Pasta Caprese

One of my favorite, quick pastas to throw together is Pasta Caprese. Normally I make this pasta sauce with fresh tomatoes, but it's not the season for that. Canned diced tomatoes can be just as flavorful in this pasta and perfect for the winter months when you are craving a bit of summer. This dish is light and healthy, but also filling with the bits of oozy fresh mozzarella and fresh egg pasta.

A couple tips and tricks about this recipe.

The key to cooking anything is to have your mise en place all ready to go. That's just a fancy French cooking term meaning, have everything in place. That is the first thing I teach my students. Get all your prep done before you start cooking. That way when you turn the pan on, you have everything at your fingertips, ready to be thrown in the pan. All you have to worry about is stirring, tasting and seasoning. It's such a simple thing but really is one of the biggest keys to successful cooking.

If you have a few tomatoes lying about, dice them up and throw them in the pan. You will want to cook them first with the olive oil and garlic for a couple minutes before you add the can of diced tomatoes. If it is the summer and you have in-season tomatoes, you will cook them all first in the olive oil with the garlic and won't add any canned tomatoes. This particular time around, I had a fresh Roma tomato, so I threw it in the pan for a bit before I added the canned tomatoes.

I like to build as much flavor as I can and if you want to get the diced tomatoes with seasoning already in them, great. I usually always have a can or two in my pantry, so if I am lucky and one is garlic and basil seasoned then all the more happiness in the pan.

Taste, taste, taste. Always taste your food. Tomatoes, especially canned ones can have a high acid content. I always add a bit of sugar to most of my homemade tomato sauces to cut the acid. Also, taste before you add any more salt once you have added the canned tomatoes. You are safe with fresh tomatoes, because you know that they don't have any added ingredients but some canned tomatoes have salt already added. The key is always to taste, then add just a little salt and sugar to start, then add a little more if you need it. If it gets too salty, throw a splash of your boiling pasta water in and continue tasting.
Don't add the cheese or the fresh basil to the pasta and sauce until you have put it in the serving bowl. The fresh basil will turn brown and lose some of it's punch if you cook it for too long.
Oh and fresh pasta in my opinion is key to this recipe. I also don't drain the cooked pasta...I just grab my tongs and pull out the cooked pasta straight from the water and put it right into the saucepan. That little bit of water that makes it into the pan feels like good luck to me. (Oh and you know...it's one less pan to clean and it breaks up the sauce a bit.)
Also, this sauce is great for bruchetta. Just grill up some bread. Take the cooked tomatoes off the heat, toss in the basil and mozzarella and top your grilled bread pieces.

Pasta Caprese
serves 3-4 (or just two...depending on that second person)

1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes (don't drain)
1 fresh Roma tomato diced (optional)
1 ball of fresh mozzarella cut up into cubes
3 cloves of fresh garlic, minced
3 Tbsp of sliced fresh basil
1 Tbsp of olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
Sugar to taste
1 10 oz. package of fresh pasta cooked according to directions

Salt your water and put the pan on the heat to get your water boiling for your pasta.

While you are waiting for your water to boil. Heat a large saucepan with 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Add the diced fresh tomato and cook on medium-high with salt and pepper for a couple minutes, until it begins to get soft. Add the minced garlic and cook for about 30 seconds, stirring the entire time. Add the can of diced tomatoes, including the liquid. Add a bit of sugar, about 1/2 teaspoon, to cut the acid. Taste to determine if the sauce needs more salt, pepper or more sugar. By this time your pasta water should have been boiling. Put your pasta in the water. Cook the sauce for a few minutes while you are waiting for the pasta to be done. By then the sauce will have reduced a bit. Take the cooked pasta out of the water with tongs and add it directly to the saucepan.Stir the pasta until it is fully covered in the sauce and then move the pasta and sauce to a serving bowl. Stir in the fresh basil and diced mozzarella. Garnish with some parmesan and serve immediately.

Fig Spread? Yes...Please.

