Din-spiration Part 6
This is sort of a lighthearted post, but I am going to start by saying that all those in Paris and the World are in my prayers. There are never words when something so unspeakable happens. As it has been pointed out, it happens far more often that we usually hear about in places that are more obscure to most of us.
I'm going to continue with this planned post as most of us still have "normal life" to attend to and families to feed amidst this very stressful backdrop.
To keep myself accountable, I was going to keep up posting about my crusade to eat at home. I have failed the last few weeks, but the resolve to eat at home has not!
The great thing is that on the days when resolve wanes in me, my husband picks it up. He is often the one to encourage me that he can stop by and pick up an ingredient I forgot, or to step in and create a dish himself. He chose make us a Lasagna last week- for me, that is a more involved dinner than I will take on a week day.
Rather than share a day by day of our meals, I am going to share two of our favorite go-tos that I have posted about.
If you ever have a need for a super duper easy dinner that can show well enough for company, try the whole roasted chicken from the Pioneer Woman.
Basically, you just stuff the bird with lots of good smelling stuff- lemon (we always have a tree full), garlic, and onion are usually my choices. Then you mix some herbs, kosher salt, olive oil and give that bird a good rub down. The house smells heavenly while dinner is cooking.
You can get the whole deal here:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/herb-roasted-whole-chicken/
We add a whole bunch of baby reds and chunked carrots to the pan in and around the bird. I actually love these as much as the bird. My boys LOVE the bird.
My husband has started bagging up leftovers right after our chickens have been cooked. He has always brown bagged for lunch and I hear so many things about lunch meat not being the healthiest... so win-win! Dinner plus lunches for the week.
We do 2 birds at once and, in addition to lunches, we get one or two dinners during the week from our efforts (chicken quesadillas, chicken pot pie, ...)
These guys are squished in a little pan without many veggies, but my mother-in-law (who lives right next door) recently started loaning us a great big pan with handles on the side and enough room for tons of potatoes and carrots.
Our other go-to/make enough for a small town/super duper delicious meal is chicken noodle soup. I linked it in an earlier post, but that blog seems to have moved or just been deleted, so I think I am safe to share here.
Original titled "Chicken Soup for the Chicks" (meaning little kids):
**see notes after this section about some variations we have made**
You will need a whole chicken, carrots, celery, onion, parsley, some egg noodles, a stock pot and some celery salt.
Fill the pot about 1/2 full of water. Put the chicken in and boil- a slow rolling boil.
In the meantime, chop up those veggies.
Your chicken should to look and smell done. When it easily falls a part (tug a leg), take it out and put the veggies and noodles in to boil.
Shred that chicken (save the bones for bone broth!)
Add the chicken back in the pot and simmer.
You can season this with fresh parsley and celery salt.
Okay- the variations:
We DO NOT add noodles in when cooking. We freeze our leftover soup and find that the noodles don't hold up well. We also have a daughter who can not have gluten- if she stops by or we share a tub of soup with her, she is able to eat the soup free of noodles.
We don't always use egg noodles- I think the ones pictured are rotini.
We add a chunk of ginger root to the pot with the veggies. Our local grocer told us about this and it adds a nice kick. Just take remove it before you eat the soup.
We save any chicken broth from other meals we make and water from steamed or boiled veggies and use that instead of water to make our soup.
We double this recipe (at least). We have ginormous stock pot that we fit 2 birds in with all the water/broth we save. We put the chickens in and fill the pot until they are fully covered. We usually use 2 pretty good sized birds.
We also chop a ton of veggies. You know that medium mixing bowl you use for baking?- not the biggest one, the next one down. We fill one with carrots and one with celery. We only cut one onion because my husband does not love his onion to be too strong.
That's it!! Happy cooking. :)
Just for fun, a little of life around here:
When you are going to a Halloween party and you need an inexpensive, easy costume...
Yup, that's my life...
And, of course, there is grandbaby adorableness...
I'm going to continue with this planned post as most of us still have "normal life" to attend to and families to feed amidst this very stressful backdrop.
To keep myself accountable, I was going to keep up posting about my crusade to eat at home. I have failed the last few weeks, but the resolve to eat at home has not!
The great thing is that on the days when resolve wanes in me, my husband picks it up. He is often the one to encourage me that he can stop by and pick up an ingredient I forgot, or to step in and create a dish himself. He chose make us a Lasagna last week- for me, that is a more involved dinner than I will take on a week day.
Rather than share a day by day of our meals, I am going to share two of our favorite go-tos that I have posted about.
If you ever have a need for a super duper easy dinner that can show well enough for company, try the whole roasted chicken from the Pioneer Woman.
Basically, you just stuff the bird with lots of good smelling stuff- lemon (we always have a tree full), garlic, and onion are usually my choices. Then you mix some herbs, kosher salt, olive oil and give that bird a good rub down. The house smells heavenly while dinner is cooking.
You can get the whole deal here:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/herb-roasted-whole-chicken/
We add a whole bunch of baby reds and chunked carrots to the pan in and around the bird. I actually love these as much as the bird. My boys LOVE the bird.
My husband has started bagging up leftovers right after our chickens have been cooked. He has always brown bagged for lunch and I hear so many things about lunch meat not being the healthiest... so win-win! Dinner plus lunches for the week.
We do 2 birds at once and, in addition to lunches, we get one or two dinners during the week from our efforts (chicken quesadillas, chicken pot pie, ...)
These guys are squished in a little pan without many veggies, but my mother-in-law (who lives right next door) recently started loaning us a great big pan with handles on the side and enough room for tons of potatoes and carrots.
Our other go-to/make enough for a small town/super duper delicious meal is chicken noodle soup. I linked it in an earlier post, but that blog seems to have moved or just been deleted, so I think I am safe to share here.
Original titled "Chicken Soup for the Chicks" (meaning little kids):
**see notes after this section about some variations we have made**
You will need a whole chicken, carrots, celery, onion, parsley, some egg noodles, a stock pot and some celery salt.
Fill the pot about 1/2 full of water. Put the chicken in and boil- a slow rolling boil.
In the meantime, chop up those veggies.
Your chicken should to look and smell done. When it easily falls a part (tug a leg), take it out and put the veggies and noodles in to boil.
Shred that chicken (save the bones for bone broth!)
Add the chicken back in the pot and simmer.
You can season this with fresh parsley and celery salt.
Okay- the variations:
We DO NOT add noodles in when cooking. We freeze our leftover soup and find that the noodles don't hold up well. We also have a daughter who can not have gluten- if she stops by or we share a tub of soup with her, she is able to eat the soup free of noodles.
We don't always use egg noodles- I think the ones pictured are rotini.
We add a chunk of ginger root to the pot with the veggies. Our local grocer told us about this and it adds a nice kick. Just take remove it before you eat the soup.
We save any chicken broth from other meals we make and water from steamed or boiled veggies and use that instead of water to make our soup.
We double this recipe (at least). We have ginormous stock pot that we fit 2 birds in with all the water/broth we save. We put the chickens in and fill the pot until they are fully covered. We usually use 2 pretty good sized birds.
We also chop a ton of veggies. You know that medium mixing bowl you use for baking?- not the biggest one, the next one down. We fill one with carrots and one with celery. We only cut one onion because my husband does not love his onion to be too strong.
That's it!! Happy cooking. :)
Just for fun, a little of life around here:
When you are going to a Halloween party and you need an inexpensive, easy costume...
A last hurrah! That's Mark front and center with his number scraped off...
Yup, that's my life...
And, of course, there is grandbaby adorableness...
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