res coctae or Things Cooked

Some callin me a sinner / some callin me a winner
I'm callin you to dinner / And you know exactly what I mean

some stuff I've been cookin'

Magnolia Bakery Banana Pudding
Better than Magnolia Bakery Banana Pudding


photo from Crepes of Wrath

My girl Sydney over at Crepes of Wrath recently posted this incredible dupe recipe for Magnolia Bakery's banana pudding, which I knew would be a big hit with my banana-lovin husband. This recipe has banana, vanilla pudding, nilla wafers, and homemade whipped cream. What could be better?

WHAT IF WE ADDED NUTELLA



I don't think I have to tell you that this turned out to be the best dessert I have ever prepared. Ever. Also I toasted some pine nuts and sprinkled them with crushed nilla wafers on top.



Sydney says in her blog entry that this dish reaches its peak around 30 hours after you fix it and she's right. I actually fixed this on a Sunday and Nick and I worked on it all week long. If you decide to fix this Katie-style and add the Nutella, I'd recommend letting it sit out on the counter just a little before you serve it--the Nutella can chill a bit too hard.


Bacon and Egg Risotto



I mean...right? Can you even read the words 'bacon and egg risotto' without immediately wanting to bust out the arborio? This recipe also comes from Crepes of Wrath, and it is incredible. It's a classic risotto, created by simmering uncooked arborio (or carnaroli) rice, meat, and/or veggies in chicken stock, which is added in painstakingly small amounts as you stir and stir and stir. Risotto is all about the timing, so I had to stage everything before I started cooking. Lanier and Phineas approve:



Risotto is always a test of patience and this one is no exception. But it's worth it! The raw egg yolk on top makes for a very impressive presentation. Pro tip: do yourself a favor and actually use the low-sodium chicken broth, because 5+ cups of regular chicken broth has soooooo much salt. I had to learn this the hard and salty way. But other than the salt extravaganza, this turned out really amazing. I'd love to bring it to a brunch sometime but it totally worked as a dinner entree too.


Shakshuka


I didn't get a picture, so here's the one from Smitten Kitchen.

Lanier recently taught me to make eggy cups--some tomato sauce, some cheese, an an egg baked in a little ramekin. When I saw this recipe for an Israeli dish called shakshuka on Smitten Kitchen, I thought I'll be damned if that's not just a big Israeli eggy cup. And I was right. It's basically just tomato sauce (with cumin! That's what gives it that ~spicy and exotic~ flavor) and cheese and eggs. This recipe is everything a good staple recipe should be--easy, cheap, and readily made with items most people keep in stock. I'll definitely be making this again.


Panzanella



I hate being a slave to recipes, but I hate it even more when I stray with confidence only to ruin what I'm fixing. This panzanella looks pretty good, right? Homemade bread cubed and sauteed, mixed with diced veggies and fresh mozzarella cheese? I used Ina Garten's recipe as a guide but basically did my own thing, which worked out fine until the part where I made the dressing, right after I took this photo. Who has champagne vinegar sitting around their house, anyway? Sounds expensive. I used balsalmic vinegar instead. WHOOPS. My gorgeous bread salad turned into a blackened mess. It was delicious but it was so ugly. This reminds me of the time Big Jeffie came over for dinner in grad school and I purpled up the tilapia with a devil-may-care glug of red wine. He graciously ate it anyway.


Yogurt Pie

Doesn't it look like I spent more than twelve seconds making this? I didn't.

This isn't a recipe so much as it is a broad and helpful Southern dessert-preparation concept handed down from the lovely Ashley at A Boyce Blog: you can mix stuff with Cool Whip and dump it in a graham cracker pie crust and it will basically always be delicious. Just dump a container of Cool Whip and some yogurt of any flavor (between two and four cups) in a bowl, mix it up, and dump it in a graham-cracker pie crust. I used strawberry, peach, and lemon yogurt, but really the possibilities are endless.



Stick it in the fridge for an hour so it can set--or stick it in the freezer for a more ice-creamy consistency. If you're feeling fancy, you can slice some strawberries on top. I've heard this pie works beautifully with frozen lemonade concentrate instead of yogurt. Since you don't have to bake anything or really have to do anything other than operate a spoon and a bowl, this would be a great recipe to fix with kids.

Discussion Question:
So what have y'all been fixin recently?

pork loin + Vietnamese pork pho

I'm not sure how I've resisted posting this Sade song up until now. I haven't been able to get enough of it over the last month or so! I just think this track sounds so fresh, which is pretty remarkable for an artist who hasn't put out an album in umpteen years.