There is no doubt that if I had to live on figs, cheese and bread I would be a happy person. I actually don't cook very much during the week. The bulk of my cooking happens on weekends, when I am testing recipes or cooking for friends or family.

I once was talking to a woman, giving her some meal ideas and cooking tips. She was really excited and seemed pretty inspired when we were done chatting. At the end of the conversation she asked me what I normally have for dinner each night. I replied, "Toast". She looked so deflated when I told her that. I think she pictured me having these big meals each evening. In reality, it's just me and the pup. I am pretty selfish with my time when I get home from work and usually after I am done running I don't want much more to eat then a little toast and jam with some yogurt or a couple slices of cheese, salami, and some fruit. Heck, even a bowl of cereal tastes pretty good me on a Tuesday night and is a common dinner for me.

One of my favorite treats, whether I am just spreading it on bread and cheese or using it to help cook a meal is Dalmatia Fig Spread. This stuff is HEAVENLY. There is a reason why they refer to figs as the fruit of the gods. Dalmatia is in Croatia where they grow and dry the figs. They then put those figs into this fantastic spread. At New Season's they will actually sell it by the pound for you, although the jars are not too pricey and only run about $7.00 bucks. You can also get the spread at Whole Foods and online.

This stuff is amazing. It's very sweet, so a little a goes a long way. I have used it to spread on pannis with arugula, rare roast beef, and a little creamy horseradish mayo. I have glazed pork tenderloins with it and I use it in salad dressings. My favorite and most common way to consume this heavenly figgy spread is just on some tangy cheese. It goes great with goat cheese. I used it today on a bit of Spanish Miticrema, which is a spreadable sheep's cheese. Yum!

I included an easy dressing recipe for you, using the spread. I love to pour this on spinach, red onions, strawberries, goat cheese and pecans.

Dalmatia Fig Spread Dressing

1 Tbsp fig spread
1 Tbsp of fresh lemon juice
little lemon zest
1 tsp of finely minced shallot
1/4 cup of oil (olive or canola)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Online Dating and Dr. Bob

Oh Online Dating. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Today, most people who are single use online dating. In reality I know it has a lot of success. Two of my best friends are married to people they met online. I have been on many dates since my divorce and most of them have been through meeting people on the internet through dating websites. 

With online dating you must have online dating profiles. I hate the profile thing. You basically have to write about yourself and what you are looking for, carefully choosing what you say, reveal, and hopefully at the same time are attracting the kind of person you think you want in return. I roll my eyes at these damn profiles. They are the modern day sales pitch for love or lust. They kill me. You find yourself judging people on what they choose to write about themselves. I had a good friend, who I actually dated for a few years in my past, also recently go through a divorce.  He can be very charming, is smart, good looking, and a pretty great catch overall. I read his profile to assist him on his way back into the dating world and my first thought was…holy crap…he has a terrible profile. It was cheesy and forced. His pictures didn’t do him justice and he even had that self-portrait bathroom mirror thing. Typically when I see that picture in a profile my first thought is “Next!” At the time I didn’t have the heart to say anything and he is in long term committed relationship from that profile. (Yay for him, what do I know.)

I have thought many times to myself as I am looking at profiles if I would skip so quickly to the next person if I had met this particular person in real life first. But the bottom line is…the first impression is not happening in person. I am reading a profile that they wrote and they are doing the same for me. It is what it is. I have met some very nice people in this process as well as some of the strangest, most peculiar people. Online dating isn’t ALL bad. But when it IS bad, it can be really bad or sometimes just really REALLY funny.

Now I should probably disclose that even though I am single right now, I am not on any online dating websites currently. A couple weeks ago I made the decision to take a break from the online dating world.  All this dating has kind of muddled things for me and I feel like the universe might be screaming at me to stop. I have had some strange happenings (not bad) and just decided that I need to let the universe catch up with me a bit (or vice versa) before I get all cluttered up on my weekends with random people again.  So far…so good. 

