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Tatiana’s Best Ever Roast Chicken Recipe

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Have you ever thought about what you’d like your last meal to be? I have. And mine would feature roast chicken as the centre piece. There is nothing so amazing, comforting, and downright delicious as roast chicken with crisp, yummy skin. And don’t bother denying yourself the skin! Live a little! Skimp on dessert if you must. You don’t want to miss the flavour that this recipe results in.

Tatiana’s Best Ever Roast Chicken

Time to table: 4.5-6.5 hours (1-1.5hr cooking, .5hr active prep, 3-5hr passive prep)
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
2 tbsp thyme
2 tbsp olive oil
2 lemons (and their zest)
salt (kosher or sea salt for brining, you can use regular table salt for seasoning)
Dishes & utensils:
Sharp chef’s knife
Roasting dish
Meat thermometer (they’re like $10 at Ikea. No excuses!)

1. Spatchcock (butterfly) your chicken. If you’re squeamish, this can be a pretty horrifying process. You can get away with just cutting out the backbone and ignoring the breastbone, but it’s worth the effort of getting the breastbone out of your chicken as well.

2. Brine your chicken for at least half an hour, preferably a whole hour, but not more than 2 (for a 6-7 lb chicken). This means you want to submerge your chicken in water that has salt and sugar in it. I use a ratio of around 1 gallon of water to 1/2c of sea or kosher salt to 1/4c of white sugar, and scale it up from there (we generally brine in our sink).

3. Rinse your chicken off under cool running water, then dry it thoroughly, front and back (I use paper towels). Salt and pepper front and back. Set skin-side up in a roasting pan. Put in the fridge, uncovered, for two to four hours. You can leave it in there for a shorter or longer amount of time, it won’t hurt your chicken, but remember that the drier the skin is, the crispier it will end up being.

4. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

5. Zest your lemons and halve them. Mix zest, thyme, and olive oil together.

6. Tuck the halved lemons, cut side up, beneath your chicken. Coat skin side with your flavouring.

7. Put chicken in the 450 degree oven for 15 minutes. Turn heat down to 400 after that. Your chicken will cook pretty quickly, between 30-45 minutes (depending on how many times you open up the oven to look at it!)

8. Your chicken is finished when a meat thermometer inserted into the breast reads 160 degrees Fahrenheit or, in the case of my grocery store chicken, the thermometer pops. Grocery store chickens will be taken to a whole new level with this spatchcock, brine, and dry method, but if you can get to a farmer’s market and get a fresh chicken, do it.

9. You can now easily halve or quarter the chicken. No more wrestling! ENJOY!

Posted in Cooking, Mom Influencer Exclusive | 2 Comments »

6.5mo, here comes tooth #1!

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Today, we hit a milestone: Maia, at 28 weeks old, has her first tooth coming in. I noticed it when she was gnawing on my finger earlier today and have been freaking out about the fact that she is, you know, GROWING UP right before our eyes.

But then I started to think more about it, and I realized this caught us completely by surprise. How did I not know she was teething until I FELT a tooth? I researched the signs of teething:

Irritability
Drooling
Coughing
Chin rash
Biting and gnawing
Cheek rubbing & ear pulling
Diarrhea
Low-grade fever
Not sleeping well
Cold-like symptoms

Um. Out of ten, we experienced five, BUT, four of those are totally normal behaviour for Maia, and the fifth is only recognizable in retrospect.

Irritability: Maia’s been “irritable” any time I walk away from her lately, which would seem more like separation anxiety than teething. There was one time earlier today where she started crying completely randomly — she was smacking her hand against the table and I assumed she just smacked too hard and maybe jammed her finger or something — but maybe that was caused by an achy jaw?

Drooling: This child has been drooly FOREVER. We leave a bib on her a lot of the time so we don’t have to change her. So we didn’t notice any excessive drooling; she always drools.

Biting and gnawing: If she’s not drooling on her bib, she’s drooling on her hands and something in them that’s held to her mouth. She bites and gnaws on everything regularly.

Not sleeping well: I wouldn’t say that she sleeps badly, but, a few weeks ago we went to visit family that lives about an hour away and ended up getting home around 10pm. That same night, our air conditioner stopped working. She HAD been waking up only once a night before that, but she hasn’t done it again since. In fact, she’s been waking up three or four times a night, and I’ve just accepted that’s the way she is for now, so I didn’t think it was a sign of teething.

Coughing: Here’s the one that’s only recognizable in retrospect. I have heard her cough a few times lately, but thought nothing of it. She’s taken to making a lot of funny noises — growls, purrs, grunts — and I figured “cough” was just another one of them!

Now, one thing I HAVE noticed, remarked upon, and worried about is that it seems like her latch has changed a bit and on some occasions, nursing has been really uncomfortable. I called my local La Leche League International leader and she suggested that I might be getting back my period or Maia might be teething. Looks like the latter is a possibility!

Any thoughts about coping with a teething baby, whether for the baby’s comfort or mom’s?

Tags: baby, family, Maia, motherhood, parenting
Posted in Cooking, Mom Influencer Exclusive | No Comments »

Sunday Morning Breakfast

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

After being awake for about an hour in the morning, Maia takes a nap. I use that nap to make and eat breakfast. Here’s the quick, verrry tasty dish I had today, inspired by The Amateur Gourmet:

Fried Eggs with warm Spring Asparagus, Mushroom, and Bacon Salad
Time to table: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
5 stalks of asparagus. It’s in season right now; look for firm stalks with tightly closed, purplish tips.
3-5 mushrooms. Your choice on variety/amount; I used white button mushrooms.
2 eggs.
1 strip of bacon.
Grated parmesan cheese.
Butter.
Olive oil.
Black pepper.

–

1. If your mushrooms are not already washed & sliced, do so now. I slice my mushrooms (and onions) after trips to the grocery store so I always have some on hand and ready to go. Mushrooms should be cleaned with a damp paper towel & stored in an airtight container (or Ziploc baggie!) with a paper towel in it.

2. Start heating your skillet, dry, over medium heat.

3. Wash & prep the asparagus. Asparagus has a natural breaking point in its lower third; hold the stalk loosely and bend until it naturally snaps. The bottom of the stalk can be discarded; the rest is tender and good for eating. I went for thin, long slices.

asparagus

3. Add butter to your hot skillet, followed quickly by your asparagus. Toss to coat.

4. While the asparagus cooks, slice your strip of bacon in half. After about a minute, add the bacon to the pan.

bacon, asparagus, mushrooms

5. When the asparagus has begun to brown, mix it around and make room in the pan to add your mushrooms.

6. When all of the items in your skillet are done, heap the veggies on your serving plate. Set the bacon aside to drain.

dscn1173

7. Add olive oil to pan, crack eggs into it. Pepper the eggs. I did not use salt at all in this dish because the bacon and parmesan are both naturally salty flavours.

warm asparagus, mushroom, bacon sala