It’s Thursday

April 26, 2012

by — Posted in Baby, Food

And I haven’t posted all week. It’s been a good week so far, a very happy baby after we got her naps under control. She also turned 3 months old yesterday!

To celebrate, she has slept a record 11 hours at night, rolled from her tummy to her back, laughed and sat in her bumbo! She was a very busy little girl!

My current “project” if you will, has been to buy more whole foods and plan new things for our menu, because we’re getting kind of bored. For example, rather than buying our regular individually frozen chicken breasts, I bought bone-in, skin-on thighs. Not only were we getting bored, but the individually frozen breasts have not been as good lately, very rubbery no matter how they’re cooked. Also, we’re trying to save on our grocery budget and buying cheaper (less processed) meat is one way to help. But bone-in, skin-on chicken is kind of terrifying to someone who has never cooked with it before and really hates chicken.

I started with something I thought would be easy: poaching. I’d never tried this before, but after watching my mom-in-law (while she was making sure we were well fed after Avie was born), I thought it couldn’t be too hard. I also thought this might be easier because I could go through and pick off the good stuff and leave all the gross stuff that I tend to freak out about. It worked pretty well and we made taco salad with black beans, chicken, cheese, etc. Really, you can put whatever you want on it. I wish we had salsa to use as dressing, but it was still pretty good.

Then I thought I’d do something daring: oven roasted. I was afraid it would be super dry with the high heat, but I found this recipe. I only used 3 thighs, 3 carrots & a large russet potato (enough for 2 people). I was worried that the chicken wouldn’t be fully cooked (I don’t really know why), and I didn’t cook the veggies as long as it says (because they didn’t need it), but it turned out DELICIOUS!! Honestly, it was possibly the best chicken I have ever eaten. We will definitely do this again! Maybe a little less salt.

I used a little of the left overs in a crock pot jambalaya (which didn’t have enough liquid for the rice, and ended up being underdone, then mushy, but still had good flavor). The rest of the poached chicken will be going in fried rice later this week or early next week. Then, we will be going to Branson for family vacation!

But first, it’s Dogwood Festival here in Siloam this weekend. We hope to find a Dogwood tree to plant in honor of miss Avie’s birth and maybe even building a raised garden bed… but more on that later!