Anyway, I've been enjoying the challenge of these Leftover Fairy back-to-back meals (see bbq/brunswick stew and balsalmic chicken pasta/enchiladas), so when I saw that pork loin was on sale for $1.99/lb at Kroger last weekend, I sprang into action.

I had never fixed pork loin before, but I figured a giant boneless slab of pork was something I could come to love. This recipe on allrecipes.com told me to basically just rub it down with olive oil, and stab it and shove some garlic and rosemary into the wounds. I think it also said something about white wine but I was saving my old white wine for pho. So I just went for it!



My very sensible colleague Sherry recommended that I leave it in the oven at 350 until it registers 140 on the thermometer, and then take it out and cover it with aluminum foil. Sherry has never steered me awry so I did as I was told and it turned out perfect.



Nummy Nell and Jeremy came over to share in the six pounds of deliciousness. Nums brought some incredible mashed potatoes and asparagus and homemade gravy. Mmm!



cradling her creations

Aaaand since my life is dictated by what's on sale at the Murder Kroger, I fixed some baked apples and pears because they were both on sale for $1/lb. This is a QuidQuid QuidQuid original. Just cube some apples and some pears:



and toss them in a little brown sugar, cinnamon, and melted butter:



and pop them in the oven at some appropriate-sounding heat until they are warm and bubbly. This is virtually impossible to mess up.

The potatoes, the asparagus, the pork, the gravy, the apples and pears...this meal really was quite the to-do. So much so, in fact, that I failed to take a single picture of us devouring it. At least I got a picture of dessert: strawberry shortcake!



I would have never thought to use frozen pound cake to fix strawberry shortcake, but then Publix had to go and offer a tempting promotion on strawberries and pound cake, so I gave it a try. I will never, never, never ever buy those nasty shortcake cups you get in the produce section again--the pound cake was SO. MUCH. BETTER.

The two pounds of leftover pork loin were begging to be turned into something interesting. I decided to go for something totally different and try a Vietnamese pork pho. My darling colleague Katya helped me out by bringing me a bunch of herbs and peppers and bean sprouts and fresh rice noodles and pho seasoning from the farmer's market. What a sweetheart!



I wasn't feeling great this week so I decided to push what would have been Wednesday pho off until Sunday dinner. Whoops. By Sunday, the bean sprouts had rotted to mush and had started cause a lot of the herbs to turn. WHOOPS. Luckily, I salvaged enough cilantro, thai basil, and mint for the pho--or rather, what I assumed was enough for the pho, since my recipe didn't call for it.

I decided to use this intriguing Daring Cooks' Challenge post on Guilty Kitchen for my recipe. As usual, I was short a few things and made some stuff up as I went.

First I was supposed to toast some cardamom, cloves, and anise. I didn't have the anise and I didn't really know what I was doing but





it started to look pretty toasty to me, so I was satisfied.

After this exciting first step, there wasn't much to it. Just dump the toasted spices and 8 cups of chicken broth (I used 6 cups chicken broth and 2 cups white wine) and the pork loin and some other stuff (onion, ginger, fish sauce, etc) in our old friend the crock pot. I threw in one of those pho seasoning cubes--it was basically just salt, sugar, and MSG. Mmmm, delicious MSG.



If I had it to do all over again, I would have put this on first thing in the morning so it had all day to simmer and break the pork down into shreds. As it was, we got kind of hungry so after a couple of hours I fixed the rice noodles, portioned them out into bowls, and poured the broth over it. Then I pulled the pork apart and arranged it on top.



Normally I detest cilantro but the fresh cilantro on top was the perfect compliment. There were supposed to be all kinds of other toppings. I forgot about the lime, and we only remembered the hoisin and sriracha when we were halfway through our bowls, and the peppers turned out to be a WEE bit too hot.



They are so beautiful but good lord! I touched one of those slices to my tongue and my entire mouth and lips were burning for 45 minutes. I opted to just throw a few teeny tiny slices in the crock pot and throw the rest in the freezer for use in possible future bets or bribes.

I was a little skeptical about this dish, what with the cardamom and the MSG and the fresh cilantro and all that questionable stuff, but it was wonderful. The flavor was really complex and robust but not overpowering. It was comforting and kind of fortifying--I've been sick all weekend and a big bowl of this really perked me up. I have a ton leftover that I'm going to freeze in small portions for the next time I get sick or just need something soothing.