I was originally going to start my story out with JewPac (his thing..not my nickname), but I think I will start with Dr. Bob first, because well he was the first guy I ever went out with that I met through the internet.

Dr. Bob isn’t a very long story. He was a nice looking fella, who had moved out to Portland a few months prior for a new job. He was fresh out of school. The guy had a Ph.D in Physics. Super smart. He was finally in the real world after many years of being in the academic world. Not just the academic world but the completely higher level geekery world of math and science and all that comes (and does not come) with that. He was polite and had a joke about Schrodinger’s cat that I laughed at when we were writing back and forth. I don’t remember the joke, but I do remember looking up the Schrodinger’s theory again on Wikipedia. Now this was my first date since my split, not to mention my first online date ever. I was petrified and frankly didn’t know what to expect. ( I have come so far since then.)  The first date was very quiet with just a little small talk. I noticed that he had a hard time making eye contact with me. I thought it was sweet.  He was clearly nervous or either I had something up my nose that was making him feel uncomfortable. Either way sweet to not make ME feel uncomfortable by looking in my eyes while we are talking right? Right. (sigh) The date was over before I knew it. Like literally it was the shortest date. He asked me out again and I convinced myself that it was just the first date nerves not the OBVIOUS lack of chemistry.  So I said yes. I won’t bore you with the rest of the details because I actually went out with Dr. Bob three times. The guy hardly made eye contact with me on all three dates. We went to a movie at one point and I remember twice people stepped between us because they assumed we weren’t together. Dr. Bob stood that far away from me. On the third date when my smart girl head finally was screaming, “Lauren!!! You don’t like the guy, he is weird and won’t look you in the eyes…no more dates” I was shocked when he turned to me at the end of the night, looked at my shoes and then said, “I really like you. I think we should consider you being my girlfriend. I own a home that I am on working on paying off quickly and would eventually like four children. What do you think?” Dr. Bob, who hadn’t even so much as brushed my arm, much less made more than 4 seconds at a times worth of eye contact with me, wanted me to be his girlfriend and consider his desire for four children.  Huh. I attempted to be really sweet and politely told him that I wasn’t ready to be anyone’s girlfriend yet and before I could finish my sentence he promptly interrupted and said, “Interesting. Well, good night.” That was the last time I saw or spoke to him.  Although I do remember seeing on his online profile a few months later a disclosure that he had made stating that he needs the women interested in him to be patient, that he will only date one woman at a time and will get in touch with interested parties as soon as he is available. I was glad to see he was out there dating enough to require a disclosure.

That was my first venture out in the wilds of dating. That first venture proved to be very unwild, but certainly got my feet wet for what was going to a be a continued series of "huh.", wide-eyes, sloppy kisses and stolen cell phones.

It IS easy being green...

My cooking classes that I teach are focused on nutrition and budgeting. It's been a learning process for me in both areas. Certainly I am aware of fruits and veggies being good for you but I have had to learn about the actual nutrition facts about things. Not calories or fat but why something is good for you...that kind of stuff. I have taught classes focused on the health needs of pregnancy, growing kids, and all the while attempt to make the recipes appealing (aka...yummy) and budget friendly. The people in my classes have all different kinds of skill levels and backgrounds but most of them are there to learn how to cook real food vs. pre-packaged, shelf food or just picking up fast food. In other words...unlike people who are willing to give up a bit of taste if they are dieting, my students are not looking for an "almost version" of the foods they normally eat but expect the food to taste good, healthy or not. That's a tough challenge when working with some people who can't recall the last time they ate a fresh vegetable or piece of fruit. In addition I have to find delicious, healthy food on the cheap.

