Rhea Vs. the Chicken

Week Four, Tuesday

This is the week we got a whole chicken from Fair Shares. I was determined to butcher it into pieces, even though I had never done that before and had no idea what I was doing. Roy stood by me, provided moral support, read the instructions out loud, and took pictures when my hands were covered in chicken goop.

I've roasted a whole chicken before, but I didn't want to do that here. It said the giblets were removed, but I wasn't sure that meant everything inside was gone (it didn't). Plus, cooking the individual parts takes less time than doing the whole thing.

The instructions were from my Betty Crocker cookbook, and I had trouble with them. I couldn't find the joints, had to cut through the bone... Eventually I got the wings and thighs off. After trying to separate the leg and thigh once, I didn't try with the other. I ended up cutting the breast meat directly off the carcass, not even dealing with popping the breastbone out and deboning it. And did I mention that even though I put the chicken in the fridge to defrost on Friday, there was still a little frost on it, and my hands were freezing while I was trying to cut it up?



One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces

My results: two chicken wings, one thigh, one leg, one combined thigh and leg, and two boneless skinless chicken breasts.

There was more meat left on the carcass, but I had gotten enough out to feel productive and not wasteful.

Dinner itself was pretty easy after all that. I roasted the dark meat, and made potatoes, carrots, and celery as a side dish. I don't know if the chicken was the best I'd ever had, but it was juicy and the skin crisped up nicely. We were happy with it.

It was a relief tonight to put all the food in the oven, and know I was basically done with cooking for an hour. I had plenty of time to make salads for Roy and me, and I had time to sit down and eat it.

My Fair Shares foods used tonight were: mixed greens lettuce, mint, and olive oil in the salad, chicken and olive oil for the main course.

One of the reasons I wanted to do Fair Shares was to push me out of my comfort zone and expand my cooking skills. I think next time I'll find someone to show me how to really cut up a chicken or cook it whole, but I learned a lot tonight.

Crunchy Garlic Chicken, Again

Week Four, Monday

I got really stressed out cooking dinner this night. It wasn't even a new recipe, but one that's a standard for me. I had some errands to run after work, so I didn't start cooking until late. I made crunchy garlic chicken with roasted potatoes and sauteed spinach and onions.

I'm getting a different meat each week from Fair Shares, but I ran out of extra meat in the freezer, so I got some more chicken breasts at Whole Foods. I put the potatoes in the oven, and started dividing up the chicken to vacuum and freeze. It took longer than I expected. I still had to get some chicken ready for dinner. The timer went off to say it was time to put the chicken in the oven, but it wasn't ready yet! Agghh. Roy helped out by making the salad, and I got the chicken ready without overcooking the potatoes.

Roy also cut up an onion for me, for the sauteed spinach and onions. Everything tasted great, but we didn't get to eat until 8pm.






This meal used the following foods from Fair Shares: mixed greens and olive oil in the salad, and spinach as a side dish.

I ended up not exercising or getting any paperwork done this night. Actually went to bed on time though. I was spent after the weekend trip and busy dinner.

Weekend Getaway

Week Four, Saturday

Roy and I are headed up to Chicago to see a concert by bass player Tony Levin. Deep dish pizza for dinner tonight. This is all I've cooked at home today.

Spicy Mostarda

Week Four, Friday

Somehow, I got home from work at 5:15 and didn't eat dinner until 7:45. I don't know where all the time went. I wasn't just cooking the whole time, I was getting ready for a weekend trip and doing some laundry, but still...

I made a salad using the Fair Shares mixed greens lettuce, mint, and olive oil. (I've decided to stop taking pictures of the mostly same salads over and over again.) I made this first and ate it before I started cooking the main course.

Dinner was a mushroom spinach omelet with sauteed potatoes and onions. Also toast. We got a dried fruit condiment called mostarda from Fair Shares this week. I was going to try it on my toast. I saw that the last ingredient was chili flakes. I don't like spicy food, so I asked Roy to taste-test it for me. He said it was sweet. And spicy, too spicy for me.


If any of my Yesfan friends are reading this, these three mushrooms remind me of a Roger Dean stage set. Alan could be playing the drums under this, like the crab nebula.

My eggs are so inconsistent. I've been making them regularly for dinner since we started getting eggs from Fair Shares. I still can't flip them over well. This night, Roy's turned out fine. I cleaned out the frying pan, but my eggs stuck to it and made a mess. It all tasted alright, but it's frustrating. I don't know what I did differently. Here's a picture of Roy's eggs.


