I'ts been a busy weekend here at MADART Studios hanging art at two new location in New Smyrna Beach, FL.  The first location that is now carrying original MADART paintings is the fabulous, and delicious, Outriggers Tiki Bar and Grille at the New Smyrna Marina.  When you first walk in the door you are greeted with my tropical artwork front and center, they look fabulous and are the perfect compliment to the tropical oasis setting at Outriggers.  And the food is sooooo good, I've eaten there numerous times and everything is amazing!  If you like seafood be sure to try what ever freshly caught fish they have on the menu, you won't be disappointed :)

The other location now displaying one of my paintings is the brand new, state of the art, New Smyrna Chevy Dealer.  My painting "Fire and Ice"© fits so perfectly in with the crisp white of the space and their blue logo, it really ties in amazingly well and adds some great color and shows what a difference art can make in a space.  And it was only fitting to transport the painting to the dealership in our corvette of course; had to represent Chevy, hehe :)  Everyone that works at New Smyrna Chevy is fabulous, the customer service is great and highly recommend them for your next vehicle.

So, if you are in the New Smyrna Beach area and would like to see some of my art in person be sure to visit Outriggers and New Smyrna Chevy!!

I LOVE spicy food!  And there is not anything much hotter than a Scotch Bonnet Pepper!  I never even knew they existed until I met my Jamaican husband, they love their Scotch Bonnets, they use it in just about everything from curry chicken to jerk chicken.  It's not just the heat that it puts out, but it also has a very distinct and yummy flavor.  We buy several bottles of Scotch Bonnet hot sauce at a time, we simply can't run out.  So, I thought I would give my hand at growing my own Scotch Bonnets, which for me is not something to take lightly as I have a black thumb, everything I grow or plant, doesn't last very long, haha!!  

I purchased three little mini scotch bonnet plants from Amazon (I'm an Amazon Junkie) and they arrived in perfect condition and started growing immediately!  As I live in Florida and it's summertime I had to water them every morning or they would get angry and wilt, and eventually my husband created an automatic watering system so I wouldn't have to worry about them and it works perfect!!  Always good to have a handy man around, hehe :)  Within about a month of planting my little bushes they started producing peppers, I was amazed, I actually grew something!!

I have picked about 25 fully ripe peppers off the tree in the past week, and eventually plan on making some hot sauce with them, but will freeze them until I do.  We did decide that we needed to try them on some chicken first and it was soooooo delicious!!  The flavor and heat is the perfect compliment to chicken, here is the recipe, very simple and easy to make, I use all organic or homegrown ingredients:

4 Chicken Breasts 
7 cloves of garlic
1 or more scotch bonnet peppers (depends on how much heat you like)
Fresh Thyme (out of my new garden too!)
4 tablespoons of water
5 tablespoons of Olive Oil
Emeril's All purpose seasoning (or any all purpose seasoning you have on hand)

Finely chop the peppers, if you want lot's of heat be sure to use the seeds, but be aware that is where most of the heat comes from.  Experiment with how many pepper and seeds you want until you find just the right amount of heat and flavor, it all comes down to personal preferences, I personally like more heat, but my husband likes a little less so we meet in the middle and make a semi-hot sauce.

Combine the chopped peppers, garlic cloves, thyme and water into a food processor until ground up and makes a liquidy paste/sauce.  Dip the chicken breasts in the paste until they are covered with pieces of peppers and garlic and then place on a heated griddle with the olive oil preheated, pour the remaining paste over top of the chicken on the griddle and sprinkle your seasoning salt.  Cook until fully done and browned, and voila, a quick and easy scotch bonnet chicken dinner!!

I chose some great sides to compliment the chicken: spinach and arugula mix laid under the chicken, the heat from the chicken will soften up the spinach and arugula, almost steams it right there on the plate. Some mashed potatoes, slices of avocado and my favorite butter bean recipe: just add some butter, Old Bay seasoning, chopped garlic, Italian seasoning and all purpose seasoning to a can of butter beans and cook for about 10 minutes, so delicious!!

I love to create quick healthy meals, and this is a perfect one to try, let me know if you give it a go and how you like it!!  You won't be disappointed :)