One of my big challenges was greens. They are affordable and the super veggie of all super veggies. I taught braised greens in my first class. It seemed so natural. Oh my goodness, I braised them in chicken stock with a tons of garlic, and some red pepper. Yes, I was braising them with some of the major flavor players. I put them on the plate and my face matched the looks of my students. Eeeww. The plopped, soggy mess of muddy looking greens sat there on our plates. I forced a smile and explained...these are so, sooo good for you. Reeeeally good for you. Then one of my favorite students looked at me and goes...then you eat them. Okay...he was right. I hate them. They taste like dirt, they are mushy and I had to force them down just like most of my other students. NOW...I know some of you are going ...Oh my gosh I love braised green...Mmmmm. GOOD for you. You should try brasing them in chicken stock, garlic and red pepper flakes. But I don't and I am guessing it's hard to convince your kids to eat them. I will tell you I certainly wasn't inspiring my students, a group of teenagers, that they should give up McDonalds for that stuff.

BUT...here are the hard facts. Kale, THE green, is a super-power food. It packs quite the resume. It is an awesome source of fiber, 1 cup gives you 20% of your daily requirements. It also has this amazing micro-nutrient called isothiocyanate that prevents a bacteria that grows on your stomach lining that can cause gastric cancer. It has AMAZING antioxidants including, carotenoids and flavonoids. (They protect your cells.) Amongst the flavonoids are the super hero two called kaempferol and quercitin which specifically fight against the formation of cancer. That same cup of Kale gives you 10% of your daily allowance of omega-3 fatty acids which help by being anti-inflammatories. Kale contains glucosinolates, which has been shown to also prevent certain cancers, including breast, colon, prostate, gastric and bladder cancer. Those same glucosinolates help detox your body of all the nasty stuff hanging around in your body that you get from eating unhealthy stuff and being around pollutants. Kale's fibers aid in lowering cholesterol. Then there are the vitamins. Oh the MASSIVE amounts of vitamins in 1 cup. Vitamin K, vitaman C and vitamin A. Those vitamins pack a dose of protecting bones, preventing heart disease, strokes, protecting your nervous system, your eyes, boosting immunity and lowering blood pressure.

PHEW. If you skipped that paragraph...just know, Kale = SUPERAMAZING AWESOMENESS

It's almost like...you HAVE to eat it. So I had to figure out some other ways to consume Kale, other than steamy plop of greens on the plate.

With the help of my friend Jessica, who is a huge Kale advocate, I discovered some. Jessica likes to juice kale. She throws together, kale, apples, cucumbers and a few other veggies and fruits. That is my number one favorite way to consume kale. It's really yummy and not at all what you would expect, it's sweet and refreshing when combined with the other veggies and fruit. I had a Powell's mug of it waiting for me at work the other day. She's pretty awesome. (More on Jess later...wait until you taste her banana muffins and see her art work)

New Season's has a delicious raw kale salad that is super easy and very tasty. A third way is the amazing baked kale chips. Oh man. I am not kidding. They are great. Not, oh it's okay for diet food great, but actually really yummy. There are a ton of versions of kale chips floating around on the Internet, but it's easy, you just cut up the kale, toss them in olive oil and salt and bake them. A couple of friends have done the recipe and are now believers. You can sprinkle some parmesan on them. I like a dash of malt vinegar. Either way...they are far from those mushy, soggy greens in my first class.

Go get some greens, your body is begging you.

(Clearly the recipe is thanks to New Season's)

Baked Kale Chips

1 bunch of kale, ribs removed, cut into chip like pieces
Olive Oil
Salt

Toss the kale in the salt and olive oil, you only need about 1 tablespoon. Line flat on a baking sheet. Bake at 300 degrees for about 20 minutes or until crispy. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Joy

For all of us, the key

is to pay close attention

to which activities make

us feel most alive and in

love with life...

and then try to spend as much time as possible engaged in those activities.

-Nathanial Branden, Ph.D

Brunching it in Portland-La Petite Provence Edition

The art of brunch is something that everyone in Portland cherishes. Portland loves breakfast. Well in reality we love anything food related and if you lived here...you would too. It's amazing to me that there are not more fat hipsters walking around this city, but thankfully this city balances out their amazing food with great bike paths, hiking and geeky sports leagues like kick-ball. Oh and by the way...a ROAD in Portland is a bike path. FYI.. if you visit.

