A Blog Through the Fog

Okay, folks. You'll have to bear with me this morning. I'm trying to get this done before my tiny tornado wakens. It's early, and I'm still on my first cup of my instant-human juice, so I may not make too much sense. I've already deleted my first attempt at this. This is exactly why, when they were babies, Richard had early morning "duty" with the kids, and I always stayed up late with them. We complement each other well that way. 

Another way we complement each other is that he's an organizer, and someone who always has to be doing something helpful. Give him a job and he feels useful. He's very much like his mom that way. So, he serves as my sous chef when he can. He gathers all my ingredients. Or to be fancy, my mise en place. Can you tell I like watching reality cooking shows? Oh yeah...I've already made sure that "Top Chef: New Orleans" is set to record next month. And more than once, Richard and I have contemplated having him send my name in to Food Network telling them I'm a horrible cook and should be on "Worst Cooks in America." Have you seen that show? They go from barely boiling water to cooking things like duck confit! Holy duck fat, Batman!

Anyway, the point is, I have help in the kitchen. Normally. This week, the food has been made either late at night, or before Richard comes home. So, no help! He has truly spoiled me.

First up we have breakfast. I promised Richard I'd make a savory breakfast. After the awesome cinnamon rolls and sticky buns, we'd had enough sweet breakfasts to last a while. I made this Sunday night to have Monday morning and throughout the week. I turned to a recipe in my torn-out magazine pages I'd had for a while, Melissa d'Arabian's Potato-Bacon Torte. As with a lot of my recipes, I gave this one a tweak. Quite a tweak, actually. I can't exactly afford Gruyere, so I subbed in Swiss. And, it only called for 1/4 cup. Being a turophile (fancy word for "cheese lover"), I piled on the cheese. If you're not as excited as I was to make your own crust, you can buy ready-made crust at the store, and you'll be perfectly fine. I also used red potatoes, as that's what I had on hand. The only thing about this I didn't like was my own fault. I didn't roll out the bottom crust enough, so it was way too thick.

I'm pretty proud of the slicing job I did. This is
probably one of the prettiest presentations
I've done in a while.

While this was definitely tasty, there are some changes I'll make for next time: 
1) Make the cheese half Swiss, half cheddar. I think this will give it more of a cheesy heartiness. We've been shredding some over our slices before heating them up each morning, and it's made a big difference. 2) More bacon! Dividing four slices between the two potato layers makes it a game of "Find the bacon."


Next up was Monday night's dinner. Lemon-herb roasted chicken. These past few years I've been making my mom's to-die-for roasted chicken, using a mix of softened butter, minced garlic & a local "Rooster Rub" garnered from Coates Produce at the WNC Farmer's Market (we always buy from them - they rock!). I take that & rub it all on and in the chicken. Well, I was wanting to try something new, so I scoured Pinterest for ideas. I found a few, then took some of those ideas and made my own. Here goes:

Oil "rub" (make this twice, each in its own bowl):

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp lemon pepper
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning

1 whole chicken
1 lemon, thinly sliced

Heat oven to 425 degrees. 

Add whatever veggies you like. I added about 3 red potatoes and some carrot chips. Other recipes had celery and different root veggies. 

Place the chicken in whatever vessel you normally use (I use a Pampered Chef stoneware baker). Make the oil rubs. With one, slather the chicken, in and out, making sure to pour some under the skin. Place your veggies in a bowl or zip top bag, along with the second oil rub. Mix well. Add veggies to the pan. Place lemon slices both on AND inside the chicken. 

Cook for half an hour, then reduce oven temperature to 350 and cook for an hour. 

My oven cooks unevenly, and I turned it too late.
So it looks like a girl who fell asleep while tanning.

This was definitely a success. One more roasted chicken recipe in my arsenal!


The next new blog-worthy recipe was last night's. Wednesdays are hectic once the afternoon hits. Yesterday was even more so, as Kiersten had early release and was home by 1. Wednesdays are church nights, so I had to have dinner ready to go by 5, eaten by 5:30. It also has to be package-able, just in case Richard can't make it home in time to eat it, and has to eat it while Kiersten is in choir practice. Keeping this in mind when planning our weeks-long menu, I put this recipe for Spicy Chicken Romano on the calendar. Man, was it tasty. I gotta tell ya, I'm really looking forward to the leftovers from this one. And there were plenty! We didn't have artichoke hearts, so those weren't added. Even though I'm not crazy about them, Richard loves them, and I would have added them for him. I also added an entire box of Barilla Plus Mulitgrain Farfalle. Doing this ensured we'd have plenty for leftovers. It also had us actually eating less than a serving of the meat.  Target didn't have andouille sausage (what they hey, Tar-zhay?), so I got Johnsonville turkey sausage. But you'd better believe I'm going to spice this baby up even more with andouille next time. Kiersten complained that it wasn't spicy enough.  Man, I love this kid. Can you tell I ate lots of Mexican food while I was pregnant with her?

Just look at all that creamy pasta goodness!
Lunch time can't get here quickly enough!

This weekend the kids and I are going to an apple orchard. You can just imagine all the goodies that will come from that trip! Then on Sunday I'll be making Parmesan-crusted pork loin and ravioli with prosciutto cream sauce. More on that next week!

Till then, stay hungry, my friends!