Alice Springs Chicken

It's been crazy around the Homestead! Yesterday the sun finally broke through after 24 days of rain. My son and I filled two trailer loads of future compost ie. manure - who wants to shovel in the mucky rain?! I am so thankful we live in a predominantly sandy area. I can't imagine clay soil after so much rain: boggy, slippery, muddy with puddles to slop through everywhere!  Here, the water drains almost immediately. leaving just wet sand that tracks on our shoes - a minor grievance in comparison.  My biggest chore is keeping the feed buckets under cover so the hay doesn't get wet. Our barn space is limited so I try to keep the feed outdoors if possible. On days like these I find myself watching the radar and running to cover the troughs several times a day, but the bonus is - I haven't had to water gardens or planted pots or fruit trees or berry bushes for weeks - just the greenhouse.

In the meantime I've been working on indoor projects; mainly rearranging the entire house.  Remember these?

Not a Christmas would go by without finding one of these in our stockings.  The object of the game is to shuffle the numbers around until they are in numerical order.  This is exactly what rearranging my house is like.  Our first step was to disassemble the bunk beds in the kitchen and move them into the scrapbook/reloading/guest room, but in order to have a place to put them we had to move the drafting table and a bookshelf.  The rolling paper trays had to be shuffled to the other side of the room and the reloading table had to be adjusted. Bob took off the closet door and cut open the entire closet framework to make a much larger alcove for a file cabinet, clothing and storage. The cheap paperboard dresser came out of the closet and is in the living room waiting to be thrown on the burn pile - really, it isn't even worth giving away.  I'll have before and after pictures once I'm done, but right now the house looks like a war zone, because, of course, I'm rearranging and clearing out my son's room as well.  School starts next week and I have purposed that he will begin this, his Junior year, in a peaceful, uncluttered environment, conducive for studying - or, at least, LESS cluttered.  I only wish I had started weeks ago!
 
Besides "reclaiming my scraproom" which was one of my goals on my summer manifesto list, last night I tried a new recipe (another item on the list), which was fabulous! Definitely a keeper and worthy of sharing.

When we lived in town, as soon as the girls were old enough to work they were both hired at Outback Steakhouse and worked there while going to school.  My son joined them when he turned 16.

A favored Outback meal was Alice Springs Chicken and I came across the recipe yesterday and decided to try it. It was quick, easy and besides being absolutely delicious, all the ingredients were things I most always have on hand - definitely a criteria when choosing new recipes to try. This is what it looked like:

Here's how to make it:

ALICE SPRINGS CHICKEN

Ingredients:
* 4 chicken breasts (I only had tenders on hand)
The recipe says "pound to 1/2 inch thickness".  If they're thick I just slice them in half.
* Lowry's Seasoning Salt
* 6 Slices Bacon (I use turkey bacon)
* 1/4 cup mustard
* 1/3 cup honey
* 2 TBS mayonaise
* 2 tsp dried onion flakes
* 1 cup fresh mushrooms  (I had dried, so I reconstituted a handful)
* 2 cups shredded Colby/Jack cheese  ( I had sliced Swiss and Cheddar so that's what I used)

Honey Mustard
Combine and mix:
mustard, honey, mayonaise and onion flakes in small bowl

Sprinkle and rub chicken with Seasoning Salt.
Cover and refrigerated 30 minutes
Cook bacon until crisp
Sear chicken in bacon grease 3-5 minutes per side until browned
Place chicken in 9 X 13 casserole dish
Spoon honey mustard over each piece of chicken (serve the remainder with the meal)
Layer: Mushrooms, Bacon and Cheese
Bake 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until cheese is melted
ENJOY!