Brunch is pretty close to my heart. I love it. It is the only time you really get to indulge in fatty meats, fried potatoes, amazing pastries, lots of coffee, cream and sugar and occasionally champagne spiked orange juice. It is the ONLY reason why I will drag my butt out of bed somewhat early on the weekend.

Of course this is Portland, so we have to do things in our own special way. When you brunch in Portland there are a few things you must consider. There is the pre-funk to the brunch in Portland. You must first stop at a coffee shop for coffee to go before you go to brunch. That is because there is not a single brunch joint in Portland that does not have at least a 1 hour wait. So get your coffee first, bundle up, bring a paper and be prepared to wait outside for a long time. It's just what you do. If you don't have to wait it is either freakishly early in the morning or sketchy. Just the facts. Trust me though...we wouldn't wait unless it was worth it.

There are a ton of places to brunch in Portland and most of them are VERY good. One that I love is La Petite Provence. They have a few locations, Division, Lake Oswego, and Alberta. I have only been to the Alberta one. I love this place. One big attraction to coming here besides the great food is the fantastic wait staff. Every time I have come here, I have encountered the most pleasant, down to earth, accommodating people EVER. Truly. Oh and sometimes while you are waiting they let you sample the pastries. (Uh-huh...awesome)

Of course it's the food that you come for. Their menu has many classic French options, as well as some less traditional versions of comfort food. Some of my favorites are the Savory French Toast, which is french toast made with house-baked brioche, topped with ham, asparagus and Gruyere cheese. As if that wasn't enough you get a side of cheese sauce. The Corned Beef hash is wonderful too. They drizzle it with a creme horseradish-shallot sauce and top it with two eggs, cooked to your liking.  A couple of note-worthy brunch dishes are the Meurette Benedict, which is two poached eggs in a burgundy reduction placed on top of croissants and topped with caramelized onions and mushrooms, with bacon and their Provencal potatoes and butternut squash. Those fried potatos and squash are ridiculously good. The Risotto Cakes and Eggs, are risotto cakes with bacon, asparagus, mushrooms, red onions and fresh basil, that are breaded and grilled and topped with poached eggs. Most dishes are served with a freshly baked, warm croissant with a little ramekin of raspberry preserves. I LOVE that. Seriously. I love the little ramekin of raspberry perserves and that crossiant.   They also have a full coffee bar, great mimosas, and amazing looking pastries and breads.

Now you see...why we wait.

La Petite Provence-Alberta
1824 NE Alberta
Portland, OR 97211

Isn't She Swell...

I am the ever cliché single woman in her thirties. After a long relationship, followed by a shockingly short marriage and a rather painful divorce, I find myself in that strange position of being single in a world that I am seeing change all around me. In this weird position I feel like I am watching everyone become “grown-ups” while I struggle to fill my social calendar with my friends as I compete with their children and significant others.  I find that the only time I can go out is to either hang out with twenty-somethings who don’t quite fit my head space and are far too hip for me or my girlfriends, who are amazing and always appear to be entertained by my single life stories, but inevitably I find myself at a loss of how to advise them or even really being able to relate to what has become huge parts of their lives and vice versa. I have no projectile poop story to share and laugh about.  I assume that if that ever happens to me that I will suddenly be enlightened by the hilarity vs. the horror of that. Now if you just became horrified by the thought of a projectile poop situation…you don’t have children. If you laughed, you clearly know the secret to the hilarity. I also have no birth story to compare and when it comes to relationships, mine have been so insignificant these past few years that if they annoy me I just break it off or ignore them for a week or two, instead of having to face the reality of seeing that person every..single…day. For..evvvv..vvver.