JUST GIVE ME MY DRINK

Discussion Question:
What is your favorite food to eat when you're sick?

crock pot bbq and brunswick stew

My crock pot and I are like this.



She's a 1970's Rival Crock Pot-brand crock pot--maybe a wedding gift to my parents or even an artifact from one of their prior marriages--resplendent in faded avocado green and replete with jaunty line drawings of snapping crawdads and sliced onions.

She is a genius. I can just dump food into her and she inevitably turns it into something palatable. She's a little bit of a pain in the ass to clean, but I forgive her her trespasses.

I was so pleased with last week's mushroom and chicken pairing thatI decided to try my hand this weekend at another pair of complementary dishes.

Feeling exceedingly clever on Saturday morning, I pulled a Tupperware container of leftover pork BBQ out of the freezer to thaw. Only it wasn't pork BBQ--it was spaghetti sauce. WHOOPS. So I had to improvise. I am forever ending up with one stray chicken breast or pork chop and throwing the orphan in the freezer for another time. Soooo in a move that is sure to horrify a substantial portion of my readership, I just gathered up all the stray chicken breasts and pork chops (and yes, maybe about a half pound of ground turkey too) and fixed some impromptu Mixed Grill BBQ.



is it chicken? pork? I plead the fif

I just used a packet of McCormick's BBQ pork seasoning and some vinegar, brown sugar, and ketchup. Oooooh so fancy!



In just a few hours, it looks like this!



In the spirit of this absurdly easy dinner, I threw some flour and stuff into my bread maker with some rosemary (STILL trying to get rid of the leftovers from New Orleans-style BBQ shrimp) so we could have a loaf of fresh rosemary bread for sandwiches. It turned out perfect:



and it made wonderful sandwiches!



doesn't it look like it's drooling??

As soon as we were finished with our BBQ sandwiches, I began the back-breaking labor of preparing the Brunswick stew. (If you are not familiar with Brunswick stew, it is a low-country stew popular in Georgia and South Carolina. I had never had it or even heard of it before I moved here.) Like many Southern dishes, it doesn't so much have a recipe so much as an ethos. I cracked open a can of creamed corn and a big can of tomatoes and dumped them in the crock pot on top of the leftover barbeque. I threw 2 cups of homemade chicken stock in on top of that, made sure it was still set to low, and then proceeded to wander off. If I had had it handy, I would have added a can of lima beans. And PRESTO, our dinner for the next night was ready.



I didn't want the rosemary bread to go to waste, so I fixed some Shake N Bake croutons with the leftovers.



Quidquid Quidquid's Shake N Bake Croutons

Heat oven to 275. Chop bread into cubes and put in plastic bag. Pour in a little olive oil, garlic powder, and parmesan cheese. Shake. Bake until tasty-looking.



mmmmm

I was craving something green so I tried my hand at fixing the broccolini I picked up at Kroger on manager's special. The internet said to saute it with some olive oil and lemon juice...so I did.



...and it was good! Just a little sweeter and softer than regular broccoli.



Y'ALL COME BACK NOW YA HEAR?

Soooo that concludes the Southern edition of The Leftover Fairy!

And since both of these dishes freeze beautifully, I leave you with words of wisdom from Annelle, the patron saint of everything that Freezes Beautifully.




Discussion Question:
Sammy Wayne DeSoto what is this in my Frigidaire?

chicken and mushrooms! balsalmic pasta and enchiladas

Remember on Sesame Street, how each episode would be sponsored by a couple of letters and numbers? Like, this episode brought to you by the letter K and the number 7. Well, this blog post is brought to you by two common ingredients: chicken and mushrooms.

...and Chaka Khan.



ADMIT IT--you forgot how good this song is

It was chicken and mushrooms week at the DePalma house. Mushrooms were on sale at Kroger for $1.50/carton, and I had a big 3lb tray of split chicken breasts in my freezer, so just like that, chicken and mushrooms were all the rage.

My girl Rosie over at Naked in the Stacks posted a simple but intriguing recipe for Balsalmic Chicken Penne:

Rosie's Balsalmic Chicken Penne

*1lb chicken breasts, trimmed [I used split breasts]
*1/2lb penne pasta [I used elbow macaroni bc I had a bunch sitting around]
*1/2lb sliced button mushrooms
*1 c. chicken broth plus more reserved
*1/2 c. balsamic vinegar
*1 small onion, sliced
*4 cloves garlic
*italian seasoning (however much you like)
*2 T. olive oil

1. Cut your chicken breasts in to chunks, and marinate in the broth, vinegar, garlic cloves (minced) and italian seasoning in a shallow dish or plastic bag.

