January plaugue

i've been sick the last few days, with the January plaugue. you know the one everyone gets from all the hugging and kissing on New YEars Eve, then spends the next two weeks passing around to their family & friends? yuck. lots of chicken soup (yes, out a can, i suck, i know), and lemon and honey tea.

but my hubby has promised me some Caper Chicken this evening. even better, i think i'm feeling good enough to eat it.

Caper Chicken

3 or 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/4 cup flour heavily spiced with pepper and salt
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp oil
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1/2 cup white wine
2 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
3-4 tbsp capers
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp basil, freshly chopped in possible
prepared linguine

dredge chicken breasts in flour. heat butter and oil in a non-stick pan, and sautee breasts 4-6 minutes on each side. remove to a plate, and keep warm by covering with tin foil. you should still have some oil or fat in the pan. add the green onions, and cook one minute, scraping all the good bits off the bottom of the pan. add the wine, and bring mixture to a boil, until the wine is mostly boiled away. now add the tomatoes, capers, and garlic, and stir together. simmer until thickened.

put some linguine on a plate, put the chicken on top, and pour the sauce on top of the chicken. garnish with basil.

maybe it's because i haven't been feeling good, but i've been less than impressed with both Charlie Stross's Merchant Princes series, and Maggie Anton's Rashi's Daughter.

Merchant Princes. . . enjoyable, but i must just be cranky, because i'm not rushing out to get the next book in the series. Stross's writing is tight, as usual, characters are decently developed, i'm just having trouble caring. i wish he would spend more time explaining how things work in the other worlds. Yes, i understand Miriam doesn't understand how things work there, but give her (and me) a tourguide so we don't feel so damn lost. maybe i just need to read them again. i do have this problem with detail retention.

Rashi's Daughter - you know what? life in the middle ages was really fricken' boring. more so if you were female. so i can't completely blame the author for how uninspiring i find this book. Sure, Rashi himself has plenty of interesting things to say, but his daughters? they get up, they help the servants, they work on the farm, they grow up, they get married. the end. that's the problem with biopics of historic women - they really didn't do much. sorry.

meanwhile, i'm spending my sick time reading Fullmetal Alchemist and any other manga I can get my hands on.