(original picture courtesy of ditchwitch)

This week includes Christmas. Every other year, we spend Christmas on the beach. This is the off-year, so we will be celebrating it like the good Jewish people that we are not–going out for Chinese food. Lobsters were $9.99/pound and I considered it for about 2.5 seconds, just for the thrill of torturing my own dog by letting the lobster loose on the floor (a favorite childhood pastime with the family dog). However, budget guilt got the better of me, so we’ll be having chicken fried rice and watching ducks get butchered instead.

Saturday

Breakfast–banana bread
Lunch–on your own
Dinner–Sausage stuffed potatoes

Sunday
Breakfast–pancakes, blueberry sausage
Lunch–on your own
Dinner–Roasted chicken with potatoes

Monday
15-minute White Bean Soup
Apples
Rosemary Bread

Tuesday
Chicken salad w/apples & maybe grapes
Rosemary Bread

Wednesday
Chinese food from Din Ho

Thursday
Fish tacos
Clementines

Friday
Pasta with butternut squash & sage (Cooks Illustrated)

The roast chicken I made yesterday was surprisingly easy. (Insert “yo momma” joke here.) Cook 15 minutes with one wing up, flip and cook another 15 minutes with other wing up, set with the breast up and cook 20 more minutes. You can do it too. If I can do it, I know you can. Motivational cooking. That’s what I’m here for.

Here is what we are eating this week:

Saturday – Penne & Meatballs

Sunday -

Breakfast: Pumpkin waffles, bacon

Dinner: Simple Roast Chicken (Cook’s Illustrated), roasted brussels sprouts

Monday – Sweet potato soup (doctored w/extra butter, brown sugar, and spices), goat cheese & apple sandwiches

Tuesday – Broiled or crispy fish (haven’t decided), french fries, broccoli

Wednesday – Chicken Pot Pie (Cook’s Illustrated)

Thursday – Rice & beans

Friday – Surprise!

Update: Cake still not a meal. Cookies now under watch as well.

Last week’s menu is here.

Rabbit rabbit!

(Too early?)

Every week I make a menu for dinners for the week. Most often, I get it right and we eat in almost every night. Still, sometimes I forget to take the chicken out of the freezer or fail to account for that 7pm activity which means I can’t cook what I had planned. Most of my recipes come from Cook’s Illustrated and Real Simple, with the occasional “inspired by Martha” recipe (her recipes almost never work exactly as written) and more recently Deb over at SmittenKitchen.com. In the past, I have claimed that my best dish is Strawberry Pop-Tarts. While that is still true in the spontaneous cooking category, if I have some time and access to recipes, I can make a pretty mean chicken dinner now too.

Here’s the menu for this week:

Sunday -  Baked Rigatoni, salad

Monday – Turkey croquettes, salad

Tuesday – Migas, fruit

Wednesday – Crunchy Oven-Fried Fish, Fries, Peas

Thursday – Chili, Cornbread, fruit

Friday – Pizza & salad

Saturday – Saturday Surprise

I aim for 2 vegetarian, 2 poultry/meat, and 2 fish dishes each week, with a surprise 7th depending on what’s leftover, last minute dinners out with friends, etc. I don’t tend to serve beef very often and lamb or pork cuts (excluding bacon & sausage) almost never. I try not to make anything that generates leftovers unless they reheat well–like the baked rigatoni or chili. Every meal has to have a vegetable, even if it’s fruit or salad.

Sadly, cake is reportedly not a compulsory part of a meal; negotiations are ongoing about this. Will update when I have more news.

K and I have been having an ongoing discussion about the therapeutic results of baking. Last night, in an effort to quell the growing freakout of buying a house/moving/job hunting/life, she & her team came over to bake blueberry pies. K made the crusts (Joy of Cooking) and I made the insides (Cook’s Illustrated). Mental note: next time read ahead to find out how long baking will take.

I had a slice for breakfast, and now all is right with the world.

