Leftovers

We had plenty of leftovers from last night's dinner of balsamic chicken, asparagus, mushrooms, and pasta, so I tossed it all together, drizzled some balsamic vinegar over the lot, and took it to work. That was lunch AND dinner, as I had to stay late to coordinate an office move. The pasta, by the way, was not the spinach tortellini, but some whole wheat penne pasta that I'd made as an alternative for the non-spinach lovers of the house -- turns out they're non-whole-wheat-pasta people too, dammit. Oh well, more for me. It was great at room temperature. Of course, considering my alternative was microwave popcorn, I'm probably a little less than objective.

Now I'm pondering what to do with the whole cut-up chicken that's in my refrigerator. If I was properly motivated (which I'm not), I'd prepare something the night before that could be popped into oven tomorrow, but it's 10:15 p.m., and I'm comfortable on the sofa with my laptop. However, a cut-up chicken doesn't take too long to cook (about 45 minutes at 375 degrees), so I may just partially bake it tomorrow evening and then pop it on the grill with one of those wood chip packets and some barbecue sauce. I think that will work nicely and won't be too much trouble, especially if I can persuade the first person home (not I) to pop some potatoes in a 400 degree oven (30 minutes on each side and you have a nice baked potato). There's fresh corn in the fridge, so I'll drop a few ears in a pot of boiling water, cover it until it comes to a rolling boil, and then shut off the pot. You can leave it for up to 30 minutes like that and have perfectly cooked corn when you're ready to serve it.

Sounds like I'm ahead of the game for a change! Which probably means that something will go wrong . . . .