Now don’t get me wrong, I want to eventually meet someone that annoys me forever. (That’s where I am going with this…promise)

So okay…we have established that I am an alien in a world full of babies, SUVs , Subarus,  and a sudden weird parent bond when it comes to disgusting, gross situations that can only come with kids and marriages.  What I haven’t mentioned is that in these past couple of years, three in March actually, I found myself in a really great place. I am pretty happy. Happier than I ever remember being. I love my job, have great friends (poop stories or not), and have a fantastic relationship with my parents. I teach amazing cooking classes for the community that brings me so much joy that they never feel like work. I run and LIKE it (87% of the time). I feel creative. I feel healthy.  I have never felt more beautiful and I am happy in my own skin like never before. Now that sounds like a disclosure before the storm and in reality it kind of is. I honestly feel like what I am going to be sharing with you in my future posts will potentially create the same reaction that I have to the projectile gross body stories. Horror…disbelief and awe at times. You need to know that I am okay. I am happy and I do know that eventually I will meet the person I want to annoy and want to have annoy me for the rest of my life. I am not worried (generally). So please don’t feel sorry for me, or hook me up with your 40-something co-worker who hasn’t dated since My So Called Life was on TV. Just because he has a job and owns a home, does not make him a good match for me. I know better when he is called “quirky”. (GOT THAT ERICA & BRIAN?!)

Dating in your thirties is NOTHING like dating in your twenties.  I have decided that I will share some of my dating stories. Frankly, they deserve to be shared. Get ready for the train-wrecks ladies and gentlemen…and welcome to my dating life.  Coming up… JewPac.

Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk

Years ago one of my favorite people, my Aunt Allison, introduced me to Rufus Wainwright. Yep..my aunt is uber hip but not in the blechy hipster kind of way. She's always teaching me about what the cool kids do or listen too. She knows all the tips and tricks to some seriously neat stuff. But I digress...which I will do...a lot on this blog. So if digression is not your thing...don't get attached to this blog. Walk away, because before you know it you will be okay with digression and really offensive run-on sentences. 

Back to Rufus...so Rufus Wainwright has this amazing song called Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk, which has turned into a favorite song of mine. It also happens to be one that my aunt loves as well. It is very likely you will love it too. (This could be my theme song.)

Here are some of the lyrics, copyright of Mister Rufus Wainwright of course:

Cigarettes and chocolate milk
These are just a couple of my cravings
Everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger
A little bit thicker
A little bit harmful for me

If i should buy jellybeans
Have to eat them all in just one sitting
Everything it seems I like's a little bit sweeter
A little bit fatter
A little bit harmful for me

Now I have never had a problem with cigarettes but chocolate milk on the other hand...ooooohhh boy. I love chocolate milk. I really love it. It's one of those things that the minute I am out of the store...I am lucky if it makes it to the car. My favorite is Organic Valley Chocolate Milk. This chocolate milk tastes like grown-up chocolate milk. It is not too sweet and really has amazing chocolate flavor. What makes this chocolate milk special is the salt. That's right there is salt in this chocolate milk. It's pretty spot on perfection because of that. Salt = Magic in the case of chocolate milk. Go try it out...you can get it at New Season's. The song...well it's already a favorite isn't it? Told you...Aunt Allison knows her stuff.

Salt Cured Roast Chicken

I can cook a lot of things...pretty well actually. Even some fairly complicated things. However...for some reason I could never roast a chicken. It was always either underdone, lacked flavor, the skin was chewy, etc. I stuffed them with lemons, rubbed them with oil, basted, brined them, talked to it. Nothing worked. I finally gave up. Heck...I could pop over to Costco and get a roast chicken for five bucks, so why bother. Of course the roast chicken at the grocery store isn't the same thing. I wanted THE roast chicken. You know the one I am talking about. The juicy, beautiful, crispy-skinned, delightful, king of humble foods. The kind I imagined I would get in a bistro in Paris. Heavenly...roast chicken.

So fast forward to... recently. I don't have cable, which means I am missing out on all the cool new cable food shows. However, I stumbled across a show with Chef Michael Simon on it while browsing Hulu. He was talking about salt curing his roast chicken and cooking it at a high heat. DING! (or whatever sound a light bulb makes) Of COURSE! A salt cure vs. a brine...will essentially dry out the skin, making it crispy. Throw some butter UNDER the skin and you get juicy meat. So I tried it out. There it was...heavenly roast chicken. Crispy, juicy, flavorful and easy. It was cooking triumph for me.

