Poulet à la Réaménagement

A shout out to the Presto people.  Without this, we probably would have starved.

Assemble your batterie de cuisine --  electric skillet, one dinner fork, one spatula, one heavy coffee mug, one gallon sized freezer bag, one cardboard plate that is deep enough to hold a couple of fistfuls of flour (it would be a good idea before starting any of this to go upstairs and look for the flour).

Put a coffee-mugful of water and a tablespoon of butter in the electric skillet.  Turn it to 400° until it bubbles.  Pour in a bag of red potatoes, cut all to one size if necessary.  Sprinkle with salt, put the lid on the skillet, and turn it down to 200°.  Keep an eye on it for an hour or so, prodding the potatoes with the fork occasionally.  When they are done but still have a little firmness at the core, scoop them up and put into whatever microwave-proof bowl you can find in the disorder.

Freeze in place when power goes out to half the basement and wait for spousal unit to put down the power tools and descend to the basement to flip the circuit breaker. Agree that it would probably be a good idea to postpone the rest of the dinner prep until he's done.

Take two chicken breasts and while they are still partly frozen, slice them into two cutlets each.  Put them in the freezer bag, one at a time, and pound them to an even thickness with the coffee mug which you are using because the mallet is still in one of the old cabinets that have been pushed into the spare bedroom.  

Don’t break the mug.

Put a three quarters of a mug or so of flour – assuming you have found it -- in the cardboard plate and season with salt and pepper.  If you managed to locate the spice rack while you were looking for the flour, add a half teaspoon of dried and pulverized thyme.  Dredge the chicken cutlets in the seasoned flour.

Dump the water out of the electric skillet, wipe it out, and heat it to 350°.  Pour in a couple of dribbles of cooking oil.  Add a tablespoonful of butter.  When the butter foams, brown the chicken cutlets on both sides.  Turn the skillet down to 250°, push the cutlets to one side, add a jar of drained green beans (the can opener is still missing), cover and let cook for about five minutes, until the chicken is done and the beans are heated through.

Walk out to the other room and pop a few of the potatoes in the microwave that’s sitting on the table there, just long enough to reheat them.  Serve with the chicken and the green beans.  Save the rest of the potatoes and two of the chicken cutlets for tomorrow night so that you won’t have to go through all of this again.