Hi, thanks for the bacon and cheese biscuit recipe! Seasonings for chicken are varied! A "don't" would be a sweet sticky sauce of some kind, because the sugary sauce would stick to the grill and burn. There are plenty of spices one can mix into a marinade with just a little oil, or rub on dry. I often sprinkle on a generous bit of lemon pepper seasoning, and rub it into the chicken breast. Alternatively, you could marinate the chicken in Italian dressing before grilling, or you could grill it plain and put barbecue sauce on it. Does that make sense? They even make bottles of marinades for grilling, but you can go a long way by mixing a little oil, some soy sauce, maybe some Worchestershire sauce, you get the picture. Put your marinade ingredients in a nonreactive (so glass or stainless steel) container, or even a large Ziplock bag, cover and-or seal tightly, and let the chicken soak in it for several hours before cooking, turning occasionally. Maybe look up chicken marinade recipes, or pull out some of the dried and ground spices from your pantry and experiment by rubbing them into the chicken.
As far as pancakes, mine never have come out perfectly round, but I choose either a half cup or a fourth cup measure, scoop out the batter, and aim at the middle of a small, lightly-greased, skillet. I always run into problems when dealing with drips. The dripped batter hits the skillet, forms tiny little crumbs, and those crumbs burn themselves and stick to the skillet. I don't own a square griddle, but I understand some who do use the four corners as a guide for placing pancakes a certain distance apart, by simply placing one pancake in each of the four corners. As far as knowing when to flip them, set a timer for 3 minutes. If you need to check them, you might touch the tops lightly, but I think this creates more drips. If using a larger skillet, placing a pancake at the left and another at the right edge might work. I run into the dripping problem with French toast as well if it isn't done when I flip it, or if some of the battered bread separates from the rest... As for the drippiness, I have tried scraping off the bottom of the cup on the edge of the bowl before dumping out the batter, but this just makes the drippy mixture run down the side of the bowl, so I don't know what to suggest there. The closest I have ever come to using a waffle iron is to use the removable plates on the George Foreman which are designed for waffles. Lightly spray the Foreman with cooking spray, or just barely drizzle on oil, pour the batter into the lower plate, close the lid, and set a timer for 20 minutes. No tactile peeking, or the waffle will separate into a top and bottom layer. I learned about that the hard way. Hope this helps a little, Jamey _______________________________________________ Cookinginthedark mailing list [email protected] http://acbradio.org/mailman/listinfo/cookinginthedark
