Chicken Tuscany, a little bit of rock

Non-melty cheese. Such potential.

Sometimes, when I need to bribe people, I entice them with the promise of a home-cooked meal. This usually only works when it wouldn't have taken much persuasion to get my way in the first place, but it does give me a reason to cook for other people. Win!

Having my friend Maverick over before he gave me a ride out to Arrested Development night allowed me to try out a recipe I'd seen over on The Food In My Beard - a tempting dish called chicken Tuscany.

I can't figure out why this is so blurry. Camera?

Chicken Tuscany

2 large red peppers
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts halves
1 teaspoon olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup fresh spinach, chopped
5 ounces mozzarella cheese, grated
provolone to top

1. Preheat broiler. Cut tops off the red peppers and remove seeds and
membrane. Roast peppers by placing under the broiler briefly and turning
several times until skin is slightly singed. Remove peppers from the
oven and let cool.

2. Lay the chicken flat between two sheets of wax paper. Using the side
of a mallet or cleaver, pound chicken until it’s about 1/4-inch thick.
Moisten each breast with 1/2 teaspoon olive oil and sprinkle with salt
and pepper. Cover each breast with 1/4 cup chopped spinach and 1/2 cup
mozzarella cheese. Tightly roll up chicken breasts and place in roasted
peppers. (Chicken can be prepared up to this point several hours in
advance and kept in the refrigerator until you are ready to start
dinner.)

3. Cook at 350 F for 45-50 minutes. Take out peppers. Place 2 additional
tablespoons of provolone cheese on top of each pepper. Place under the broiler and
cook until cheese is melted, about 5 minutes.

Hey, what's with that shirt?

I cooked it up with a side dish of saffron rice with golden raisins. That one was sort of improvised - just made in a rice cooker with chicken broth instead of water, some spices including saffron, and golden raisins. Um, ta da.

Man that was tasty.

The dish turned out really nicely - lots of melty cheese, the pepper was tender and fragrant, and the chicken was perfectly cooked. Just don't do what I did and forget to turn the oven on for a half hour. That will tend to extend your cooktime by a half hour. And make you look like an idiot.

WHOA!

So even though we were late, it was probably worth it. And by the way, if you want a great show, check out Baranof in Greenlake for karaoke.

And speaking of great shows, I also got to check out the Truckasaurus CD release party at Nectar. Wanna see some pictures? Yeah you do!

Skinny intensity.

Past Lives: They reminded me a lot of If Looks Could Kill I'd Watch You Die. Nobody reading this will get that reference.

Jazzy intensity.

Dead Science: I've loved this band for a while now. Their music is unlike anything else I've heard - beautiful, lush melodies and haunting, ethereal vocals. They're incredible musicians.

Patriotic intensity.

Truckasaurus: See how they look? That's not at all how they sound. It's a little electronicey, a little video gamey, a little dancey. Plus, they pair it with a show on a projector, kind of like Head Like a Kite. Super cool show.

May 25 - Picnic, breakfast, and rock shows

My, what a lovely place to queue.

The picture above is the reason I am no longer interested in SIFF. I went to one of the films last year and spent way too much time standing around the block from the theatre. And this is with pre-purchased tickets. More like Seattle International Standing-in-Line Festival. HA!

So instead of waiting around for hours to see a maybe brilliant movie, I opted to have a lovely picnic in the park to take advantage of the (now sorely missed) beautiful springtime weather.

Tiny!

Since my friend Carlo was visiting from the West coast, I thought perhaps I'd take him to the god of sandwiches to experience some sense-obliterating delicious.

After picking up our bag of golden tastiness from Paseo, we walked a few blocks to picnic on the grass outside of the Woodland Park Zoo. As much as I longed to go into the zoo and point at all the animals, the lovely weather has a tendency to bring out the rugrat-toting families, so we kept it to the front lawn.

There's a metaphor for life in here somewhere.

