Blackened Chicken

Apparently, I cannot cook chicken on the grill. This was not my first attempt, but it was my first failure. Or so I thought. I combined some olive oil and spices in a bag and then put my chicken breasts in to marinate while the grill heated up. We just got our grill back last weekend and I have been diligent (to the point of obsession) in using it.

I hope that by entitling this "Blackened Chicken" you weren't expecting or hoping for some spectacular recipe for actual Blackened Chicken. No, my chicken was blackened because the marinade I put on it caught fire once I put the chicken on the grill. And this caused some of the chicken to look like it had soot coating it. It did not look appetizing, to say the least. My seven good chicken breasts became five questionable chicken breasts. Two of them were completely ruined. I turned the grill down to low, hoping this would help matters. It did not. Instead, it just sort of 'heated' my chicken breasts. After 20 minutes, the chicken wasn't anywhere near done. I turned the heat up to high and decided to just let it go and see what happened.

My husband came home about this time and was just as concerned about the weird looking chicken as I was. So he ordered Chinese, because I still haven't learned how to cope without good comfort food. There are two reasons that I am writing this.

Reason #1 - I have finally figured out how I will portion out my yeast-free days and my not so yeast-free days. Instead of having a whole day or two of 'freedom' I am going to segment it. I am going to allow myself 3 meals per week that can have yeast (but no sugar)and only 2 meals each week that contain sugar. Tonight I had my first meal of the week that was yeast-filled. I only have one meal like that left to last me until Sunday (and it will be used on Saturday when we go to the kids' school carnival), but I still have 3 meals that could contain gluten if I wanted them to. As my husband and I have continued to try to hammer out a plan that will give me the greatest chance of success, this is what we came up with. I will have a total of 5 meals each week (out of 21) that I can relax a little bit on.

Oh and I have decided that there are a few items that will just be allowed on my yeast-free diet. It's not the true Candida-friendly way, but it is going to be my way. Those items are: Ketchup, BBQ sauce (in moderation) and Salad Dressing (sugar free and in moderation). I do hope to get to a point where I can make my own ketchup and BBQ sauce (and maybe salad dressing) that are yeast-free, but they have to taste good too and so it isn't going to be a quick fix. I haven't done a great job at tracking my Weight Watcher points, though I have at least calculated how much the foods are. I'm still waiting on my husband to finish designing a Facebook application for me to track everything.

Reason #2 - After the drama surrounding the chicken, I was pretty frustrated. I came home from work determined to clean the dining room and kitchen, make a healthy dinner, and make my favorite little yeast-free Coconut Macaroons for dessert and/or breakfast. I got as far as the kitchen and dining room clean and the chicken on the grill. Once the chicken decided to rebel however, I lost all motivation and drive. Instead, I just wanted to cry.

But the ironic thing is that in the end, I was able to salvage 5 pieces of the chicken. And it still tasted good. So I thought we could take that for lunch tomorrow. But then I realized I would need something else to eat with it. Remembering I had some brown rice I wanted to try, I decided to make some of that to pair with the chicken. So...for dinner, I had Chinese chicken and rice and will end up having chicken and rice again (this time yeast-free) for lunch tomorrow. I got myself so worked up about my grilled chicken that we ordered Chinese and I wound up making two of the basic Chinese foods anyway.