Hot Wings

So yesterday was Fathers Day. I wanted to make a special dinner for my boyfriend. He happens to love hot wings. So I go searching for recipes all over the web and can't really find a great one so I make mine up with all that I found, plus used some friend recommendations.

Now, I'm not the biggest fan of hot wings (Tabasco ~ ewww) but I found a recipe that was light on the sauce and here is what I came up with (by the way, I'm not much for measuring and stuff either, I just added what looked right):
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2lbs chicken breast meat, sliced into small bite size bits(wings are not meaty enough, I prefer chicken boobs!!!)
2 lemons - juiced and seeded
a dash of sea salt
a dash of lemon zest

Let the chicken bits marinade in the lemon mixture for about 5-10 mins or while you're making the next bit of this concoction.
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1 Jalapeno (boiled in a microwave to soften) (Slice this or stick it in the food processor)
1 cup of Franks Red Hot sauce
1 tbsp of Louisiana Hot Sauce
1 tbsp of Chipotle Tabasco
1 tbsp of Vietnamese Hot Sause (it's in the asian food aisle)
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup of ketchup
a dash of garlic powder
a dash of Worcestershire sauce

Take the chicken bits out of the lemon bath and tumble them around so that all the chicken bits are covered in the red sauce. I let the chicken bits sit while I did this next part, but I'm sure you can cook them right away.
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While the chicken was marinating I also cut up my celery, carrots and blue cheese. I also pre-heated the oven for some bread stix. Once the oven was ready I cooked the chicken in a skillet for about 15-20 mins (the same amount of time to cook the bread). Add a bit of grapeseed oil to coat the pan for the chicken or the other internet recipes suggest butter. When the chicken looks finished then add in a bit of corn starch to thicken the sause since the cooking will make it watery. I prob didn't add anymore than 1 small spoonful of the starch.
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By now the bread should be ready, and so should your hot wings! Enjoy! I was definately impressed with this recipe since I am not the biggest fan of chicken, especially hot wings. I was giving my plate dirty looks but when I finally took a bite, I was impressed! If you try this out, I hope you enjoy this as much as we did. Too bad I didn't take any pix :)

Sex Change

So I got this new kitty last week. His name was Prince, but now his name is Breeny. Because he really is a HE, it turns out that my orange cat Auggie is not a HE but is a SHE. So now we have to try to call her Audry and it's not easy. It's also not easy to stop calling HIM a HE and switch to calling HER a SHE.

Now somebody might ask why did you you think that Ms. Audry is a she and not a he? Well there are a few reasons, one is the urban myth that ALL orange kitties are MALE, but see a few years back I had this cat named Cutie that was orange and WAS a female ~ so I should have not assumed that. The other reason Audry was assumed to be male is because of her size. She's 12lbs, plus she has this thing for humping the places before she lays down. (Audry is my first cat out of six that did that)(Breeny does this too now)(he also likes to do this with dirty clothes).

Sam, my boyfriend would say over and over that Auggie was not a boy, but a girl. This is also the other reason that I assumed Auggie was a boy and not a girl, was because the VET told me he was a BOY. I guess that because I never (until Breeny) had a boy cat that I never knew what a boy cat looked like (under the tail) But see, I never really bothered to "look" at Auggies area, because when he would go to the box, he was sooooo messy compared to Cinders.

The last reason, NOBODY that ever came over and saw my friendly cats EVER said, or corrected me that Audry was a girl and not a boy. Now unless the California vets here do something barbaric and make the boys looks like girls (poor kitties) I'm going to have to think that Audry is a girl from now on, my only problem is getting used to him being a girl now and not a boy. lol.

Here's my kitties, you can see more of them on flickr

There's no place like home. . . .

and being in your own house, bathing in your own shower, sleeping in your own bed, cooking in your own kitchen and just "being" I'm going thru the whole nesting phase right now, even though it's clean, I'm still cleaning up, but it's gonna take a while. Damn these big houses.

My kitties are adjusting to the newest addition. We finally named him. His original name was Prince Charming, but well, no. That name just won't fly. My neice said that after she saw Shrek 2 she didn't care for the name either, so his new name is Breeny. Named for his one blue and one green eye ~ and just subderfudged Breeny was what came from that. So when anybody asks, his long name is Prince Breeny Charming. lol. Breeny for short. i'll post pix of him and the other two soon.

You know how sometimes, you make yourself so nervous because you dread something, then when it happens you realize it was not worth stressing over. Well that happened to me and it wasn't worth stressing over.

I bought some new herbs for my backyard. They're make great fresh tea too. For some reason there are this very large colony of snails camped out in my small patch of green grass, so the gardners came out today and replaced all the dead eaten grass with new grass. It looks funny to see these patches of new grass mixed in with the old, with these dirt moats around the new areas. I saw some flowers that I wanted that are supposed to attract humingbirds and butterflys, but since I couldnt find a HB feeder, the seeds stayed at the store.

My brothers new wife called me to tell me they got married yesterday. If you want to buy him a present, you can go here:
Daniel & Gracies Target Gifts
I'm sure they will both appreciate it.

Home again!

I am finally back to my "Home" and it's so nice to be back. I missed the nice cool breeze, the saltwater air, the mountains, my boyfriend, our cats and all the other little things. I'll post more later for those that are interested. I'm sleepy and it took me a while to get my apple out of the bag.

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Look how scrawny he was when I got him!!! Poor kitty. Now he eats like every meal is his last. He's gained about 2lbs and acts like a little punk with my other two kitties.