Prius love and grilled coconut chicken

Wednesday is the usual Bagel Day!  We are still riding for breakfast. It was in the low 50s and that is perfect for breakfast riding.

bagel

Mileage sits at 2139. 😀

 

Keni asked a question the other day about the Prius.

Could you do a little review on your Prius now that you’ve had it awhile. I am considering one and like you I like to be very mindful of my pocketbook and utility usage.

How do I love the Prius?  Let me count the ways!  We adore this car.  I have dubbed it the “stealthmobile” because it is so quiet.

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Also keep in mind that we had our other car for 13 years (and counting), so this was a big leap as far as technology and such.   It is almost too much technology.  I found myself wanting to look more at the display than the road at first, 😯  , but that has subsided.

The gas mileage is great!  John uses the car for trips out of town about every other weekend.  I think most times we average 50+ miles per gallon, which is about double what our Saturn gets.  It rides really smooth and we don’t have a problem with acceleration or going up hills or any of those things you hear about a hybrid.

It also feels very, very safe. It has a million air bags and it just feels nice and solid.  The interior is really nice and we can do hands-free talking on the phone if needed (the law in NY).  We can also plug in a music player through the USB drive and bring all our tunes along.  It has a CD player, but we haven’t even used that yet.

Things I don’t like?  When the car is in reverse, it beeps until you put the car in drive.  When we are backing out of our driveway, it can take a while since we live on a busy road and it beeps the entire time we sit there waiting.  It doesn’t seem to bother John, but it drives me nuts.

I also don’t like the small back window.  I don’t feel like I get as good a view out the back as with the Saturn, but that is a wagon, so only another wagon would feel like that, but it does seem smaller anyway.

I also find that the finish of the car seems to be made of tinfoil. The Saturn has dent resistant doors (basically plastic) and they can take a beating. The Prius not so much. There have been a few dings and scratches put in it by just breathing on it, I swear.  Of course, *I* have not put any of these marks on the car. I won’t say who has, but you can probably guess 😀

Those are pretty small things, though, and I would get a second Prius in a heartbeat! (Are you listening, Toyota??)

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Now on to some eats!

For dinner, I had a recipe pinned for a grilled coconut sticky chicken.  Hooray for actually making a Pinterest recipe!! I fiddled with the proportions and spice mix, but the basic gist was the same.

Ingredients:

2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 can lite coconut milk
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons oil  (I used macadamia nut)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
2 tablespoons hot sauce
1 tablespoon cajun seasoning
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon chili powder

It’s pretty easy. Just mix all the ingredients except the chicken.  Then add the chicken and marinate for 4 or more hours.  I mixed this up at lunch.  Then cooked it on the grill.

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I basted once and had a ton of marinade left over.  This actually makes a lot of marinade and you could probably cut it in half.  Or use more chicken…

Served with plain rice, although the original recipe makes a sweet coconut rice to go with, which I bet would be yummy!

grilled coconut chicken

I think chicken thighs are just made for grilling, don’t you?

Stats would be about 160 calories if you have a 4 ounce chicken thigh (raw), plus about 50 calories for the marinade.  This was quite tasty.  Not really sticky. I had cut down on the heat because I didn’t want it to be too hot for John, but I certainly would double the hot sauce and more black pepper and it would still be fine.  I like the heat 😀

Pink item of the day!

pink

 

The Breast Cancer Site

18 thoughts on “Prius love and grilled coconut chicken

  1. deb

    Sounds good that we are getting some solid hybrids on the road. Hubby is in transportation for the Veterans Admin and they have Ford Fusions and he is impressed with them and has no complaints..(or none that i’ve heard and believe me i would hear.. 🙂 …He likes how it transitions seamlessly between battery power and gas….. Hugs! deb

  2. debby

    Oops. I made a comment and then got distracted.

    The chicken recipe looks delicious–do you think it would be sticky if there was more brown sugar in it?

    And your Prius love ALMOST makes me want a Toyota again. I still have a hate affair going on with Toyota though, so probably not.

  3. Fran

    Seems like you made a good choice with the Prius. I still have to start shopping for a new car but I so don’t want too. I really hate doing that, it’s necessary but I don’t like it.

    Dinner looks delicious.

  4. Helen

    When we went to my niece’s wedding a couple years ago, we had the opportunity to choose a Prius as our car rental. I loved it and it’s gas mileage lol!

    Glad you’re still getting to bike for bagels. Looks like this weekend is going to be another good one for biking too!

  5. Ali @ Peaches and Football

    Your chicken looks great! I always love recipes for different marinades and coatings to keep plain chicken from being too boring.

    I wish there had been more 4 wheel drive CAR options when I was shopping. There are plenty of crossovers but I still wanted a car – just needed more traction in the snow. So I only had one brand to choose from. Maybe in 10+ years when it’s time to buy again there will be more fun stuff to choose from (and better mileage!) 🙂

  6. Tami @Nutmeg Notebook

    Biking for bagels is a good thing! We have a Toyota Hybrid Avalon and love it! Can’t beat the ride and the gas mileage. Hubby travels a great deal for work and the savings on gas is huge for us.

  7. Keni

    Thanks for the Prius review! It really helps a great deal to “real person’s” opinion when preparing to make such an investement 🙂

    That chicken looks great, I may make that tonight

  8. Kim

    Great Prius review – I see them everywhere and figured that people must really like them!!

    Pinned the chicken recipe – looks delicious!!!

  9. Sharon

    We are eating our morning Smoothies this month from our North Country Coffee Co mugs. Sure hope to get back there one of these days.

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