Messin' around in the kitchen...

I felt like being Ms. Suzie Homemaker last week since I was on vacation. What better time to try a new recipe on my family...Or is it? Dun dun dun!

Believe it or not, I haven't roasted a chicken before.  Cornish game hen, yes, but not chicken...

 

 Was it worthy to be eaten or trashed?

 

  Lazy resourceful cook that I am, I made sure to find a recipe online where I already had all the main spices and ingredients...

 

 Here's the recipe courtesy of Afghan Cooking Unveiled

Roast Chicken with Afghan Spice Rub

 

 Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken, rinsed and patted dry
•  ½ tsp. ground coriander
•  ½ tsp. ground paprika
•  ½ tsp. ground cumin
•  ½ tsp. turmeric
•  ½ tsp. garlic powder
•  ½ tsp. Kosher salt
•  1 lemon, cut in half

 Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Set the chicken in a roasting pan, preferably on a roasting rack. (I did not have a roasting rack)
• In a small bowl stir together the 4 spices, the garlic powder and the salt.
• Squeeze both halves of the lemon over the chicken and then stuff into the cavity of the bird.
• Gently pat the spice rub evenly over the entire chicken.
• Roast the chicken until done, 45 minutes to an hour depending on the size of the bird. (I ended up roasting mine about an hour and 15 min since the chicken was 4 lbs

That was how the chicken looked going in. I don't have an "after shot" but rest assured it came out quite well. The skin crisped up nicely and the spices had a nice aroma as it was roasting in the oven. We all enjoyed this version of roast chicken and hopefully I will do it again but maybe with a smaller bird because it looks like we'll be eating this for days!

 

 As a side dish, I chopped up some leeks, sweet red, orange and yellow peppers, along with red chard.

The red chard was from our backyard. I bought a couple of red chard plants from North Park Produce (when they were still open) in the late spring. It's still going strong. The leaves look gorgeous! Pesticide free!

Chopped onions were sauteed along with the vegetables with a sprinkle of soy sauce and black pepper. I ran out of oyster sauce so soy sauce had to do. I have more red chard waiting to be picked so once we finish this off, I'll be making more side dishes with chard.

So dudes, I'm on a roll, yeah.

 

 A few days later, I made another recipe. This one was super easy. I had some ground chicken that I stockpiled from earlier this summer. You know, trying to eat healthy (more ground chicken, ground turkey and more fish)...

 

 Chicken Apple Patties

(recipe courtesy of the fab food blog JustJenn Recipes. See her post with better photos here!)

 

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground chicken
• 1 green apple, diced small and fine (I didn't have green, so I used a gala apple)
• I also added some dried cranberries for color
• 1 Tablespoon maple syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

• Mix the chopped apples with the ground chicken. (I also added the dried cranberries)
• Add the maple syrup, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
• Form the meat into small patties (about 2 oz or the size of chicken nugget)
• Cook over medium heat in a pan until the meat is cooked (no longer pink).
• I didn't have mini slider rolls so I used one slice of bread cut in half for the sandwich.

*I kinda screwed up by almost burning the first batch, so I "deglazed" the pan by adding pineapple juice and slamming a wok lid on top to trap the steam. It worked out because they tasted pretty good. They were a hit with TC and her friend. Bert and I passed on the bread and ate our chicken patties with salad instead.

The patties below are just lumped together. They're not "plated" with the bread or sides or anything. Ground chicken is my new friend.

So that was your latest installment of CC goes Modern Housewife aka the Cooking Chronicles of Riddick CC.  It's fun to change things up once in awhile. I have this vintage cookbook I acquired from an older friend. It's so fkg old that the directions call for putting ingredients through a food mill since blenders were not yet invented. Talk about time consuming and back breaking. They also liked a lot of jellied dishes back then. Mmmmm, jellied salmon. Does that sound remotely appetizing to you? I thought so. I think I might feature some of those recipes in the near future for larfs.