I went pretty out of order fixing this dish. Having split breasts instead of b/s breasts, I went ahead and boiled and shredded the meat. I set half of it aside for the next night's enchiladas and threw the rest into a pan with the marinade, letting it cook on very low heat. While it just barely simmered in the pan, I threw the scraps and some of the water from boiling the split breasts into the crockpot along with some salt, some seasonings, a few frozen pearl onions (purchased at Kroger accidentally a few months ago--trying to get rid of them slowly but surely), and the fresh parsley and rosemary I had leftover from New Orleans-style Barbeque Shrimp last week. Voila--8 cups of chicken broth tomorrow morning with virtually no effort on my part.



I admit it--fixing chicken broth from leftover bones and scraps makes me feel sooooo domestic and sensible. Like someone give me a cow to milk or something, jeez



shredded chicken in marinade on low heat


2. While that's marinating, sautee onions in olive oil over medium heat in a pan. Add in mushrooms and cook till they start to give up their water.

Then I got here and I was like whoops so I dumped the chicken and marinade into a bowl I had handy and sauteed the onions and mushrooms instead.





3. Add in your chicken chunks, reserving the juice/marinade and cook through.

4. Add in your marinade and continue cooking until thickened. Add more broth or a little cornstarch to adjust the consistency. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and additional vinegar if needed.

Since my chicken was already cooked through, I just went ahead and dumped the whole bowl of chicken and marinate in all together and cooked it until it started looking more saucy and less brothy.



5. Serve over penne with some parmesan cheese on top, and a loaf of crusty bread.

Instead I poured it over elbow macaroni and served it trough-style in a big bowl with tons of parmesan.



Marriage is...eating out of one giant bowl in front of the TV to save dishes

Nick and I gobbled it up, and I was able to have the leftovers for lunch two days in a row. I really loved this recipe because I adore balsalmic vinegar and I am always looking for new ways to incorporate it into my cooking. This is also a nice chicken pasta dish that for once doesn't call for tomatoes. I am a tomato fiend but sometimes its nice to fix pasta without cracking open a can of crushed tomatoes.

Soooo we had to eat the next night, too. I had 8 cups of fresh homemade chicken broth and a breast and a half of shredded chicken just begging to be fixed into something delicious, so I decided to try my hand at Sarah's Cucina Bella's Lighter Chicken Enchiladas. I needed to run over to Kroger anyway to pick up the chipotle peppers and the corn tortillas, so I decided to pick up another carton of those mushrooms to round out the dish a little. I felt like it needed more veggies/fungi. You can read about my harrowing mushroom negotiation here. This is cracker-jack material, folks!

Sarah's Lighter Chicken Enchiladas
adapted from Everyday Food
serves 4

*2 tbsp olive oil
*2 cloves garlic, minced
*1/4 cup all-purpose flour [I used cornstarch bc I LOVE cornstarch, so fun]
*1 tsp ground cumin
*1 tbsp minced canned chipotle pepper in adobo [$1.69 at Kroger; I had never used this before but it is tasty]
*1 can chicken broth [I used the fresh broth I just made]
*1/2 cup water
*8 corn tortillas
*1 1/2 lb cooked chicken, chopped [so perfect that it calls for precooked chicken!]
*1 cup cheddar-jack cheese [I used pepper jack bc I had some already]
QUIDQUID BONUS: 1 carton of mushrooms, sauteed lightly

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a 8×8 inch square baking pan with cooking oil spray and set aside.

In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute, stirring. Whisk in the flour, cumin and chipotle peppers and cook for 1 minute. Whisk in chicken broth and water. Heat to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Simmer for 5-10 minutes until thickened, whisking occasionally. Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, wrap the tortillas in a damp paper towel and microwave for 1 minute to heat. Set aside.

Spread enough sauce into the bottom of the baking dish to cover lightly. In a medium bowl, toss one cup of sauce with the chicken. Divide the chicken mixture evenly among the tortillas and roll up. Arrange in the baking dish. Top with the remainder of the sauce. Sprinkle with the cheese.

This recipe is so easy, it should be a sin. The sauce came together perfectly and quickly, and then you just roll up the tortillas and throw it in the oven!



Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the edges begin to brown ever so slightly. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about five minutes before serving.

If you can possibly wait that long.





I served it with half an avacado, sliced, and a big dollop of fat-free sour cream. We ate the entire pan in less than 10 minutes. SO GOOD.

