This week's cooking: Lemon chicken! (RL, FFXI, WoW)

[thistlechaser]

Cooking: I know I said I wasn't going to do anything other than follow the recipes word for word until I get better at this, but tonight I had to make an exception. I wanted to make lemon chicken, but the recipe said to deep fry the chicken and I'm doing this to try to be healthy... so no deep frying. Looking around online I found a different way to cook the chicken chicken part of it, though it was still fried. The sauce I followed word for word (even though it called for five tablespoons of sugar -- gah!).

Ewww~ I touched raw chicken! I touched it a lot! I cut them in half so they'd be only half as thick, then put them in flour, then tossed them into a frying pan with a little heated oil. So it's still fried, but not deep fried? I guess it was because of the flour that they got nice and golden and crispy on the outside? Mmmmm.

The sauce was simple. A ton of sugar, some lemon, and some rice vinegar (which I hope is the same as rice wine vinegar, I couldn't find one with 'wine' in the name), water, and some corn starch (called for potato starch, but I couldn't find that either). The sauce didn't get thick until after I had eaten and it cooled, so it was a tad more runny than it should have been, but boy was it good.

I forgot to salt and pepper the chicken, but it still tasted wonderful so I guess 5 tablespoons of sugar will cover a lot of errors. :P

A! I'd have given it an A+ if it had been done with less sugar and maybe baking the chicken instead of pan frying. Amazingly yummy (I had a hard time not eating the leftovers!), if not as healthy as I would have liked.

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FFXI/WoW: On Friday night I had FFXI stuff to write about, but now I've totally forgotten what they were. c.c I suppose it was Damask finishing his crafting (gold and alchemy subs done) so I never have to skill crafting again. (Though at some point he might need his leather sub done, so we'll see at that time.)

I finally turned WoW back on. I still don't feel like playing it, but as I don't feel like playing FFXI either I'm rather bored. I bought the two expansions as well, so I'm finally up to date. (Nai took me around and showed me new cities and stuff!)

Saturday I returned to the game as 50, today I'm nearly 53 (all that done with rested XP). I'm the slowest leveler ever~ I hate XPing, but... there's not much more to do than that. Still, I get to fly around and I have my kittypet back, so I'm happy enough.

Once I hit 55 I'm going to make a Death Knight on the server all the ex-FFXI LS folks are on.

Comments

[mreh.livejournal.com]

If you're still looking for a lemon chicken recipe, I think I have one lying around that is great for baked chicken instead of fried. Its really tasty and my whole family loves it. :o

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oh that'd be great, thank you! Baked would be perfect, yay for more healthy!

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Death knight will make you feel like the other classes are going in slow motion when you level! The first part of death knight is basically all storyline to help get you talents and gear you wouldn't have since you started at 55. By the time you get out of the Death Knight starter area you will basically be of level to goto outlands! Yay!

Just something to go by, when your near the end of the DK quest line and you have to go fight some people at a chapel if you go there and they are just standing there telling you that you can complete the quest then don't. Wait it out, it's the last quest in the line and there is a huge epic battle involved and even an in-game "cut scene".

Also, I would suggest blood spec as far as your talents go. You do a lot of damage and you get HP back for all that damage you do and you get healing moves. It's very fast for leveling and with all your cures and healing you can solo things really easy and have like no down time!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yay thanks for the info! I always wonder how other jobs do all their soloing (I'm Hunter so it's easy~!).

Wow, in-game CSs in WoW? That'll be a first for me!

Eek! I've never been to Outlands yet!

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

The best way I could describe the cut scene is like. If you took a cut scene in FFXI except made it so you were still playing your character and were still in control of your camera and anything. It's like, not as nicely a presentated version of an FFXI cut scene, no fancy camera angles or stuff like that.

It happens a fire times in the game overall I've found but they aren't nearly as mentionable or memorable as FFXI ones. If you're into the lore of WoW they are probably awesome. But if you aren't they are just annoying. At least the FFXI variety is generally good even if you don't really care to much for the story.

