This morning, I woke up well-rested, bright-eyed, and bushy tailed. It sure is nice to get a good 8 hours of sleep. Unfortunately, I never seem to get enough shut eye since the kids barrel out of their room at 7 a.m. sharp every morning and I’m constantly switching back from working night shift. Oh well. Welcome to my life.
For breakfast, I resorted to my standard morning fare: a frittata! Today’s version was made with 3 eggs, nuked frozen broccoli and spinach (the spinach was squeezed dry after I microwaved it), a pinch of smoked paprika, Kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper.
It was tasty and satisfying. I miss eating frittatas when I’m on my workweek.
After spending the morning jumping on a trampoline with my younger rugrat at his kiddie gym and shopping at Trader Joe’s, I came home and made lunch. As soon as I stepped in the kitchen, I threw two green bell peppers right on a gas burner set on high. After the skins were charred all over, I put them in a bowl, covered them with plastic wrap, and let them steam while I prepared some seasoned ground beef.
I fried up a pound of beef in some melted lard along with a minced onion, a diced jalapeno, a couple tablespoons of Spice Hound fajita and taco seasoning, and some salt & pepper. Then, I peeled and sliced the roasted bell peppers and topped a handful of them with the seasoned beef, Primavera salsa, and store-bought spicy guacamole.
Lunch was tasty and I have leftovers that I can just nuke tomorrow!
For dessert, I made myself a small coconut milk and blueberry sundae.
It’s really amazing how sensitive my taste buds are to sugar these days. The minimal sweetness of these out of season blueberries was totally satisfying.
Since I was putzing around the house all afternoon, I mindlessly ate lots of coconut flakes and nuts. Argh. I gotta stop that.
I’ve been itching to remake Dorie Greenspan’s Chicken In a Pot ever since I made it a couple weeks ago. I bought a whole chicken at the farmers’ market (for half price!) a few days ago and I couldn’t wait to plop it in a pot on my first day off. My version tonight was slightly different from my last one but Dorie says she never makes the same chicken in a pot twice.
In tonight’s pot, I used:
- 4 pound whole chicken
- 4 sprigs of thyme
- 1 sprig of rosemary
- a whole bag of pre-peeled garlic from Trader Joe’s
- 16 peeled and trimmed shallots
- 1 ½ cups of chicken broth
- 8 carrots, quartered
- 4 celery stalks, quartered
- avocado oil
- 12 prunes
- 2 tablespoons of Banyuls vinegar
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground pepper
I wasn’t sure whether to position the bird breast-side up or down but after studying her cookbook’s cover photo, I decided to position it boob side up. Ick. I can’t believe I just typed that.
With a whole chicken in the pot, I could barely fit in all the cabbage.
In fact, I had to smash down the lid with quite a bit of force to make sure it was well-sealed.
It was kind of a pain to cut up the chicken after I took it out of the oven because it was super HOT and my fingers aren’t made out of kevlar. I was just impatient because it smelled so damn good.
I served the chicken with garlic cauliflower mashed potatoes and mushrooms sauteed with diced shallots and Tabil seasoning.
Despite my misgivings about cutting up the chicken straight out of the oven, cooking the whole chicken in the pot tastes great – moist and juicy (even the breasts) and the “gravy” is really full-flavored and concentrated. Dorie’s chicken is definitely my new favorite way to make chicken if I have 2 hours to spare. Even though we polished off the chicken at dinner, I’m saving the veggies and sauce to eat with whatever protein I make tomorrow. Yes, it’s that good.
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