We have some friends here that don’t cook. At all. So of course when I invited one of them over to see the new place I opted to grace them with a home-cooked meal. There are a few things that I cook very well. They are usually dishes that are hard to mess up, staples that I put my own personal touch on by making slight changes. But who feels like boring same old same old, right?

I learned to cook sort of through the restaurants. I liked the guys that created the evening special out of whatever there was too much of, but made it delicious. What I never was good at was following a recipe. But I tried the other night, and made a Balsamic Vinegar Chicken recipe I found online. I followed it very closely.

I stir fried veggies according to their stir fry directions. The chicken marinated well and was super moist, but the recipe was put online by a lady who admitted she was sick of eating “chicken that didn’t taste like anything”. Well, lady, your chicken didn’t taste like much either. We decided a sauce of some sort would have helped. My stir fry veggies got wimpy instead of crispy. I don’t know what I did wrong. Of course I didn’t take a picture, there wasn’t much to see. Here’s hoping my friends aren’t all “No thanks!” the next time I invite them over!

In case the title confused you...