Good evening, blog readers. Tonight I was inspired by Julia. Julia Child, that is (of course!!!) and I have to thank my blog reader and friend, Marilyn because she gave me Julia’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking several years ago. It is (obviously) one of my favorite cookbooks.

I have been craving mushrooms lately. (Is that strange?) So I wanted to make a version of Julia’s Supremes de Volaille aux Champignons. Before I started making dinner, I made sure to get to the gym and do a lot of work on the elliptical machine 🙂 I burned over four hundred calories – which I put directly towards dinner tonight. It was totally worth it.

After the gym I ran over to Whole Foods. Alas, the students are back and they are everywhere. (I love students – but it makes my day to day life a little more difficult when everyone is back to school and work. Just saying.) I knew exactly what I needed, and I went quickly through WF and the checkout wasn’t too difficult. I picked up mushrooms, cream and half a pound of chicken. (I love that I can get just half a pound of chicken at WF!)

I got home, turned on the oven, prepped the chicken (I used spray olive oil – hey, I’m not perfect! – and seasoned the chicken with paprika, garlic, oregano, and pepper) and once the oven was preheated, I threw the little chickens into the oven. The chicken needed to cook for a little less than 20 minutes. As the oven was working, I chopped shallots, garlic and mushrooms. I melted a couple of tablespoons of butter in the skillet and added the shallots first, I sautéed for a few minutes. Then I added the garlic and mushrooms and let everything cook. While all of this was going on, I had a pot of water coming to a bowl to add some FRESH SPINCH PASTA into the recipe. (What!? Julia might freak about this..?)

I really only used Julia’s recipe as a base for this dish. I really was not sure how this was going to come out and I was a tinsy bit nervous. After the mushrooms started to brown and had released their liquid, I added a little bit of half and half and made a cream sauce, somehow.

I have to say that I do not eat really rich food on a regular basis. Which made this dinner such a treat. I loved it and mom liked it too. Here is what my plate looked like:

The spinach pasta was from Wilson Farms. So fresh and delicious.

Has anyone read Dearie the new biography on Julia? I am so eager to read this book:

I have to finish the book I am reading now, and then I am going to read Gone Girl (has anyone out there read Gone Girl? Did you like it?) but after I finish those books, I hope to read Dearie. i just love this photograph of Julia on the cover!

I ate rather healthy today, knowing that I was having an out of control dinner tonight 🙂 Breakfast was a mini Larabar at 7:30 this morning (blueberry muffin flavor – I love this one!) and at 9 o’clock I had oatmeal. At 11:30 an apple was consumed because I was starving. Lunch was a cup of turkey gumbo soup, carrots and a light Laughing Cow Babybel cheese with some wheat crackers.

Oh – on a side note, I discovered that this jar of Barney Butter was officially kicked – sad!

I had to look back on the blog to see when I bought the jar of Barney Butter. I was scared that I had consumed the entire thing in a couple of weeks – but I bought it back on July 24 or so, soooo I’m definitely ok with that. I will not feel bad purchasing another jar of BB soon enough.

I hope you are all having a good week so far. I am really glad that tomorrow is Thursday! See you then.