I may be sick, but we have been gone for five months and five months is seriously way too long for our niece to go without eating my freshly baked Challah. Chest cold be damned. Not sure how she survived the winter. We invited my sister and our niece for Shabbat tonight.
DT schlepped me down to the hippy market and I chose a fat (organically-grown, free-range, fed GMO-free grain by virgins) 5 pound chicken. It was a gorgeous bird and I am thankful to the farmer who raised this fat chicken! We were both so happy (I was practically delirious) to be back to our neighborhood New Seasons Market. In a perfect world, every town would have a market that strives to provide foods grown locally and sustainably - while also have a great selection of Italian wines. If you are ever in the Portland-metro area, I urge you to visit a New Seasons store.
Lately, I have taken to butterflying the chicken before roasting. It takes about one minute to remove the spine of the chicken with kitchen shears, and butterflying the bird reduces the cooking time by nearly half. DT finds it much easier to carve a butterflied bird and I'm all about making DT happy.
I can't think of many things that smell better than a roasting chicken. Tonight's chicken was marinated (all afternoon) in lemon juice from Brother Steve & Gina's farm, garlic, olive oil, fresh thyme, salt & pepper.
We also served a salad made with heirloom tomatoes, salt & fresh basil. That's it.
I thought Carla would get a kick out of Hasselback potatoes and I was right... but Carla is like me - Potato Obsessed - so of course, she loved the potatoes. Tonight I brushed the sliced taters with only olive oil, garlic, salt & pepper.No rendered duck fat.
Dang. Sorry.
Somehow a photo of the Leeks Vinaigrette never made it into the camera... nor my whole wheat Challah... nor the fat-free panna cotta with fresh raspberries. (I need a better photographer!)
But I did manage to capture a shot of my niece and sister!Until my next update, I remain, your happy correspondent.