These recipes go PERFECTLY together. If you want to try them, I would recommend holding off until split breasts and mushrooms go on sale (which is like every other week at Kroger), buying a big tray of split breasts and two cartons of mushrooms, and fixing them back to back like I did. These two recipes fit together so perfectly, with the broth and the shredded chicken and everything. Shop on Sunday and boil the chicken/fix the broth in advance, then you've got the basis for two big easy weeknight dinners PLUS leftovers.

Discussion Question
What makes you feel sensible and domestic?

where yat? NOLA-style BBQ shrimp

A little NOLA-meets-Nashville blog-readin' music for today:



you learned to swing with a do-si-do
but you learned to love at the fais-do-do

I can't believe it's been so long since I updated! I was exhausted all last week from my trip to Ohio, and then Nick and I ended up going on a last-minute trip to Boston this past weekend--a trip we 100% failed to document in photographs. But that gives me a chance to catch up on a few entries I've been meaning to make.

Last week Kroger had Gulf shrimp on sale for $4.99/lb, so I figured I'd better fix some New Orleans-style BBQ shrimp while the gettin was good. If you have never had NOLA BBQ shrimp, you have never truly lived. There's nothin barbeque about it, actually--no barbeque sauce (or even any tomato or sugar or vinegar), and no barbeque grilling. Just Gulf shrimp smothered in spicy butter. And what's not to like about that?

Up until this go-round, I had always used a mix like this one to fix my BBQ shrimp:



But I have a really hard time finding that mix outside of the Gulf South. So I decided to throw caution to the wind and try fixing it from scratch. Since I had to miss the last two Sunday dinners because I was out of town, we had Wednesday Sunday dinner.

1000 thanks to the good folks at Gumbo Pages for the wonderful recipe.

New Orleans-style Barbecue Shrimp

Feeds 8-10. I used 1.5lbs shrimp and did a 3/8 batch (fun with fractions!)

* 2 pounds/eight sticks butter
* 2 tbsp Creole seasoning, OR 2-3 tsp cayenne pepper and 3-4 tsp black pepper
* 2 tbsp chopped rosemary leaves
* 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
* 6 ounces good beer (we used the Guinness left over from car bombs at the Super Bowl as a shoutout to our favorite newlyweds Meghan and Ryan)
* 1 medium onion, very finely minced
* 3 ribs celery, very finely minced
* 5-10 cloves garlic (I keep mine whole and use way more than this)
* 3-4 tablespoons chopped parsley
* 2 teaspoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice
* 4 pounds shrimp, heads and shells on (even if you think it's gross)

Melt the butter in a skillet. Saute the garlic, onions, celery, parsley, rosemary and seasoning blend for about 2 - 3 minutes.



Add the beer; drink what's left. It ain't a NOLA party unless you got a buzz on. Add Worcestershire and lemon juice.

Arrange shrimp in a baking dish and drown the shrimp in the seasoned butter. Make sure the shrimp are more or less submerged. If they're not ... melt more butter and add to the sauce. Go big or go home, right?



spotted in the top left corner: pillsbury crescent rolls for dipping, which you might remember from this post.

Bake in a 350 degree oven until the shrimp turn pink, about 15 minutes. Serve in big bowls with LOTS of french bread for soppin. (Lani brought gluten-free bread for hers, and we used crescent rolls instead since we have approximately 10,000 cans of them.)



Perfect companion dish to this artery-buster? Steamed artichokes. Just steam them in the microwave according to these idiot-proof directions, and dunk the artichoke leaves in the spicy butter. We also had steamed broccoli and some strawberries.



Survey says: Nawlins BBQ shrimp is a winnah! Spotted beside Lanier: giant canister of cheesy poofs I bought her on manager's special for $2)

The final verdict? I'll never use a mix again. The BBQ shrimp was perfectly flavored and amazing. I was a little concerned because the seasoned butter didn't taste right before I drowned the shrimp in it. It was missing a distinct red note of some kind. Tomato? I thought. More cayenne pepper? But I trusted the Gumbo Pages and it's a good thing I did. The missing note turned out to be shrimp! It tasted perfect when it came out of the oven. If only I could eat this all the time and not have to warsh myself with a rag on a stick.



*golf clap*

QuidQuidQuidQuid Question of the Day:
Do you prefer the spelling barbecue, barbeque, or BBQ?

Sunday dinner: baked chicken legs, Brussels sprouts, crash hot orange potatoes

First of all, I think we need a little inspirational blog-readin' music.



Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my Ma and Pa
Not the way that I do love you


Now that we're all instilled with a rush of wide-eyed optimism, let's talk about wholesome things like old friends and Sunday dinners.

