the diligence of roasting a bird

Fall usually brings with it a strong craving for comfort food. I made Roast Chicken with Gravy, and Garlic-Mashed Potatoes for dinner last night. Not only is Roast Chicken quintessentially comfort food, it is one of those awesome things that provides leftovers for several days. (Let's face it, two people can only eat so much chicken, and this was a choice 6-pounder.) The beauty of roasting a chicken is that you can do it with just a bit of salt, pepper, butter, and herbs, and you can STILL use the leftover meat to make dishes that have totally different flavors. Genius.

Of course, you spend a good twenty minutes or so picking all the meat off....and if you're doing that in our house, you have two dogs sitting patiently at your feet, periodically drooling, but mostly staring at you with those puppy dog eyes. "Just drop a morsel on the floor. We won't tell."
So I have a long list of things I am planning to make next week with all that chicken...

Chicken pot pie
Chicken quesadillas - long day at work, anyone?
Chicken fettuccine alfredo
Boneless chicken curry
Chicken noodle soup
Chicken sandwiches


Blah, blah, blah.

I did the same thing with pork last week. (Threw a boneless pork shoulder with some apples, cloves, and bay leaf into slow cooker.) Am I getting old? Efficient?

Spent all day today in Chicago on work. Tired, off to bed then.

Fall, time for apple pie

It was forty-six degrees outside this morning. The first brisk morning that makes the hair on your arms stand straight up. Our apple tree is completely weighed down with hundreds of tiny green apples, blushing pink. I am in pie-making mode and will be churning out several of these over the next few weeks. I'm not a baker, but if there's one thing I can bake really well it is apple pie. With real butter, and real ingredients, not half-fat low-sugar this and that. Traditional. From scratch. Encased in a delicious homemade buttery crust, and topped with a beautiful lattice finish.

I also made an apple custard two weeks ago, which turned out really well, then I made one more last week. I refuse to make them for myself/ourselves anymore...did I mention, I'm trying to shed 5 lbs?

Anyway, I went to the store this evening and got a huge stack of foil pie plates. And I made a list of all my favorite people that will get apple pies from us, and it is shockingly long.

Then, of course, there are some people with various food preferences, and don't like cooked fruit, or this and that. "Not a big nutmeg fan." "I hate butter." Gasp!? Julia Child would be ashamed. Anyway, I’m not sure who all really want pies. Are there any takers??

and one year later...

I’m back because, useless as I feel this blog sometimes is, as it turned out I really missed writing.

A few significant things have happened since last September – significant being a relative term:

My dear mother came to visit me for two weeks.

I made a New Year’s resolution to cook one new dish a week...and far exceeded that goal, kicking it to the curb by February.

I turned 25.

We bought kayaks and had a few nice adventures paddling down large bodies of water in lower Wisconsin.

I planted a vegetable garden again this year.

I acquired a distinct lack of enthusiasm for someone/something.

I complained about the mild temperatures through most of this so-called “summer”.

I gained 5 lbs (which I have not yet bothered to lose).



And there it is. See you later this week.