Home Again, Home Again

Ahhh, there's just nothing quite like sleeping in your own bed, is there? We are home again after a wonderful trip to New York City (quite possibly my favorite city in the world to visit) and feeling so grateful to have beaten the snowstorm out. No doubt it helped that our pilot was from Atlanta and his wife was on our flight, so there was some extra incentive to get us out, even if we did have to wait 5 hours for our plane to be de-iced.
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Food lesson learned in New York: if you don't know what it is, don't order it without asking. Especially if it's sushi. And especially if there's any chance what you thought would be sashimi tuna might arrive in the form of eel. Ugh. (Yes, I did eat it, but regretted it).
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As much as I've loved my travels of the past month, I'm happy to be back home for a while and back in the normal routine and rhythm of life. Including regular cooking and meal planning...

Which leads me to a question: what is your most versatile recipe? Mine, without a doubt, is roasted chicken. I know I've blogged it before, but it's such a workhorse in my food rotation that I thought I'd offer it again as the solution to one of your crazy nights this week. It's one of the few recipes that I've really memorized, and I vary it based on what I have around the house, which makes it incredibly easy. I also have no qualms about getting the chicken prepped and then putting it in the oven for up to 45 minutes ahead of time, setting the "delay start" on my oven so that it can cook while I'm at soccer practice/swim lesson/choir/whatever, and be ready for us when we walk through the door.

Roasted Chicken (the loosey-goosey version)

Rinse 4 to 5 pound whole chicken inside and out, pat dry. Sprinkle inside of chicken liberally with salt and pepper. Stuff chicken with any combination of lemon, garlic, and onion, depending on what you have around (I've even popped a couple shallots in there when I didn't have an onion). If you have fresh herbs like sage, thyme, or rosemary, throw those in as well (but in the winter, when I don't have any backyard herbs, I certainly don't buy the crazy expensive ones just for this). Place the chicken on rack in your roasting pan and tuck his little wings behind him, so he looks like he's taking a nap. Secure the legs together tightly with kitchen twine. Brush chicken with either 2 tablespoons melted butter or 2 tablespoons olive oil (butter would be my first choice). Sprinkle well with salt and pepper. Optional: add cut up winter vegetables to the roasting pan, like sweet potatoes, butternut squash, carrots, onions, yukon gold pototoes, etc. (whatever you have on hand is fine). Roast at 425 for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Remove from oven, cover loosely with tin foil and let it sit for about 10 minutes before carving. If you're really organized, do 2 at once so you'll have delicious leftover roasted chicken to use later in the week.

Enjoy!

And They're Off

I posted about a month ago that I was starting a stretch of 4 trips in 4 weeks. This is week/trip 4 - DH and I leave today for a conference, and the boys are staying home with their grandmothers. I've stocked the house with bananas, raisin bread, yogurt, eggs, milk, and apples, so everyone should be in good shape.

I'll be back to more regular posting next week.

Reliable Staple

A guest blog today from Atlanta Mom!

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My husband and I will celebrate our 15th anniversary in September. During our engagement and early in our marriage, I scoured my mother-in-law’s cookbooks for recipes since I had no collection of my own. Few of those recipes remain in my cooking rotation—except one that I made on Monday night. We commented on how long I had been making this dish, and how much (remarkably) we still enjoy it. And even better—it is easy and at any given moment, you likely have what you need to make it in your fridge and pantry. Perhaps this is why it is still around…

Chick Pea Pasta
1 T. + 2 t. of EVOO
½ c. chopped onion (1 small)
1 garlic clove, minced
1 19 oz. can of chick peas, rinsed and drained
¼ t. dried oregano (or 1 t. fresh)
¼ t. pepper
¼ t. red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
1 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes, with juices
2 c. penne pasta or bowties
1 t. grated parmesan cheese

Heat water for pasta. Heat oil in large skillet and sauté onions over med-low heat until tender, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook one more minute. Add chick peas, oregano, black pepper, bay leaf, and red pepper flakes. Crush at least half of the chick peas with a fork (leave some whole, depending on desired consistency/chunkiness), and heat through, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes with juices (may want to add a little additional water). Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered for 10 minutes.
Serve over cooked pasta and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Makes great left-overs (yum—eating it for lunch RIGHT NOW!), and also freezes beautifully. Happy eating!

Clean It Up

I can't remember the last time I felt so disorganized, but I feel certain there was a newborn involved. We are back from a great holiday weekend trip to visit my sister-in-law and her family, and while we were gone my house apparently threw a little party and then didn't clean up after itself very well. Every single drawer, closet, and pantry seems to be bulging with stuff, half of which has apparently been outgrown or outdated.

What to tackle first? I get tired just thinking about it.

On the upside, since I have seemingly abandoned all grocery shopping and resorted to frantically calling my husband to get him to stop for milk and bread on the way home from work, our freezer is becoming wonderfully depleted. Over the past couple of months I have been freezing most of our leftovers, in anticipation of this crazy month. Such a kind thing to do for myself, because in the past 10 days we've gone through meatballs and tomato sauce, roasted vegetable soup, turkey tetrazinni, chicken noodle soup, and spinach ravioli. I've just checked the reserves, and we still have Italian wedding soup, tomato ragout, and lentil soup to get us through another week, at which point (surely, hopefully) life will have calmed down a bit, and I'll be back to grocery shopping and meal planning like a normal person.

Until then, happy eating y'all...

Something's Gotta Give

Whew.

We are unusually busy around here this month, even more so for this household that has its share of chaos. Between 3 out of town trips, a broken down car, negotiations for a new car, a little boy getting molars, a slammed work schedule, and the usual daily juggle, we're having to do some prioritizing around here.

Here are the things that apparently have not made the priority list:

Grocery shopping (it turns out old granola bars make a great sandwich substitute in lunches, and didn't I just say I needed to clean out the pantry?)
Exercise (it ain't pretty)
Mail (I've given up on even taking it out of the mailbox, because then I feel compelled to do something with it)
Posting on my blog

So bear with me for a week or so, and I'll have some more food posts soon. In the meantime, stay warm!

Stuffed

My kitchen ate too much.

I don't really know how it happened, but all of a sudden it's overflowing. There's absolutely no good excuse, because I have lots of drawers, cabinet space, and two, yes, two, pantries. And yet I can't get to anything, because everything is stuffed completely full. We have crossed the line between a well stocked pantry and an overstocked one, and why I have 3 brownie pans when I make brownies only a couple times each year is completely beyond me. My favorite serving pieces are never used because they're wedged so deep into the cabinets, and I keep rebuying pantry staples because I can't see what I've already got in there. A total waste of time and energy, and of course money.

It's time for the great clean out. I do this periodically with the kids' toys - I go through it with a big basket and get rid of all the toys that are broken, missing pieces, or generally ignored. Time to do it with my own stuff...

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No new recipe today, since last night DH was working so the boys and I had our standby comfort food - homemade mac and cheese (see above picture!), with apples and pears. Mmmm...