Although there is one straight up cut scene in dragonblight in northrend but your a ways away from that :P

[kelen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been putting off DK for months. Everyone else was leveling one, so I avoided it.. but now that I'm trying it. Wow. It's effortless. Quests I used to dread doing were quick and easy on Dk. It's a slaughter machine. (One zone in Outland I started at one end, with one quest, and slaughtered to the other side.. doing like ten quests in twenty minutes.)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Wow, that sounds good! I'm attached to my hunter, but I'm interested to try DK, too. :D

[kelen.livejournal.com]

Do keep in mind that I've leveled five characters over 70. ;) I know where to go and what to do. Mileage may vary.
Still, it's been the easiest class to level. The opening quests give you great starting gear, you get your level 60 mount at 55 for free, and getting to head to Outland after the opening quest chain rocks. More xp in Outland, and you can make far more gold then oldworld. Felt like 'Here, have a freebee.' Only way to level faster is by buying the x3 experience stuff.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Do keep in mind that I've leveled five characters over 70. ;) I know where to go and what to do. Mileage may vary.

Oh, for sure. It's interesting how different my experiences are between FFXI and WoW. In XI I know not only exactly what zones to go when when, I know where in the zone would be good. In WoW I have only the barest sense of how the world is set up, let alone which zone is good when, where zones are next to each other, etc. One would think it'd be bad to know so little, but it's actually kind of fun. Everything's new, it's nice having to figure things out and not be bored by everything.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the lack of CSs in WoW confused me for a long time. People claimed there was storyline in WoW and I kept scratching my head. They'd say "Maybe you're not high enough to see it?" And I'd point out I'm 50...

Apparently that text you get when you accept a quest is the storyline they meant. c.c

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Ya WoWs storyline is more like a classic fantasy story like Conan or DnD storyline. All text with very little visual and a lot of like; Bob, son of Steve, king of the Joes, half cousin of Frank. Lineage and backstory kind of stuff.

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in Northrend, there's one questline that when you finish, it gives you a pretty good CS. From what I've read, they're planning on putting more CS in the game in the future.

And like Vel said, wait until the charge of the chapel starts to go and don't end it until you see all the shinies that happen. That CS I mentioned before, a couple quests after that also has an event that you'll want to wait for the reset before you do.

And now I'm tempted to play Alliance Guttler because I want to see the questline all over again. D=

[doxxxicle.livejournal.com]

I always wonder how other jobs do all their soloing (I'm Hunter so it's easy~!).

We have to work harder. And we tend to die a fair bit.

I agree with all the others here and say Death Knight is quite easy to level solo. However, it is hard to master at the raider level to maximize your damage output due to the complexities of its rune system.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

And we tend to die a fair bit.

Up until last night, I was very pleased with how little I had been dying. (I know it doesn't matter much in WoW, but FFXI makes dying annoy me a whole lot). I feel bad when my cat dies to save me, but it does keep me from dying more than I do.

[tharpy.livejournal.com]

If you do a boneless chicken breast and marinate it lemon pepper, then bake it, it works out to be yummy.

I'm not sure long though.. i bake it until it gets a nice golden brown top. I think that takes around 30-40 mins

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Baking (I almost typed bacon, which would be accurate, too!) is how I want to go!

[wanderingscribe.livejournal.com]

Tip: If you have a really thick piece of chicken, you can also pound it flat. It'll cook faster and, in my opinion, it's easier than cutting a slippery piece of chicken in half.

To do that, just get two pieces of saran wrap, oil them with some olive or other oil, lay one on a flat surface oil side up, and put the chicken on top. Put the other piece of plastic, oil side down, on the top of the chicken and pound away with a mallet until it's the consistency you want.

As for rice vinegar vs. rice wine vinegar, this (http://www.ochef.com/595.htm) article says that they're not the same, but can be switched in recipes.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oh, pounding it is a good idea! And woo, thanks for the link. *reads*