Nick and Lanier and I have Sunday dinner together every Sunday. Lani and I have always liked mandatory, scheduled fun like this. From eighth grade until we graduated from high school, Lanier and I spent every. single. Thursday together, lounging around the Waffle House or the park or the mall or my house, eating grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup or Velveeta mac and cheese, gossiping in our trademark light-speed clip. When Lanier moved to Atlanta last fall and we were living in the same city for the first time since 2001, we fell into the Sunday night tradition almost immediately. Sunday night at my house has always promised a big dinner and The Simpsons and a glass of wine or two, and so Lanier and Phinny fit right into the routine.

Now I look forward to Sunday night to be my big night for fixing needlessly elaborate dinners. Lanier has Celiac disease, so all of our Sunday dinners are gluten-free. Exhibit A--Breakfast for Dinner 10 Jan 2010:



[clockwise from top]: homemade fruit salad, fried chicken and waffles, roasted potatoes, breakfast casserole. Lanier had gluten-free waffles.

This Sunday found me in a conundrum. What should I fix? I poked around the kitchen and found a bag of red potatoes ($1.99 for 5 lbs last week at Kroger), a bag of frozen Brussels sprouts (bought last week at Publix for a song--less than .50) three enormous seasoned chicken legs I had picked up at Kroger a month or so ago when they were on manager's special for $3.00.

I was reminded of a few recipes I had been meaning to try out. I read a bunch of food blogs on my Google Reader, and I had starred Simply Recipe's Roasted Brussels Sprouts recipe and Dutch Girl Cooking's recipe for Hot Crash Orange Potatoes. Voila! Sunday dinner solved.

I have only recently been learning my way around chicken with bones in it. Having been vegetarian for my formative years and being married to a man whose enthusiasm for meat is as minimal as mine, it has not really been necessary for me to learn how to cook scary-looking chicken parts like legs. That is, until I realized that scary-looking chicken parts go on sale for $1/lb or less. And that bone-in chicken looks really impressive when you cook it. Being not-so-knowledgeable about fixing chicken parts that are not breasts, I consulted Simply Recipe's Classic Baked Chicken recipe for guidelines on how long to bake it.



before it went in



when it came out! golden and delicious

The Hot Crash Orange Potatoes were slightly less daunting. You basically boil some small potatoes (I used red potatoes since I had them handy), smash them a little with a masher, spoon on some of this amazing butter/orange zest/parsley/garlic mixture, and bake until crispy. Pretty idiot-proof.



Before it went into the oven



How it's supposed to look when it's done



How it actually looked when it came out

The Brussels sprouts were a bit more of a gamble. My father used to grow Brussels sprouts in his garden, and I remembered them being delicious, if not a little bitter. The recipe called for fresh Brussels sprouts to be roasted in the oven. But I had frozen Steamfresh Brussels sprouts, which meant I had to switch things up a little. I steamed the sprouts in their bag in the microwave for the minimum amount of time recommended by the directions. Then I sauteed them instead of roasting them. The recipe says the key is salt, so I salted the hell out of those suckers.



Sauteing in some olive oil with garlic and lemon juice and lots of salt



How it's supposed to look when it's done



How it actually looked

All in all, a rousing success!!





Voila!



Lanier noms on a sprout.

The chicken was moist and perfectly done. The Hot Crash Orange Potatoes were fantastic--the orange flavor is so unexpected. When I fix them again, I'll use smaller potatoes and a little more butter sauce--they were a little bland.

But the big winner of the night were the Brussel sprouts. Nick and Lanier were both skeptical about the Brussels sprouts but had to agree that they were amazing. The lemon juice gave them an incredible brightness, and the salt somehow perfectly cancels the bitterness out. I wanted to eat the entire pan. There wasn't a single one left at the end of the night.

I saved the tasty seasoned drippings from the bottom of the roasting pan, three or four leftover potatoes, and the bones/leftovers from the chicken. Throw it in the crock pot with a little chicken broth and some veggies and we've got tomorrow night's dinner! I actually meant to do that today and completely forgot.

I'll leave you with one little lagniappe! My Mardi Gras tablescape:



Silver tray (wedding gift from Aunt Grace and Uncle Larry); glassware left over from wedding candy buffet; Mardi Gras beads caught by yours truly, soy candle I poured into a vintage restaurant sugar packet caddy; Glade candle from last week's CVS run; multicolored garland scored at Target after Christmas clearance for $0.20 for like ten million yards