A Week of Roast Chicken (and other bits and bobs)

I was all alone for the week and took advantage of it by trying out some new recipes. First up, my two (rather epic) baking fails which I mentioned in the last post. The first was my attempt at flapjacks. The second: my attempt at homemade Girl Scout-inspired Thin Mint cookies. What I learned? Don’t guess measurements when baking. I’ve always known I am more of an artist than a scientist, and my approach to cooking and baking is the evidence. I prefer ‘educated guesses’ to measuring spoons and scales…but that results in bad baking! Especially when you are also converting measurements between metric and standard and vice-versa…math and science, ahh!

Fortunately, my cooking has gone better. My inspired idea? Roast a chicken at the weekend, and use it all week long. It’s a traditional custom here in the United Kingdom to have a ‘Sunday roast.’ I am explaining this to you, dear readers, because I had no idea it existed before I experienced my first Sunday roast whilst visiting my boyfriend’s family. My parents still find the idea ‘cute’. What this is, is a large meal on Sunday, with the focus on some sort of roast meat, whether that be chicken, beef or lamb, and accessories of potatoes (roasted or mashed), vegetables, gravy, and then a pudding afterwards. I fell in love with The Roast. A family sitting down at least once a week to a lovely meal? It should be a world-wide institution, don’t ya think?

So anyway, I felt that it was time for me to tackle the roast. How have I gotten through three years of university in Scotland and three years of dating a British man without learning how to roast a chicken?! It’s embarrassing really. So one day, (I’m afraid it was a Saturday), when absolutely no one was home, I roasted a chicken. And you know what, it was easy. I did of course consult my handy cookbooks beforehand (Rachel Allen’s Food for Living was my guide), but all that is really required is sticking the chicken in the oven for an hour and a bit depending on the size of it. I didn’t even bother stuffing it with anything. Just spread some butter over the top, stuck it in a big roasting tin, and put it in the oven for 1 hour and 20 minutes. And it was marvelous.

The hardest part? Letting the meat rest for 15 minutes after lifting it out of the oven. You are meant to do that to let the juices really infuse the meat and make it easier to carve. But the smell! Oh my goodness it was so seductive. Walk into a Boston Market at 5pm and that will be about 1/5 of how good my kitchen smelled.

So what did I do with this big chicken all to myself?

Well, I ate some standing up, and licked my fingers after. After carving all of the meat off the carcass, I made a chicken stock. Then I used some of the meat in my dinner, a tomato-y curry. The next day I shredded some up and added it to my quick and tasty noodle dish. The next day I used big hunks in my fettucini alfredo. The next day, I used shredded meat and some of the stock in risotto. And then I made another curry. And then I ate the rest in a sandwich! Voila, a week of meals!

Soy & Sesame Noodle Dish

Fettucini Alfredo...better than Olive Garden! 

Creamy risotto

So, this Sunday, roast a chicken. Share it if you’re feeling nice, or save it to use all week long.

How to make chicken stock:

Place the chicken carcass in a big soup pot with a few carrots, a celery stick or two, a few cloves of peeled garlic, and an onion, peeled and cut in half. Cover completely with water. Boil for 3 or 4 hours. (It will smell amazing!). First drain the stock by placing a colander over a large bowl to get all the bones and vegetables out. Then strain again with a smaller strainer (or sifter) to get another other little bits out. Use or refrigerate. 

Straining the stock

Dirty dishes? Yeah, me too.

Confession: dirty dishes in the sink annoy me. A lot. Particularly when they have been there for more hours than I think is acceptable. Much to the relief of my flatmates, this timeframe of acceptability has widened since moving in together.   

But you know what I mean. You go into the kitchen to cook some dinner. You need the medium-sized fry pan. You can’t find it. Oh, it’s in the sink, with remnants of someone’s breakfast omelet in it, underneath 2 bowls which had formerly been full of porridge, a saucepan with who knows what in it, and 3 or 4 mugs. There is a wet mess on the bottom of the sink, a faint smell….eugh!

Ok, so what should you do? Step 1, keep calm. There is no point getting angry. From here, you have a few options. 

1) Use a different pan. 

2) Lift everything out of the sink, and wash the pan you need. 

3) Wash all of the dishes.

I would like to say I always do the really kind option #3, but in reality, I switch between all three options. Living with people is difficult, but it is easier when you all work together a bit, and help one another out.  And yes, sometimes this means cleaning up after them. But if you do, they are more likely to clean up after you too. Everyone wins.  

Unfortunately I am all alone in the flat this week! We're on our spring holidays and I returned early to work on essays (I'm feeling more that a bit sorry for myself!). So all the dishes in the kitchen right now....they're mine. I have no one to blame them on at all. I also have had two, 2!, baking 'fails' this week, which have added to the poor state of the kitchen. So I'm hiding out in the family room until I muster the energy to attack the kitchen with hoover, mop and sponge. Yes, it is that bad. (Don't worry flatmates, it will be clean by the time you get home!) 

Also, shout out to Meghan, who is celebrating her 21st birthday today...in Paris! Eat lots of pastry for us all! 

Miscellaneous household tips

Hello, sorry for the hiatus! I'm back! Blame last-week-of-term stress and first-week-of spring-break relaxing. To kick things off again, here are a few household tips.

Tip #1: How to best clean the lint catcher in your clothes dryer? The hoover. I discovered this whilst hoovering the kitchen the other day. There was loads of icky lint on the floor around the dryer, and the dryer door was open, so I just hoovered it all up! It was great! Forget using my fingers from now on!

Another option: A toothbrush. My mom uses one. She keeps it by the dryer, scrapes all the lint off the screen after a load of laundry, and voila, clean screen. Don't use the toothbrush to brush your teeth with afterwards though.


Tip #2: Freeze wine in ice cube trays.  Then use one or two when making pasta sauce, jus etc. Use whatever is left in the bottle at the end of the night to pour into the tray. This a better option than a) drinking it alone and/or b) letting it go off in the back of the cupboard. Keeps it fresh, keeps it handy, is useful for cooking. Plus then you don't have to use that nice bottle you bought to have with dinner. Don't drink the un-frozen cubes though.

Tip #3: Keep track of what you finish from the cupboard. That way, when it comes time to do your weekly shop, you're not scratching you head asking, 'what do we need again'? When one of use finishes (or nearly finishes) something, say, the bag of basmati rice, we write it down on our handy-dandy whiteboard we have hanging in the kitchen. We then add it to our trolley when we do our online Sainsbury's shop. This is particularly useful with non-food items like bin bags and laundry detergent. Otherwise we would forget! 

Finally, Heads up: The Fife Farmer's Market will be in the Greyfriars car park, St Andrews, tomorrow (Saturday) morning, 8-1. Go get those buffalo, venison and cranberry burgers. And chocolates, and breads, and veg...I'm excited!