Life has been a series of cooking adventures down our gravel road lately. The man of steel is cutting down on sugar, and allergy tests keep revealing more foods I need to avoid. At this rate, we’ll be reduced to foraging nuts and berries in the fall and eating dandelion greens in the spring.
Our cooking adventures were an effort to avoid that cruel fate, and they led to some surprising foodie finds. For example Balkan Meatballs, a scrumptious winter comfort food, tastes better when vegetable shortening and almond milk are used as substitutes for butter and milk.
Sometimes, life does give you lemonade.
The next foodie find came compliments of the Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker, a Christmas gift from the man of steel. With trepidation, I followed the recipe for juicy roast chicken. The oxymoronic instructions said to roast the bird, uncovered in the Deep Covered Baker, for an hour at 450 degrees. Between the uncovered, covered baker and the high temperature, I expected the bird to be black and gross. But it truly was a juicy roast chicken.
So much for distrusting oxymorons.
The final foodie find followed hard on the heels of the juicy roast chicken. The carcass of the little red hen looked pretty meaty, so cooking the meat off the bones was in order. After putting the carcass in a large sauce pan, filling the pan with water, pouring in the rest of the juicy juice to make broth, and heating the pan on the stove, the contents were simmering briskly. About three hours later, the final foodie find came to light: Even if a person forgets about a chicken carcass simmering briskly on the stove, the pan will not be a burned mess if enough water was added at the beginning of the fiasco adventure. Instead it yields a rich, concentrated broth and meat falling off the bones.
Don’t ask me how I know this.
image courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net
