"Grilled" Chicken with Cajun roasted potatoes and corn

For the most part, you can't exactly grill when you live in an apartment. Sure, somewhere on the grounds here there are grills for public use but they are no where near my apartment and in my opinion, rather unsanitary even if you cooked your food on aluminum foil.

So what is an apartment dweller to do? My recommendation - buy a George Foreman. However, in the need to save space, I decided that I wanted a grill plate/pan instead. So for Christmas Tom bought me a Nordicware Reversible Grill Griddle.

Tonight, I finally decided to try it out. Having never cooked on one before, I figured I should google some reviews to see exactly what to do. Well, I found out that my lovely cooking utensil really wasn't all it was cracked up to be. It had crappy reviews, was called the stickiest non-stick product ever, and even the manufacturer website advised to use it on low heat to avoid smoking.

Really? Who in the world grills over low heat? Regardless, I decided to try it out anyway. I shellacked the puppy up with about a quarter ton of Pam cooking spray, put it over low heat and toss my chicken tenders on it and turned on the exhaust vent in preparation. Well, chicken cooks slowly over low heat. As in a turtle could walk a mile in the time it takes for one side of the chicken tender to even turn white. But, since I was roasting potatoes, I decided to hell with it and I'd just wait it out.

20 minutes later, with some barely there grill marks on my mostly white chicken, I gave up and toss the chicken in a pan to let it brown. So while I didn't exactly 'grill' or the chicken, I browned chicken and created some grill marks on it, so I'm going to say I grilled the chicken. You okay with that?

Grilled Chicken w/ Cajun roasted potatoes and corn
Source: my brain

Ingredients:
3 chicken breasts cut into strips or 1 package chicken tenders
3-5 red potatoes, cut into chunks
2 tbs. Cajun seasoning
1 tbs. extra virgin olive oil
1 canned corn
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and then cut up the potatoes.
2. Put potatoes in a large bowl and add olive oil, salt, pepper and 1 tbs. Cajun seasoning. Toss to coat.
3. Transfer to a 9x13 baking dish covered in foil. Stick in the oven. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until potatoes are fork soft and slightly browned on the edges.
4. Preheat griddle, skillet or whatever you're using. Season chicken with salt, pepper and the remaining Cajun seasoning. Cook over medium high heat until browned.
5. Melt 1 tbs. butter in a sauce pan. Drain canned corn and add to pan. Cook for 3-5 minutes.

Simple enough, huh? Obviously you can be as creative as you want and add in different spices or vegetables or whatever. I'm just on a mission this week to blog each meal I make, so my lovely readers get to enjoy this rather boring and basic meal. =)

I'll probably try out the grill pan again, on something else, but I have a feeling that it will eventually meet its fate in the trash and we'll just register for a George Foreman grill and hope that one day we will have the counter/kitchen space to house it.