Last week I decided to experiment with a few new dinner recipes. The week before that I had been preparing my newest book, Secret Pleasures, for Amazon. Thousands of mouse clicks later, I had to step away from the computer and get creative in the kitchen. Who knew moving one little finger could be the cause of so much neck pain?

Even though I blog about recipes, I wouldn’t call myself an expert cook. I only started actually making things without a prepackaged mix a few years ago. Not only did I improve my culinary skills, I actually began to see cooking as therapeutic and I discovered I enjoyed doing it. That doesn’t stop me from still having some disasters in the kitchen. A few weeks ago I made a chicken and rice dish in the crock pot that my husband dubbed prison gruel.

No such disasters last week. Out of the three dishes I made one was a two thumbs up, the other was pretty good and the third was a try again with alterations.   The naturally gluten-free Roman-Style Chicken  was the big winner even though I managed to forget a key ingredient. I’m directing you to The Food Network site for Giada De Laurentiis’s recipe. The dish has over a thousand five-star reviews if you don’t want to take my word for it. The only thing I changed from Giada’s recipe was to use boneless skin-less chicken thighs instead of breasts. I also didn’t use prosciutto because the package somehow got misplaced. We still haven’t found the package I know I bought and my husband said he saw on the kitchen counter. We went nuts looking for it the night I was making this meal. I looked in the refrigerator, freezer, drawers, pantry, anywhere it might have been misplaced and then my husband did the same thing. We looked in the car, the garage. We still haven’t found the prosciutto. We’re currently having Santa Anas, hot wind from the desert, so you think we might start to smell unrefrigerated meat. I’ll let you know when it turns up.

But even without the escaped prosciutto, this recipe was great and easy. Don’t let the long list of ingredients intimidate you because there isn’t that much chopping. It came together really easily. Instead of the fresh garlic, I used the already chopped that comes in the jar to make it that much easier. I served the Roman-Style Chicken  with some brown rice penne pasta.

Here is the new song from Bruno Mars. I love his versatility and the song’s The Police feel.