flag.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


Okay back to Twitter fun.




O how you love that little birdy mascot of Twitter.

*Tweet tweet tweet*

We talk about have data plan on our phones (smartphones at that). Why data is so vital these days? Few points.

1. Because with data plan we can tweet.


very important feature


2. We can log onto our msn on our phones when we're on the go, without needing to turn on our laptops.

3. We can check our emails whenever we want. No better, we can have push emails. You'll get notified when you receive any form of email at all.

4. We can still update and do all the other social networking stuff like Facebook-ing, Myspace-ing, etc.


It's all about mobility these days. I mean, I guess that's why I've been away from my laptop for so long, because I can access all my internet cravings all day long on my palm.


Okay, not that kind of Palm. That's "The Palm" in your face.


If you're an Xpax user and own a Blackberry, to subscribe type BBON and send to 28882.

Opt for RM2.50 per day unlimited data access and if you subscribed for it for 5 consecutive weekdays, you get the weekend data for free!



It's their great sale so subscribe before the offer runs out.


Check out www.xpax.com.my/bigfreekinsale for more info.