Food Friday

It's been a long time since I was here. A lot has changed in my little world since last summer. But knitting is still going on... More about that in a minute.

I'm going to try and do a "Food Friday" every week. Today it's about Roast Chicken with fennel, lemon and potatoes. This is my take on a recipe I first found through a TV program - can't remember which one, sorry. Here's my version:

Roast Chicken with fennel, lemon and potatoes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Wash a whole chicken with running cold water, remove any giblets and trim away any excess fat.

Place chicken, breast-side-up in a rimmed baking sheet (grease or spray it first)

Cut 2 fennel bulbs in quarters length-wise. Trim away the core at base of each quarter. Arrange fennel pieces around the chicken.

Cut 2 lemons in quarters. Place one or two lemon pieces inside chicken cavity. Arrange the rest of the lemon pieces around the chicken.

Scrub six to eight medium potatoes and cut into quarters. Arrange them in the pan with the lemon and fennel pieces. (I most often use plain ol' Idaho potatoes, but reds or Yukon Golds are delicious, too.)

Drizzle olive oil over the chicken et. al. (2 to 3 T)

Sprinkle with Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Bake/roast in oven about an hour or until chicken is done - test by piercing thigh with sharp knife or fork - juices should run clear. Or cut into thickest part of breast - there should be no pink showing and juices should be clear.

Serve with a salad or your favorite green veggie. Delicious!

For some reason, I don't like left-over chicken reheated. (I don't mind it cold, though...) I usually strip the carcass after the meal, dice or cube any leftover meat and either freeze it or refrigerate it for sandwiches, chicken salad or soup or whatever. I usually save the bones/skin for making chicken stock. Maybe next week's "Food Friday" will be home-made chicken noodle soup. It's so much easier than you might think. And, no I don't make my own noodles - but the home-made chicken stock is just so good!...

OK. Knitting. I don't even know where to begin. Guess I'll start with a current WIP - "Twisted" socks from a recent Knitty. I started these on April 7 and whizzed through the leg and heel of the first sock. Made the mistake of bragging to a knitter friend (he's "Bugzen" on Ravelry) that I was so proud of myself - no unknitting or mistakes. Yup, you guessed it...I got past the heel and had to rip back not once, not twice, not thrice but four freakin' times. And when I got to the toe??!!!?? Oh, my gosh - what a mess! I had been knitting on two circs (my favorite method for socks) but realized after throughly trashing the toe that I needed to switch to dpns and trade out the plastic-ring stitch markers for crochet-thread markers and even then it was dicey for those last few rows. You're supposed to decrease to 8 stitches and then cut the yarn and thread it through those last stitches. I think I got down to 12 stitches and Just. Couldn't. Do. It. Any. More. so I threaded througth 12 and the toe looks fine and I'm not gonna worry about it.

The yarn is Bamboo and Ewe by Sensations and I made the largest size - yup, I have humongous feet. I haven't used this yarn for socks before - in fact it's yarn that was leftover after I made a scarf (of sorts). I'll blog about that sometime soon.

I'm now about three fourths the way down the leg on the second sock. But I'm not going to mention/brag that so far things are going well. No sirree! I learned my lesson!

Before I go for now, one of the things that has changed for me since last summer is that I recently moved from Boise to Star - a small rural community a few miles from Boise. I'm very isolated out here and have to depend on my two adult children for transpo anywhere. I'm lonely (watch out! pity party looming). If anyone out there reads this and knows of any knitters in the Star/Eagle area, let me know. I'd love to join a knitting group or help start one.