Food
Roast Chicken
We eat roast chicken at least 3 times a month at our house. It’s really easy to just pop it in the oven in the afternoon and then forget about dinner until the timer goes off. And you can do lots of great things with the leftovers. 
To make a roast chicken, you need to brine it the night before you want to cook it. Find an oven-safe pot big enough for a chicken, and fill it with water. Bring to a boil. Add 1 c. salt, 1/2 c. sugar and maybe a cut lemon, a few peppercorns, a bay leaf, whatever. Stir until salt and sugar are dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool. This is super important! DO NOT put your chicken into hot brine! You don’t want it to cook! After the water is cool, throw in the chicken, and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, drain the water and dry the chicken well with paper towels. About an hour before cooking, take the chicken out. Preheat your oven to 400, and bake the chicken for about 2 hours, or until the juices run clear. You can baste it every 15 minutes if you want, but I usually forget. Let cool for about 15 minutes before serving.
If you want, you can throw in some root vegetables like potatoes, carrots, etc. with the chicken and then you don’t even have to make a side dish.
Project 52–Week 8
This week’s theme is “Yum.”
And these are my boys enjoying some bacon on our front steps. They were so happy to be playing outside that they didn’t want to come in for a snack, so I brought it to them. I thought it was so funny that they just sat on the steps chewing away. LOL
And I’ve got a freebie template for you. Click on the image to download.
Have a great week!
Penne with Artichokes, Sun-dried Tomatoes & Sausage
Sunday at church, totally out of the blue, James invited someone to come over at eat lunch with us. Now normally, I would have been freaking out, but we had just been to the grocery store and my smart husband reminded me that we had the ingredients to make this yummy dish, which also happens to be quick and easy. I made some modifications because I can’t just follow the recipe. I used penne instead of fusilli because I like it better. I also left out the mozzarella and the parsley. A dash of dried basil works in place of fresh, if you don’t have any. And I didn’t have any white wine, so I just added a splash of rice wine vinegar to the broth. It gives it a different taste, but a nice kick that I like.
I also threw together a quick spinach, feta and red onion salad and tossed it with some olive oil and vinegar. It took less than 20 minutes, start to finish, fed us all with lots of leftovers, and gave us time to hang out and get to know our new friend. The best part of this meal is that you can always have the ingredients on hand for unexpected company or days when you don’t know what to have for dinner.
