Sunday Dinner II

I made Sunday dinner last night as it was obviously Sunday. I had intentions of taking pictures, but by the time I finish cooking, I am too tired to nicely plate the food and photograph it--I only want to feed the grumbling masses. I am a bit dismayed by my lack of follow through, but there you have it.

Each Sunday is an experiment trying all new recipes and more often than not the product is good, but time beats me up. In fact the average Sunday dinner takes 2-4 hours of cooking and I know that my time management, organization skills and my cooking knowledge & experience could be honed to shorten the time. I am still a relative novice though prone to mistakes...not soaking beans the night before for instance.

Last night's meal:

Cayenne rubbed chicken breasts with avocado-onion salsa (cover recipe of January/February 2008 Everyday Food)
Ultimate Black Beans (February 2008 Cuisine at Home)
Sweet Potatoes with Honey-Lime Glaze (February 2008 Cuisine at Home)

I did experience a headache most of the time I was cooking the beans (begun around 3:30 and served at 8:00) because of the strong onion and garlic smell, but they were very tasty especially topped with queso fresco and few extra shakes of Tabasco.

The glaze for the roasted sweet potatoes was especially wonderful and I wonder if I could use it on nuts with the addition of some cayenne pepper....

As for the chicken breasts, I added much more rubbing seasoning the recipe called for (I ended up practically tripling it)--perhaps because the chicken breasts were large or just because I have a much heavier hand, but regardless of whether I added too much seasoning (according to my sister the chicken was too salty to her taste, but then again she likes less salt than many) or not the avocado salsa tempered the heat and saltiness perfectly (even in my sister's opinion).

In the end, I would happily eat any of the dishes again, although I may need to vacate the kitchen for most of the simmering of the beans or take pills before hand.