Since my last post, I have done another 5 or 6 loads.. I have an 9 foot long dining room table that at one point today was completely full of stacks of clothes that were all at least 2 feet high. The Kids came in from school and one of them said "Look! The Laundry Fairy came". LOL This is a standing joke around our house.. Whenever I let the laundry go for a while and it is overflowing the hampers and no one has anthing to wear.. which is uhmm.. "quite often" *cough* ahem. Well anyway, whenever I go into laundry renegade mode and do 15 to 20 loads of laundry over a two day period (now remember..we're a family of SEVEN..looooots of laundry).. DH will say "The Laundry Fairy came" when the kids are around.. and when their not.. our private joke is "Hey look, Baby.. that bitch that does our laundry finally showed up!!!" LOL Sometimes I beat him to the punch. LOL

So I made Chicken Marsala tonight.. For the first time ever, actually. I've just never bothered to *look* in the wine section for Marsala wine.. and knew better than to get "cooking wine". Well, at The Grocery (I swear, it's my favorite place.. so many pretty things lol ) that has all my special ingredients that the regular store doesn't carry (fresh basil, low carb pasta, san marzano tomatoes, The Husbands low carb diabetes friendly milk.. and special sauces).. Well, my regular grocery store (Ok, I give.. it's walmart.. damnit, they're cheap and we're a big family) does not carry table worthy marsala wine.. so I've never made Chicken Marsala. Well The Grocery.. the one with an entire section of hundreds of imported cheeses *swoon*... happens to carry a couple of different kinds of Marsala so I grabbed it on my specialty item trip.

Okay.. can you tell I *really* like the grocery store? I mean I just wrote an entire paragraph talking about the things I like getting each week but can't find all in one spot. LOL That's kinda sad. LOL

Okay.. back to making Chicken Marsala. I consulted a couple of different recipes but didn't print anything out. I wanted to just go for it and see what I came up with. That's how my devine tomato sauce came to be.. And I've done it again! I measured stuff as I was going.. to keep track of it to write my own version over at Allrecipes.com. It was really easy, and to my amazement.. ALL the kids loved it. Even Justin.. The Pickiest Eater In All The Land...

Here's what I did. These notes are more for me, so I can remember what I did when I put it into actual recipe format... Jamie, you get my recipe writing style, so this'll probably make sense to you :)

I cut chicken breasts into medallions..lay it straight up and down and then cut it in half horizontally then lightly pound the thicker half so they are all the same thickeness. Season with salt and pepper and dredged through some seasoned flour. Shake off the excess and brown in olive oil over medium high heat until they're golden brown on each side.. turning just once and not fussing with them while they are cooking. Leave 'em alone for a least 4 minutes before peeking to see if they're getting brown. My family is large so I did this in two batches. Remove the chicken to paper towel. Add more olive oil to the pan to coat the bottom and crank the heat to screamin high.. then toss in some sliced baby portabella mushrooms. DO NOT SALT THESE YET! Lay them all flat in the pan and leave them alone for 2 or 3 minutes until they get really golden.. then stir them around to turn them over and brown up the other side. Once they're golden salt them with a pinch or two and grind in some pepper then grate in 3 or 4 cloves of garlic. Give it all a stir, be careful not to burn the garlic. Return the chicken to the pan and pour about a cup of sweet marsala wine into the pan to deglaze it. Add in about 1/2 to 3/4 cup chicken or beef broth, a handful of rough chopped fresh basil (a lot of people say to use parsley, but I like basil better)...Give it a taste and adjust seasonings as needed. I like a sweet Chicken Marsala because I'm a big fan of sweet and savory.. especially with pasta. So, at this point I would add a pinch or two of sugar if the wine isn't sweet enough. Give it all a good stir, pop a lid on the pan.. off to the side a bit to let some of the steam out.. Simmer it on medium-low for 20 minutes.. While it's simmering, boil up some linguini in heavily salted water. When it's al dente, drain it and toss with a few tablespoons of butter and a handful of chopped fresh parsley. When the sauce has reduced and thickened up nicely, stir in a couple tablespoons of butter (REAL butter, if you don't have it, just skip this... you're doing this for creaminess)and turn off the heat. Serve the chicken medaleons and sauce on top of the cooked pasta.. make sure to put enough sauce on each plate to coat the noodles well.. it's a YUMMY sauce. If ya make it, enjoy!!!

In the time since I started this novel..I think the dryer has finished. One more load before turning in, I think. :) Yep.. The Laundry Fairy was definitly here today. So was The Yummy Food Fairy ;)