Curry Chicken with Rice and Avocado

 After a short respite from the blogging world due to a conference call in the northeast, we are back with a cooking vengeance. Since our travels prohibited a trip to Trader Joes this week, we made due with the contents of our freezer where we discovered with delight a hunk of curried chicken waiting to be devoured. Bought during a previous shopping frenzy at Trader Joes for a little over $6, it cooked quickly after thawing. We accompanied the chicken with brown rice, also previously purchased in a TJs in the northeast. The rice took just as long to engorge itself in its pan as the chicken took to come...to fruition, about half an hour (wink), don't be jealous. We further added to the flavor of the meal with some avocado slices, bought on sale at TJs. The creamy texture of the avocados contributed to how smoothly the food went down.
 
Overall, the chicken was not as delicious as the previous blogged about mojito salmon but it gets points for being easy to make and for its intense flavor. We would definitely repurchase it and recommend it for a quick and healthy meal after class. The entire meal took no more than 30 minutes to complete. Thaw the chicken in advance for faster preparation, but we don't mind taking our time, nice and slow.

What's on Tap?
This week's beer selection was a big disappointment. Again found in the interstices of our fridge: Oktoberfest by Josephs Brau Brewing Co. was very bland. Good for light beer drinkers, perhaps, but overall not very satisfying. ** stars (not disgusting but certainly not worth repurchasing)


Food for thought:
On one of our numerous drives, we discovered a song on the radio, Mr. Saxo Beat, by Alexandra Stan. The lyrics perfectly resonate with our current academic lifestyle that requires taking dance breaks to restore energy. As Gramsci says, studying is a job and a very tiring one.

You make me this,
Bring me up,
Bring me down,
Playing sweet,
Make me move like a freak,
Mr. Saxo Beat.

What can we make of this? We are not quite sure besides its literal connotation but we are subjecting it to intent analysis as we type, rigorous analysis, like children studying a dead thing, again from the wisdom of Nino, aka Gramsci.

Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken

What started out as a very tough week attempting to fight the hegemonic discourses that be, climaxed in a dialectal fashion to our end goal: our best meal yet. As usual, we cooked in a very egalitarian fashion, making sure to not alienate ourselves from the product of our labor. Our set up included marinating the raw chicken breast with lemon, salt, pepper, and basil leaves. We then left the ingredients interpenetrate for about 5 minutes.  We put the chicken on a pan with minced garlic and a splash of olive oil. We covered the chicken and let it cook for a few minutes, flipping it over a few times to make sure that both sides obtained a perfect golden hue.

The fettuccine was the easy part--we wouldn't insult your skills in the kitchen by teaching you how to cook pasta. Be sure to heat up the alfredo sauce on a very low heat to prevent a volcanic eruption in your kitchen.  Mix everything together and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Cost: under $10 for 4 meals
Time preparation: 5 minutes prep and 25 minutes cooking time

Ingredients:
Fettuccine pasta (.5 lb)
Alfredo Sauce
Chicken Breast
Garlic-about 4 large cloves
Salt-a pinch
Pepper-a dash
Lemon-half a lemon
Basil leaves - a dash, crushed


Food for thought:
"The male industrialist continues to work even if he is a millionaire but his wife and daughters are turning more and more, into 'luxury mammals.'" (The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935, pg. 293).
Clearly, Mr. Gramsci, unlike Joan Scott, you fail to see how gender serves as a category of analysis to disentangle a unitary conception of class. You are helping to solidify women's roles as luxury mammals by failing to give women a more central role in the proletarian-led revolution that you call for and also failing to develop an analysis for how women too can break free from the chains of hegemony. What relational norms exist that lead some women to become so-called luxury mammals and what should she do to break free from mammalian bondage? And, what can be done to stop the young mammalian aspire-es from devolving into the full expression of their prognosticated condition.

What's on tap this week:
Unfortunately, due to an illness the only thing we are drinking is tea. :(