Our First Chicken

The elusive roast chicken. The dish that culls the wheat from the chaff. I confess I'd never done it. My only previous whole bird experience was with the turkey that wasn't quite done for the First Dijonaise Thanksgiving we tried in 2000. Yet it was the Man of the House who suggested that we learn to roast a chicken together. Dutifully he followed me to Union Square in the rain Saturday morning where we selected our veggies and picked out our charming 5-pound bird.

While we waited for dinner time to approach I amused myself by starting a vat of vanilla extract:



Then I sacrificed these lovely apples:



to this:



to this:



I'll be canning it this afternoon and then eating apple butter for the rest of the year. Thanks to 101 Cookbooks for the recipe I used this year.

I also tried my hand at pumpkin hazelnut gelato, but it didn't turn out as I wanted. It was too hazlenut-ey, not sweet enough, and not pumpkin-ey enough.

So then it was time to get down to business.



Nothing loves a roasted bird more than olive oil and butter do. This would be the first couple of turns' basting liquid.

Man of the House was on prep and slather:





We used Julia Child's plain and simple recipe. We, mistakenly, didn't truss the chicken, though one of us, and it wasn't me, did trek around the neighborhood desperately searching for butcher's twine (our neighborhood is more of the bologna sandwiches and fried food persuasion). The recipe didn't mention trussing, though we'll definitely do it the next time.

So it was pretty simple. Chop veg, butter bird, cook, and baste frequently.



Halfway through, so far so good. It was the later innings where things went awry. There wasn't enough liquid pooling in the bottom, the veg were burning, and I had to continually add more butter and oil just to have something to baste with. I don't know why this was the case or how to rectify it in the future. The result was that the wings started sticking to the bottom. Then they decided they would prefer to be affixed to the bottom and not to the rest of the bird. C'est la vie, the rest of our chicken was looking ok.

I followed the instructions to a T and I should have been a little more flexible because the chicken was about 10 minutes overcooked. The meat wasn't yet dry, but neither was it moist. I made the gravy while he carved, and we ended up with this:



Man of the House gave it a 7 out of 10, I'd give it a 6. We're excited to try again!

A Tale of Two Plums

A misnomer, actually, as there were far more than two plums:



The time had come to take a stand against the plum rebellion. Those innocent plums just seemed to multiply, declaring sovereignty in the precious free space of my fridge. Their disobedience could be suffered no longer.

And so:



they found themselves mercilessly quartered and then quartered again, thrust into a hot pot and covered in sugar and a substance known as pectin;



cooked until they no longer resembled themselves; the precious juices forced from their variegated flesh;



forced into strange glass vials and subjected to astonishing heat, their bacterial breeding ground obliterated.

At last, the indignities almost too much to endure, they found themselves trapped, amidst strange surroundings, unable to move or escape.



An ignoble end, perhaps, for the once mighty plum, and yet somehow far more honest than the tribulations suffered by some of their brethren who were viciously diluted with cream and frozen.

fin

Matt, you're off the hook

Didn't see Matt this morning at 14th street, but I did see the Red Jacket Orchard's greengage plums - the very plums I had accusingly harangued poor Matt about for several weeks (Matt is the tall and, dare it be said, quite attractive CECNY employee at the Union Square market - my mom and I both have a bit of a crush). Now I have black plums and green plums, and nothing has been done with either yet. Perhaps after my French tutor this evening, I'll make jam (because everyone is in the mood for jam at 10:00pm).

I have some legacy photos from can this part 2 which I wanted to share (and also ask questions about):

Raspberry Jam (with, perhaps, a few too many seeds)



Roasted Peppers


So the question is about the peppers. I don't know if it's visible, but there's lots of white junk floating in the terrine. I'm assuming it's congealed fat, but if anyone knows differently, especially if what you know is that I will die if I eat the white stuff or anything that touched it, please do let me know.

Thanks!

Can This - Part 2 (photos to come)

Phillips Farm has been offloading their raspberries recently for truly remarkable prices (5 1/2 pints for 10 dollars?!?), and I knew something had to be done with this bounty. Raspberries are reliable freezers and both of my freezers at home now have containers full of them (for those lonely January nights when even the apples are now mealy), but 5 of the half-pints recently acquired have done their duty and become jam. Specifically, seeded red raspberry jam infused with fresh rosemary.

After pulping the raspberries slightly I heated them to just below boiling at which point I dropped about three stems of tied up rosemary, covered the pot and let the steeping commence. In retrospect I should have steeped longer, but I'm impatient like that. The final product has more of a hint of rosemary as opposed to an undercurrent.

I've never made jams before, so I'm still working out the right amount of pectin. My batch of strawberry had the right consistency, but I used granulated sugar which clumped in places. For the raspberry I used too much pectin, causing the jam to be a little more like Jello, than jam, but superfine sugar, so no clumps.

I also olive oil packed my delicious maroon peppers, duly roasted. If I can keep a certain someone's hands from these savory creations, our winter might not be so potato and turnip heavy!

Can This - Day 1

Refrigerator...so...crowded

Cannot...buy...more...things

An out of the ordinary Monday morning market trip (made in order to get greengage plums which were nowhere to be found, despite insider information to the contrary) convinced me that the time had come to do something with the sixteen tons of produce already taking up space in my fridge.

Completely unsuitable salad tongs in hand, I commenced an afternoon/evening of canning.

Step 1: Strawberry Preserves



Using the pectin that has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time and the two overflowing pints of strawberries that can be classed as past their prime yet edible. I made my first ever jam. Obviously, if, in several months' time, you hear one of those cautionary reports on CNN "New Yorkers found dead of freak home canning botulism incident," you'll know I was unsuccessful. In the meantime, I'm keeping the dream alive.

Step 2: Roasted heirloom cherry tomatoes



Using nothing more than a brownie pan, olive oil, and sea salt, I transformed these perfectly edible tomatoes into a swirling mass of future bread topping.

Step 3: Find inner Martha

Some time ago Martha Stewart reminded us of how much fun it could be to make things at home and put labels on them. I scoffed at the time, and then found myself this evening, futzing with Photoshop to create something kicky to affix to my ball jars.

Step 4: Plan ahead

One may be stopping at the Container Store tomorrow to pick up additional glassware so that one might preserve ones really cool peppers, create apricot and peach preserves, and generally feel like a person for whom the thought of scalding hot water and food toxins is exhilarating.