Crisp-Skin High-Roast Butterflied Chicken with Potatoes
(from Cook’s Illustrated with some additional comments from me)

Ingredients

1/2 c table salt
1/2 c sugar
1 whole chicken (3 1/2-4 lbs – I get Young Chickens from Costco and they are the perfect size for two people plus a little extra for chicken salad the next day., Trimmed of fat, giblets removed)
Vegetable oil spray
2 1/2 lbs. Russet or Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/8 to 1/4 in thick
1 1/2 T olive oil
3/4 t. salt (for potatoes)
Ground black pepper

Tools:
A really big bowl or a stock pot
Foil
Kitchen shears
Instant read thermometer
Potholders
Broiler pan with rack or wire rack and roasting pan
Cutting board
paper towels
Spatula

Notes:

• Start 2-3 hours before you plan to eat. I usually make on Sundays and watch football in between activities.
• If you don’t have an oven thermometer, you should get one. The oven needs to be the right temperature for this recipe to work.
• If you can, buy the chicken from a butcher or meat counter and ask them to butterfly it for you. Avoid saying “wink, wink, nudge, nudge”.
• The potatoes are there to keep the chicken fat from scorching. It’s ok if they turn brown and crispy–that’s the good stuff anyway.

1. Get out a container big enough to hold the chicken completely submerged in water. Dissolve the salt and sugar in 2 quarts (or as much as you can) cold water. Immerse the chicken in the brine, cover, and refrigerate about 1 hour. If you bought a kosher chicken, you can skip this step.

Meanwhile, adjust an oven rack to the lower middle position and heat the oven to 500 degrees. Make sure that oven thermometer actually says 500 degrees.

Line the bottom of the broiler pan/roasting pan with foil and spray with vegetable cooking spray. You can skip this step if you don’t mind scrubbing pans.

Remove the chicken from the brine and rinse thoroughly under cold running water. Pat dry with paper towels. Butterfly the chicken (see below for instructions) – this is crucial! Don’t skip! Otherwise the chicken cooks unevenly. Put on broiler pan/wire rack.

2. Toss the potatoes with 1 T of the olive oil, the salt, and pepper to taste in a medium bowl. Spread the potatoes in an even layer in the foil lined broiler/roasting pan bottom. Sometimes I add baby carrots. You can too.

Place the broiler pan/wire rack with the chicken on top. Rub the chicken with the remaining 1/2 T. and sprinkle with pepper to taste.

3. Roast chicken until spotty brown, about 20 minutes. Rotate pan and continue to roast until the skin has crisped and turned deep brown and an instant read thermometer reads 160 degrees in the deepest part of the breast, 20-25 minutes longer (or more if you kept opening the oven door to check on the chicken).

Transfer the chicken to a cutting board when done. With potholders, remove the broiler pan/wire rack; soak up the extra grease from the potatoes with several sheets of paper towels. Remove the foil liner with the potatoes from the broiler/roasting pan bottom and invert the foil and potatoes onto a baking sheet or second cutting board. Carefully peel back the foil, using a metal spatula to help scrape off the potatoes as needed. With additional paper towels, pat off the remaining grease. Cut the chicken into serving pieces (make one vertical slice along the breastbone and one diagonal slice between the breast and the wing and you should have the bulk of the breast meat) and serve with the potatoes.

How to butterfly a chicken:

1. Use kitchen shears to cut through the bones on either side of the backbone, removing the backbone.
2. Flip the chicken over and use the heel of your hand to flatten the breastbone.
3. When you put the chicken on the pan, push the legs up to rest between the thigh and the breast and tuck the tips of the wings under.

Serve with a salad and some wine.

As the unofficial grocery shopper in the house, I take charge of the menu-making in order to make the grocery list. (See how FlyLady/Real Simple organized that is of me?) I am not the person who usually cooks though, especially now that the microwave has met an untimely death. My suggestions involve lots of deli foods, spaghetti, and frozen stirfry-esque items. However, that may come to an end once I buy Weight Watchers Recipe Cards from 1974. Mmm, jellied tomato refresher.