Morning, almost noon

Well, I had my conference call with Sam this morning and that went well. Quite psyched, actually, now that I've gotten over my initial burst of paralyzing panic. Excellent. More on that when I get to working on it.

I turned the heat on for Mom, for my folks' visit later today. Wow! Kinda nice!

About to head to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things for dinner. Need to get some stuffing, Wondra (a super-fine kind of all-purpose flour sold here in the US) and a second butternut squash (I don't have quite enough). Will roast some onions in the pan along with the chicken. I think I should pick up some chicken broth, too.

The chicken goes into the oven...

Okay, this is an 8-pound turkey-size chicken. I sauteed up some diced veggies leftover from Friday's salad: mushrooms, carrots, green beans, yellow pepper, red onion, celery, shallot. I mixed that with some butter and some chicken broth. Brought that to a boil and mixed with two cups of Pepperidge Farm cornbread stuffing.

I had already removed the gizzards from the chicken and rinsed the chicken again. I had a 6-quart saucier pan ready. (I threw out my chicken-roasting pan earlier this year because that's what I made the wheat gluten "brains" in and left it in there too long.) I'd semi-melted half a stick of butter and mixed that with a healthy dose of Bell's Poultry Seasoning. (I don't think I have tried this seasoning before, but it smells SO good.)

I sat the chicken upright and spooned the boiling-hot stuffing into the chicken. Then I laid it down (and ended up flipping it over because I always think the bottom is the top). I put the rest of the stuffing into the pot. Then I Ioosened up the skin on top. I grabbed the bowl of seasoned butter and slathered that all over the chicken, quite a bit under the skin and around the thighs and wings and then all over the top.

I covered it and into the oven it went. I don't usually try to crisp up the skin like I would on a turkey. Hmm. Yeah, it'll be fine. It has a pop-up timer but I loosened it when I was putting the butter on, so we'll see if it works. Going to leave it in there at 350F for three hours, or when I'm happy with it.

The gizzards are in a small sauce pan in the oven with some roughly chopped red onion and shallot. I put in a spoonful of minced garlic and a tablespoon or so of the Bell's Poultry Seasoning. Then I put in a few cups of chicken broth. Later on, I will strain this and make a gravy out of it.

Beautiful meal came together

After an hour in the oven I took the cover off of the pot for the chicken.

I oiled and salted three of the potatoes Dad brought (he bought four - he's still used to buying four after all these years, methinks). Wrapped them in foil and put them into the oven.

I then sat Mom down at the dining room table with me and chopped up the butternut squash. I cut off the rind and diced it all up. Then I put it into the microwave for seven minutes to steam. I then peeled and chopped up about five apples. I mixed the apples and squash all together, drizzled a healthy half-cup of agave nectar over it all and then sprinkled a cinnamon/vanilla mixture over it. I folded the mixture over and over and then put it into the oven in an open casserole dish.

I then got the salad ready. Chop & peeled the half-carrot left from Friday, chopped up the remaining mushrooms, etc.

Then I drained the gizzard soup using my spider. Grabbed the Wondra and made gravy with the liquid from the gizzard soup. OMG was that fantastic. You just cannot get that flavor out of jarred gravy.

About 4:30pm, almost exactly three hours after I put it into the oven, the plastic temp gauge on the chicken popped out. The skin was browned pretty well (although I don't crisp it perfectly on purpose because otherwise I would eat it all). I let it sit for another half hour to let the juices run back into the meat.

After the chicken came out of the oven, I put the garlic bread in. I opened up the cranberry sauce and put that on the table.

And then I made the salad dressing (balsamic vinaigrette from the balsamic syrup I made a few weeks ago). Transferred dinner to the table and we ate.

And it was amazing. I love, love, love butternut squash. The chicken was incredibly juicy - not dry in the slightest, and cooked perfectly. There wasn't enough stuffing, but there is never enough stuffing.

Hard to choose, but I am so proud of the gravy that I would say it was my favorite part of the meal!

Exporting LJ

Taking advantage of a "working" time on LJ to export my entries to a PDF. I have roughly about 7000 entries going back to early 2002. The PDF is 25MB! LOL