I learned something new!

I learned something new, something new today!  I learned it upside down, and inside out, I learned all about roasting chicken!

(In case that was lost on you….Sid the Science Kid…..Tristan's new favorite)

Nick and I invited Will and Emily for dinner tonight, and while we were perusing the grocery store yesterday looking for ideas, we decided to try our hands at roasting a WHOLE chicken.  I mean, how hard could it be?

I stuffed it full of celery, onions, and carrots and coated the top in garlic powder, parsley, basil and marjoram.  Then I put it in the dutch oven, added a few cups of water and let it bake for 3 hours.  Meanwhile, Nick said he loved the rolls Becky made for family dinner last week and said I should make them.  Unfortunately, her recipe used a bread machine and potato flakes.  I had to improvise.  So, I decided, I had made gnocci a few weeks ago, and those are potato dumplings.  I could use that as a base and turn it into a bread.  So I boiled and mashed 3 potatoes with butter.  Then I mixed a cup of water with 4 tbsp of honey and 1 tbsp of yeast.  Then I mixed an egg into the potatoes, added the yeast water, and kneaded in 3-4 cups of flour.  Let that rise for half an hour, made little rolls, added them to the pan, let them rise another hour or so, and they baked up fantabulously.

I am so proud of myself.  Will and Emily brought potatoes and corn, and Tristan loved the potatoes.  He got mad when Nick wasn't feeding him fast enough.  He also munched down a bunch of chicken, rolls and celery.  Go figure, we just need to make elaborate from scratch meals to get him to eat!  For desert, I made brownies from scratch too…..I was on a roll today!  We went to the park, played for awhile, swung, tossed a football and arobe, before coming home, enjoying desert and going nuts playing Parcheesi….which Emily won.  I was so close and then Will sabotaged me!  Oh well, I'll get them all next time!