Tonight I made Karen Templeton’s Easiest Roast Chicken Ever, but because I don’t do easy, there had to be some drama.
I couldn’t find a four-pound chicken.
I’m not very good at winging it. (Heh. Winging it. Chicken. Get it?) When I follow a recipe, I follow the recipe. But apparently we like a bigger chicken here in New England because the smallest I could find anywhere (yes, I went to more than one grocery store) was a six-pounder. The recipe didn’t say six pounds. It said four pounds.
But I persevered because I’ll do almost anything for the words easiest and ever. The important thing for me is the little pop-up timer because meat thermometers are yet another thing on the massive list of things I haven’t mastered. Finally, after much drama and internal (okay, and a little external) dialogue with myself, I decided on a seven and one-half pounder because it had clear directions and a pop-up timer.
It was awesome. Even the Short Kid liked it and he never eats chicken unless it has popcorn before it or nuggets after it. I think we’re up to a whole six things all four of us will eat now!
I didn’t take a picture, though.
Comment
*grins*
I love your adventures in cooking.
Comment
You’re a hoot.
I remember those wonker roasters back east (we don’t seem to have them here, for some reason). AKA wannabe turkeys. I’m surprised, though, you can’t find the smaller whole chickens. Weird.
BTW, you can do the same thing with a cut-up fryer, or legs, or breasts (bone-in). Lay pieces skin side up on a foil-covered cookie sheet or in a casserole dish (THE DISH DOESN’T MATTER, ‘KAY?), put the same stuff on ’em and bake/roast @350 for about an hour, or until there are lots of juices in the pan.
Glad everybody enjoyed it, though. That chicken’s showed up on our dining table probably once a week for the past 30+ years.
Comment
…and bake/roast @350 for about an hour, or until there are lots of juices in the pan.
See, that made my eye twitch.
If I buy a …whatever, and it says to bake at 350 for 20 minutes per pound and it’s, say, 12.5 pounds, I get out the calculator. Yes, the calculator.
I think the fact I measured out exactly 2 tablespoons of soy sauce says it all.
(The only exception being Kraft Mac & Cheese. That’s a plop of butter and a splash of milk.)
Comment
Repeat after me: Cooking is not rocket science.
Although those scary dudes on the cooking channel might disagree with me.
When I was 12, my Southern-to-the-bone grandmother was THISCLOSE to calling the authorities on my mother because I didn’t yet know how to cook. Fast forward six years later, and I was on my own in NYC…and eating swiss cheese sandwiches for three weeks because the ancient gas stove in the apartment scared the crap out of me. (This is the kid who wouldn’t light a match until she was, like, in high school. Srsly.) Then I figured — hey, if the cave folk could figure out how to stick raw meat in fire and cook it, without benefit of cookbooks or oven timers, I probably could, too.
So I did. Haven’t eaten a Swiss cheese sandwich since.
Trust me, making up stories? Helluva lot harder than cooking.
Comment
Karen said:
“Trust me, making up stories? Helluva lot harder than cooking. ”
Uh, I don’t know about that, Karen.
My mom never taught me how to cook real food, just the stuff you can get from the snack bar at a 24 hour bowling alley. Worked with her there from the time I was 12 until 17. Deep fryers and huge flat grills were my friends. Unfortunately we didn’t have either of those at home. LOL I grew up on fast food, restaurant food, and bowling alley food. (Weight problems much?)
Anyhoo, when I met hubster I tried my hand at real cooking. (Okay, that’s a fib, I still relied heavily on hamburgs and boxed whatever.)
To this day, my husband will tell all and sundry about my first attempt at breaded pork chops. Use egg dip? Yeah, I can do that.
Um, no, I couldn’t.
We had a very interesting meal where the main entree was pork chops with a thick layer of scrambled eggs on them. Woof