As expected, I heard very little in the way of conversation from Carlo as he nommed down his Cuban press sandwich. This is standard operating procedure - I know people don't expect words to come out of my mouth when it's filled with slow-roasted pork and caramelized onions.

I love chomp photos.

Moos and I enjoyed our sandwiches similarly.

Looking at these pictures is seriously depressing me, considering the cosmic shame that's been raining down upon our heads here in the Pacific Northwest of late. Oh, how I miss May. . . As soon as the weather stops hating me you can bet I'll be taking a book and a tasty beverage to the nearest park to take advantage.

Don't worry, we disposed of it properly.

Since Carlo was just passing through town on his way to the Great White North, we saw him off the next day with breakfast at the newly renamed Table 219. It used to be El Greco, but I think they did something and wanted people to take notice. I kind of miss the old name, because it made me think of that weird Spanish painter guy.

No longer Greco. Or in Spanish.

Luckily, they're still serving El Greco's sweet-ass brunch menu. Man I love brunch. And I'm not sure why, because I always get the breakfasty food rather than the breakfast/lunch hybrid foods. I guess it's because I can continue to do so until 3:00 in the afternoon.

The feta scramble called my name from the menu, and it ended up being a hot mess of cheese, tomatoes, and eggs all brutalized into a breakfast mass of delicious. I'm also a fan of their breakfast seasoned potatoes, but I could pretty much add potatoes to any meal and consider it an improvement.

Eggs in scrambled formation!

The eggs also come in the slightly more refined omelette format. I've never really understood the salsa/sour cream on eggs phenomenon, but I guess it has its place in the breakfast world. Or so I'm told.

Eggs in omelette formation!

It became clear to me as our meal progressed that I made a mistake in not getting the pancakes du jour, which this jour happened to be banana/chocolate chip. Kickass. They were light, fluffy, and freaking delicious - or so I noticed from the bites that I stole from Moos's plate. Mmmm. . . pancakes! The chickeny sausage was weird, but I always get weirded out by poultry in sausage form. It's a strange concept for me to grasp.

Eggs in upstaged-by-pancakes formation!

Since I am recently unemployed, I've been putting off getting a Pro Flickr account. This means that I have a ton of concert photos I've taken that are getting posted nowhere, which is sad for me. And the world. So I'm going to put some here. Check it!

On May 23rd, I got to check out a couple of bands at Nectar -

Walter Meego - they opened up the show, and were a surprise winner that night. I had no idea they were going to be there, and they pretty much kicked ass. Their music is great, but their live show goes way beyond what I had expected after having heard a couple of songs on the KEXP. I'd definitely suggest checking them out, if you're in the position to do so.

It was raining circular ghosts.

The Presets: As they were the headlining band for the evening, I was pretty jazzed about getting to see them rock out. I'd heard amazing things from people who'd seen them live before, and I was ready to shake a tailfeather. Unfortunately, by the time they went on I was pretty tipsy and kind of danced out, but I was mostly won over by their stage show. The drummer/keyboard guy was awesome, by the way.

The green wire! No, wait, the red one!!

My very favorite Seattle-area musician had a show at The Comet on the 28th, so I put aside my issues with the place and went.

Baby Panda: Paul, the lovely/amazing frontman, has toyed with the live format of the band a little bit. He had dropped the full band in favor of a two guitar approach, with the occasional backing track provided by an mp3 device. It was a little different, but Paul's vocals shine in pretty much any situation.

He sings quietly to my heart.

Counselor: I actually really liked their sound. It was more straightforward rock stuff, and I can't for the life of me find them on the interwebs, so my description ends there. And with saying that I loved the lead singer's tattoos.

What's the drummer doing??

The Uprights: I was ready to love this band after I'd seen their adorable publicity photos on their website. So cute. And they were really good! Sadly, I couldn't stay for their entire set, but you can bet I'll go out of my way to see them the next time they're playing around town.

So cute!!

Hopefully I'll find myself with more money soon, so I can give some to Flickr and get a real place to post my concert photos. Sigh.