Lemony Garlic Chicken Noodles for the Soul

It’s a combination that is hailed and heralded in almost every culture (that I am familiar with at least)—lemon, garlic, pepper.  The Tang, the Flavor, the Bite. Sour, Savory, Spicy.  Triple S.  Ah, good times indeed.

Even far back in those decadent days of cooking all pasta all the time in college, just with varying kinds of chicken (yeah I wasn’t breaking any boundaries back then, let me tell ya), I do recall my friend Tehniat’s fixation with lemon pepper chicken.  I was fairly decent at it back then, and I’ve improved on it now.  Using thinly sliced breast meat is key for these kinds of dishes, where I want to have diced chicken floating in a whirlpool of marinated (wheat!) pasta.  It’s been fun and easy to try different marinade ideas in the morning, and just cook it up rapidly at night.  Gives me a sense of calmness to have figured out dinner plans early in the day, so I can just sit and write and write and write and exercise and clean and write or try to write and read and read and clean some more and read and… yeah those are my days lately.  Writing, or searching for jobs actually.  Can be stressful.  So a simple dish like this will do a lot to help ones brain out.

Bean and Pepper Stew

Suddenly I have things to do—not a job per se, but still many a task at hand.  Irritatingly the Apartment association has decided to revamp the entrance and breezeways of all the buildings, which is lovely and kind of them, but also results in a large accumulation of dust inside my door.  Guess who gets to clean that on a regular basis? Yay.  I’m also trying to actually complete a short story or two for a couple of contests and whatnot, but Oy my mind doesn’t cooperate and constantly wants to change everything as I write it, blocking me from actually moving forward. I’m also going to begin contributing on a volunteer basis at the moment for a peer’s education-oriented website. If that goes somewhere, it could become a proper paid gig.  Have to start working on that asap.

And then there’s my beloved blog—no matter what, I intend to keep this going as a testament to my love for food, writing, and the sheer desire to not let it dwindle like so many other pursuits.   But obviously when times get a little busy, certain things have to get simpler.  Dinner last night, for example.  A bean and pepper stew that looks thicker than it actually was. But really quite good with some bhindi (okra) and naan for the boy.