Chicken Legs

This only happened because in my head I had been creating an argument for why it doesn't matter if what I cook tastes good. I don't wave a magic wand and food appears. We're talking about the practical application of timing everything (trips to school, feeding the baby, etc.) and combining what I have on hand. Saying it tastes good doesn't really matter. You're going to have to eat it regardless. Can we appreciate how I was able to work around whatever obstacles popped up that day (including the great "I don't feel like it" hurdle)?

So I roasted chicken legs and potatoes. But I was no longer thinking in dinner mode by the time Luis served himself. I knew there were two lunches still in that pot, but thinking they were too hot to put in plastic containers just yet, I set it aside and completely forgot about it. No pictures of dinner. No lunches for later in the week. Just garbage. Hopefully I'm now that I've proved my own point—that I normally do a terrific job of pulling it all together—I can go back to doing a terrific job.

Chicken Salad

Baby Arugula looked really good this week at the grocery store. I can make salad with the leftover chicken, I thought. When I actually went to make the salad, I realized I shouldn't have turned up my nose at all the tomatoes. What was I going to put on this salad besides chicken? I chopped up an apple. I sliced up a red onion. I found some sliced almonds that had been overpowered by the hazelnuts they were sitting next to. And voila. Dinner.

Roasted Chicken

Bunches of fresh broccoli's been on sale around here the past few weeks. I didn't feel like dumping raw broccoli on everyone's plate, but I also didn't feel like getting more pots dirty than necessary. So when the chicken was almost ready, I dropped the broccoli into the roasting pan and let it steam/boil in there.

Chicken and More Potatoes

Roasted chicken breast... Hopefully I made some sort of vegetable to go with this. It looks kind of sad.

Two Meat Combo

There was pork, there was chicken, there was not a lot of time. I decided to mix up some BBQ sauce and hope it tasted like a meal.

Chicken Pot Pie

I decided to go with a biscuit crust, but didn't make nearly enough dough. I should really start measuring things again instead of guessing.

Chicken Taco

I don't think I've tried the McCormick's chicken taco seasoning before. It's really good. This is chicken breast I roasted a few days ago with melted cheese on a tostada shell.

Shortbread and Whole Roast Chicken

I made shortbread this morning. I made shortbread this afternoon. This is the afternoon batch. It's slightly less toasted-looking. LV had said the pseudo-Ranger Cookies were the best cookies he had ever had. But these were bordering on insanity they were so good. I was like, "Really? Because they melt in your mouth?" And I was joking, but he was serious. "Yes!" Who knew shortbread could be such a hit?

I roasted a little chicken for dinner. Rather than serve it with more potatoes like I have been doing, I made more biscuits. Between the cookies and the biscuits and the chicken, the oven was on pretty much all day. Which was nice because I had decided 58 degrees was plenty warm enough for opening all the windows.

Oh, and those things that look like pickles in the background... I put green squash in the bottom of the roasting pan with the chicken. Luckily I didn't put them all in there. They turned really mushy. I tried to bake them like fries later (again, more with the oven), but that didn't work well. So I served raw squash to Scrappy. I didn't think she'd be down with squishy squash.

Chicken and Yellow Rice

I was interested in making dinner using only one pot. So I pulled out the biggest sauteing pan, found its lid, and, voila, only one dirty dish (besides the three plates). First I cooked the chicken, then, after setting that aside, I made the rice in the same pot. We're back to the super thinly sliced chicken. See that shadow under the rice? The chicken is causing that shadow.

Chicken Legs

"Dinner is deeeelicious."

Did I hear her right? Do I need to have Scrappy's tastebuds checked? This is 99 cent salad because it's set to expire any second. This is super cheap chicken that is probably also about to expire. This is store brand macaroni that I overcooked. It's all eww. But okay. Something other than pizza gets a thumbs up from the Scrappers...

Roast Chicken

This is roast chicken breast, penne, frozen chopped kale, and tomatoes. The chicken was still pretty frozen when I stuck it in the roasting pan (I stuck in the freezer after I brought it home from the store because I wasn't sure when I was actually going to do anything with it), which worked out really well. With the lid on, it created a nice little poultry sauna. I threw sliced a lemon in there and everything. It helped create a sauce so this didn't have to be as bland a meal as it could have been.

Baked Ziti

We've been avoiding converting any of the leftover chicken, turkey, or steak into dinner. Last night we walked all the way to Wendy's rather than eat leftovers. But tonight I went for it. There was a box of ziti. There were jars of pasta sauce. I had just bought a bag of frozen chopped kale. We could do this. We could make something of this... What I came up with was a super-cheesy leftover poultry baked ziti dish. Kind of light on the sauce, but still good.

Roasted Chicken Breast

While the chicken in this picture did come from from some rather large portions, they turned out to not be as ridiculously over-sized as I would have hoped. (Leftovers are fun...) There was quite a bit of bone.

Leftover Chicken

I wanted to make meatballs. Big Italian meatballs. But that plan just wasn't working out. First, I didn't have bread. Second, I didn't have time. After three days of wanting spaghetti and meatballs, I decided to simply make spaghetti and dump the sauce over the leftover roast chicken. Good enough.

Roast Chicken, Muffins, Mini Quiche

My parents came to visit. I made a chicken.

I also made mini quiche (much better when I didn't haphazardly add salt) and...

muffins for Sunday morning. (I was up *real* early on Saturday.) The muffins are oatmeal-cranberry-pecan. Because that's what was around...

Leftover Chicken

I had roasted chicken, half a box of shell pasta, and frozen vegetables. They all seemed to go together, but I wasn't sure what else it needed. Mayonnaise! LV was very excited. I was worried I was about to make everyone sick with warm mayonnaise. But it was safe. And still good as a lunch later in the week.

A Whole Chicken

I see whole chickens in the store or on some cooking segment and think I'd never make that. But then I finally bought one. I made a whole chicken.

Chicken Dinner

The last of the gigantic chicken cutlets. This time with asparagus and really good homemade biscuits. (I thought the biscuits were going to be burnt because I waited too long to get back to the oven to pull them out. Nope. Turns out I probably never cooked them long enough before.)

Oven Fried Chicken

This is my second attempt at a mega family pack of drumstick and thighs. The breading was really blah. I should go back to crackers with seasoning I add instead of boxed up seasoned bread crumbs.

Christmas Eve

We had a lot to do on Christmas Eve. I'm kind of surprised there were so many stores open... The main goal for me was to get two batches of chocolate cookies made for part of a gift set. LV was able to pick up a cookie dough scooper for me the day before. I *love* the scooper. Love it.

Scrappy would be with her mom on Christmas, so we tried to make a bigger deal about Christmas Eve dinner than we have in the past. This is another gigantic chicken cutlet with broccoli and homemade biscuits.

Then Scrappy and LV made sugar cookies using the Jiffy mix. LV and I had the same thought when we first tasted the finished product: This tasted like a corn muffin... I guess now we know that the fastest sugar cookies are definitely not the best sugar cookies.

And then we waited for Santa.