My mom and sister took serious beef with me talking about how I remember none of us really liking black-eyed peas. Some people develop allergies when they grow up, I guess my brother and sister developed a palate for peas; apparently the whole family had multiple helpings yesterday. All I can say is I hope they collectively ate 365 extra beady-eyes for me.

And while we are talking about growing up, evidently, I’m not. I was in a groove, getting into the weights portion of my workout today when I was approached by a sweet 74 year old man. He said, “oh you’re doing well, how old are you?” When I revealed I was well beyond puberty, he looked astonished and said, “oh my, you look like you’re sixteen.” So I guess I was doing well (whatever that means) for a sixteen year old? Haha, I’ll take it. At nineteen the young-looking comments bothered me, but at twenty-four I’m able to brush ’em right off. Who knows, maybe when I’m thirty-eight I’ll finally look twenty-four; wouldn’t that be fun!

Anyhow, I chatted with my new gym friend for twenty minutes about everything from his age, to his friend who qualified for the olympics in breast stroke the year that Jimmy Carter decided the USA would boycott the games, to his granddaughter who has been visiting the Obama’s Hawaii vacation spot to lead Zumba for the First Lady and her daughters, to his ultra-athlete son who just ran thirty miles/day for an unknown number of days until he and six other men completed a full lap around the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa. Thirty miles a day! That’s pretty impressive. He said that the National Geographic Channel will be showcasing the adventure sometime in February. Needless to say, we hit it off and I’m looking forward to seeing he and his wife there in the future. What an adorable couple. And so fit for their mid-70’s! We should all take notes from them.

On to what we had for dinner. I recently bought some soy sauce and sesame oil because once our household goods arrive, we have all the gear to make homemade sushi. Never hurts to stock up when the prices look good. Even though we can’t make sushi yet, I figured why not crack into the new ingredients? I did a quick google search for soy chicken and came across a maple-soy chicken recipe from Cooking Light. Daniel likes Eggo waffles so we have maple syrup, and I just happened to have some unused ginger root. Those are the only two slightly non-core ingredients on the list, and I had them both – it was meant to be! Oh, but I didn’t have orange juice, so I used three small clementines. Seemed to work just fine.

maple-soy chicken cutlets with roasted vegetables

The marinade took about five minutes to whip up, then I just rinsed and dried the chicken cutlets and nestled them into the marinade. They sat in the fridge for about an hour and a half. Next time I make this, I’ll do it with the full chicken breast, sear it on a grill pan, then bake it. I was worried that if I seared the cutlets, then baked them, they would be cooked to death. Either way, we really enjoyed the semi-sweet sauce and agreed it would probably work well on beef, pork, and even tofu.

chicken getting cozy

marinade reduction

veggies ready to steam in the microwave before roasting

In addition to using full chicken breasts, next time I’ll try a low sugar syrup and let you know how it works!