The main tricks are these (I know it seems like a lot...but you know...they are short)

1. Make sure your chicken is fully defrosted...or use a fresh one
2. Rinse your chicken with cold water, then pat it dry with paper towels.
3. Liberally sprinkle kosher salt all over the chicken, including in the inside cavity. Don't pour it directly from the spout liberal, just grab a tablespoon and sprinkle salt all over.
4. Put your chicken in a big enough pot that it can be covered with a lid but dry out. If you don't have a pot big enough, find a safe spot in your fridge and leave the chicken un-covered. The key is it needs to dry out. Just remember though, chicken germs are mega beastly bad and don't let anything co-mingle with that uncovered bird.
5. Let it dry out aka cure...overnight.
6. Bring the bird out of the fridge about an HOUR before you are ready to roast her. She needs to come to temp before you put her in the hot oven.
7. DO NOT RINSE THE SALT OFF. I know...just don't okay. Thanks.
8. Create an amazing butter rub. Grab some soft, unsalted butter, crank in some pepper, zest some lemon if you want, throw in all the fresh herbs you can find...or keep it simple...butter, pepper...just use what you have. This is where you will be flavoring the bird, so get creative or keep it simple.
9. Spread the butter UNDER the skin. Don't be tempted to slather it all over the skin. Just stick to under the skin. I like to use a chopstick to loosen the skin up and my hands to get it up and under. Get personal with that bird.
10. Chop up some root veggies to use as a roasting rack. I use potatoes, carrots, onions and turnips. Toss them in salt, pepper and olive oil. Put them in the bottom of the pan and that is what your bird sits on to roast. Oh and take a couple of those onions and shove them in the bird's cavity.
11. Roast it at a high heat for 1 hour. 425 to be exact. Then let it rest for 20 minutes. Don't touch it. You know the rule. It needs the carryover cooking and you all watch the foodnetwork now...you know the rules about the juices and stuff.

Salt-Cured Roast Chicken
adapted from Michael Simon aka the Iron Chef guy

3 to 4 lb chicken

Kosher Salt

Fresh herbs

Softened Butter

Pepper

Root veggies

Onion

Olive oil

A day before cooking, rinse your chicken inside and out under cold water and pat dry. Salt it liberally and refrigerate it.

Take the chicken out about hour before you plan on roasting it. Preheat the oven to 425. Combine the butter and fresh herbs. Put the butter mix under the skin of the chicken.

Cut up the root veggies and the onion. Put an onion in the cavity of the chicken. Toss the rest of the veggies in some olive oil, salt and pepper and put them in the bottom of the roasting pan. Place the chicken, breast side up, on top of the veggies.

Roast the chicken for about an hour or until the juices run clear. (The thigh should register 160 degrees) Let the bird rest for 20 minutes.

First Post of a New Blog...

Well here I am again...back at it. Blogging. Feels a little odd. I have such mixed emotions about blogging. I always think to myself...who cares?! But thank goodness for you right mom?
I thought a lot about what I wanted to blog about. I knew for sure that I wanted to get my cooking classes documented on a blog. They are a such a blast, as well as document my recipes and dinner parties. Certainly the food part of my life hasn't changed much, well actually the passion for it has really only grown. I am now teaching cooking classes, developing recipes and have never enjoyed something more.

Then I thought about the rest of my life. Single gal in her 30s. Working and just trying to get by. All the while laughing at the strange alien I can be in the world around me. It's been a wide-eyed experience to say the least living in my world these past few years. Needless to say I have some funny stories.

I decided that it might be fun to not just have a food blog, but a blog that...well...is me. Thus the name...Perfectly Awry.

So here we go again, except this time it might be a bit more brazen, perhaps boring at times, very yummy and at times very narcissistic. But isn't that what a blog is? Yep.

Here we go...