>A Chicken in Every Pot

>I told my friend on Facebook the other day, after asking for her roasted chicken recipe, that one of my goals for the summer is to “learn to cook like it’s the Depression.” Because with three boys and one-point-two incomes, we’re going to need to be creative in the kitchen. I’m starting with roasted chicken. At $0.85 a pound, it is less than a third of the price of breasts alone and Wes could really use the extra fat in the dark meat anyway. And after you eat the parts you want, you can boil the rest to make chicken stock and save even more money.

My parents came over for dinner last night, so I made them this recipe with a five-pound chicken I bought for approximately $4.75. After we carved it, found some uncooked places (Klassy! Also, grr broken meat thermometer!!), microwaved the uncooked pieces, and served it, it was delicious and moist! The potatoes were perfectly done too. I shall trademark my roasting/microwaving combo strategy and make millions!

After bedtime Ryan and I sat at the kitchen table and talked about our days while we picked the extra meat off the bones (ro-man-tic). Then I used the bones and skin to make ten cups of stock in the crockpot (OH the heated debate that occurred on my Facebook wall when I put up an innocent little appeal for stock-making tips!! Highly amusing. And informative!). TEN cups! Ten cups of stock at the store is $5! The same price I paid for the whole chicken! That we also got to eat for dinner! Bring on the Dust Bowl!

Tonight I’ll make chicken soup with the extra meat and four of the cups of stock. CHA-CHING!

(I attribute this little home cooking jag to the abrupt end to the semester and resulting directionless creative energy. For lunch yesterday the kids had organic black bean and Monterrey jack tacos while I enjoyed a mozzarella and tomato sandwich with fresh basil on ciabatta bread with a side of sliced fresh pears. I am not bragging. I’m just kind of amazed because usually lunch involves yogurt and peanut butter toast for the kids and a handful of Halloween candy and a side of guilt-induced fresh fruit for me. Bon appetit!)

It’s not all fun and chicken stock around here though. Do you know what your house smells like when you simmer a chicken carcass in a crock pot for ten hours over night? Like CHICKEN. Not chicken. CHICKEN. I woke up at 4:00 sure that someone had left a toy in the oven. Putting the stock away in the freezer has helped. But I’m going to make some peach cobbler too just to make sure the smell coming from my house doesn’t start attracting stray dogs.

Next we’ll move on to the Cold War and learn how to prepare dried beans in the crock pot. I’ll be off the grid in no time!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a sleeping baby and about ten hours worth of chicken smell to wash out of my hair.

>Messy Happy

>Usually clutter and chaos drives me crazy. You can imagine how much time I spend frustrated with the chaos given the current state of things. I’m told it won’t get better until James goes to college, so I’m trying to prioritize and clean up as we go and it’s helping, even though that whole shoveling the driveway while it’s still snowing analogy still applies. Big time.

But this morning I walked into my messy living room and just felt content and happy.

When we bought this house we knew we needed one big room for all of us to do things together. I used to think an “adult house” needed a living room and a family room, but this house just had one living room (and a small playroom that is more often used for toy storage because everyone likes the living room so damn much) and we fell in love with it and it’s been perfect.

This morning the coffee table was used as my office, with my grading and proposal budget still spread out where I left them late last night. They shared the table with Ryan’s and my dishes from dinner last night where we ate in front of The Office and 30 Rock, one of our favorite weekly rituals.

There are clothes all over the place, left behind after hasty mid-day clothing changes, which are now more frequent now that Charlie can turn on the sprinkler for himself.

I realize this is not *that* bad. Which might be contributing to my shiny happy feelings today. Or maybe it’s because I slept for six and a half continuous hours last night.

One of the protective pads from the dining room table houses the Island of Sodor and many happy afternoons of civil engineering (and violent property disputes).

The couch is a bookshelf, bed, and jungle gym (STOP DOING THAT TO THE COUCH! GO OUTSIDE IF YOU WANT TO CLIMB SOMETHING!).

Today I understand the empty nesters who have told me I’ll miss the messy house. I just wanted to get this down as a reminder for the next time I feel like greeting Ryan home from work with “Sorry the house is such a hellhole.” I don’t think he even notices.

>GET IN MY BELLY

>I gave James cereal during Charlie and Wes’s dinner ONE TIME and now he expects it. A four month old can EXPECT things. I did not know that. I just assumed that someone who becomes irrevocably trapped after rolling onto his stomach just kind of went with the flow. But apparently not. I tried to hold him in my lap at the table while Charlie and Wes ate dinner tonight and he wiggled and squawked and spit out his pacifier until I stuck him in his chair and gave him something to eat.

He doesn’t quite know what to do but he does know that he NEEDS MORE FOOD RIGHT NOW as soon as he swallows a bite.

Probably now would be a good time to join Costco.

>CSI: Kitchen Edition

>Everyone jokes that the leftovers in their fridge have been there so long as to be unrecognizable. But that never really happens, right? I mean, you might have a little trouble determining which green vegetable it was that has turned orange and liquidy in the bottom of the Corningware dish some well-intentioned relative gave you for your wedding. But usually with a little bit of thought, review of grocery store receipts, and laboratory analysis you can piece it together.

Oh yeah, I remember making green beans almondine for Thanksgiving now. What was it, 2009?

I’ve never truly had the “What the hell was THAT?” experience when cleaning out the fridge. No matter how badly deteriorated the contents of the bowl was, I could always sort of remember having bought it, prepared it, or brought it home from someone else’s house with the intention of eating it at some point.

Until today.

I came home from the store and opened the fridge to put the milk away only to have a medium sized enameled baking dish fall onto my foot, ejecting it’s blue, fuzzy contents all over the floor and my shoes.

I stood there for a moment, gallon of milk in hand, muttering unladylike things about the rest of my family and why I’m the only one who ever cleans the fridge before remembering how I went to yoga last night while Ryan put the big boys to bed then cleaned the kitchen before starting on the actual work he had still to do before going to bed and getting up with James several times between three and six in the morning. OK! Time to clean the fridge!

After putting the baking dish in some soapy water and cleaning all the blue fuzz off the floor I put on my lead apron and face shield and removed a covered Corningware dish from the lower shelf for inspection.

It was about the size of a softball and appeared to have been some kind of roast at one time. The last roast I bought I had cooked in the crockpot to make French Dips, so I am fairly certain this was not it. Whatever it was had been white meat and was covered with a creamy orange sauce with what appeared to have been bits of some kind of herb in it.

Whether or not the sauce was intended to be orange is a matter of uncertainty. The herbs looked tasty though. If they were actually herbs.

I stared at it for several minutes trying to remember when I had cooked it and what it had been but came up with nothing. I looked closer at it and noticed what might have been cheese back in 1997 when it was originally prepared, but this did not help either.

And then, and I cannot explain this behavior other than to remind you that James got up multiple times between three and six last night, I gave it a little sniff.

CRAP ON A CRACKER.

I am pretty sure that was not how it smelled originally when I cooked it to celebrate JFK’s inauguration.

Defeated, I scraped it into the trash and washed out the dish. Carefully. And then sterilized my hands in a paste made of isopropyl alcohol and pumice from a dormant volcano in Greece named for the Goddess of Botulism.

I am very unsettled not knowing what it was.