Dinner used eggs, spinach and mushrooms from Fair Shares. I also had a bagel for breakfast, and Roy ate some strawberries as a snack.

Veggie Spectacular

Week 4, Thursday

I'm going away this weekend, which will cut short the number of dinners I'm cooking this week. We got a bunch of interesting vegetables. Why don't I cook a little of everything all at once? It seemed like a good idea, and with Roy's help, we got it all done at the same time.

I was out of meats at home, and the chicken we got this week from Fair Shares is still frozen. I stopped at the market after work. I've really been enjoying the burgers I've made recently, so I bought some ground beef and hamburger buns. I used to make turkey burgers once a week or so, but I got tired of them. I also bought a sweet potato.

I had a lot of prep work to do. We were having sauteed kale, grilled spring onions, and sauteed mushrooms. Let's see:
Kale - this was already washed, but I had to cut the stems off and chop it
Spring onions - I had to figure out what parts of the spring onions we were supposed to eat (I needed Roy's help on that) and clean them
Mushrooms - I had to clean these and cut some of them up

cut up spring onions

I didn't know what I was doing, so I wanted to follow the instructions exactly. So I cooked all three separately. If I had gotten all of the prep work done first, it might have been okay. But I put the sweet potatoes in the oven and set the timer.
prepping the sweet potato

I had the kale and spring onions ready to go when the timer hit 20 minutes. I had to start cooking them soon, and I still had to mix some things into the ground beef and clean the mushrooms. Roy helped wilting the kale and turning the onions on the grill while I finished prepping. There was a lot going on at once! I'm not doing all of this again! It did turn out well.

mushrooms, kale, and spring onions




Oh yeah, Roy and I both had bagels for breakfast, and Roy's been snacking on the strawberries.

Tired but Cooking Anyway

Week Four, Wednesday

This is the first night since we've been getting food from Fair Shares that I didn't want to cook. I was fine at work this day, but I was tired and sweaty after walking home from the Fair Shares pickup. And the dishwasher wasn't done yet, so half the things I wanted to use weren't available. If I weren't doing this food thing, we would have gone out to eat at this point.

I've been falling into a rhythm where, on new food pickup day, I already have most of the ingredients I'm going to use for dinner, and I try to incorporate some new item into it. Then I look into recipes, and do some supplementary grocery shopping on Thursday after work for any other items I need.

We got a bunch of new veggies this week: spinach, spring onions, mushrooms. Plus I had some kale and asparagus left over from last week. But if I was going to get dinner cooked, I'd be going on auto-pilot and I had to do something familiar. I did not have the patience to look at a recipe.

I did my usual roasted chicken with roasted potatoes and sauteed spinach and onions. At least I used some of the new spinach.

Here's the cut-up potatoes with the olive-oil and some herbs before I mix them all up.


And after mixing them up


While the chicken and potatoes were in the oven, I took the spinach out to clean it. This was the biggest, hardiest spinach I've ever seen. I'm not sure I would have recognized it as spinach.

I wasn't sure what to do, but the stems were thick, so I cut them out before I washed the spinach. I remember the days when I bought pre-washed cute little spinach leaves. That was easier.

I had enough time to wash the lettuce and make a salad too. This used the new lettuce mix, a mint leaf, olive oil, and two little mushrooms.


Here's dinner. The chicken was dry and I didn't exercise that night, but at least I cooked dinner and used some of the new Fair Shares foods.

Week Four Share

Week Four



This week we got:
Greenwood Farms Chicken
Ozark Forest Fresh Mushrooms
Biver Farm Lettuce
Thies Spinach
Lehr Green Onions
Sunshine Strawberries
River Hills Poultry Alliance Eggs
Salume Beddu Mostarda
Companion Bagels

I've purchased whole chickens before, but I was a little scared of getting one from Fair Shares. I didn't know how whole they'd be exactly and what kind of prep work I'd need to do. Thankfully, they come with the giblets removed, just like they do at the grocery store.

I've never bought a frozen whole chicken before. The Fair Shares people said it would take three days to defrost. We're going away this weekend, so I won't be able to try it until we get back.

I was tired when I got home from Fair Shares. We walked there, and it was too muggy out. The humidity just zaps me of energy. I started to put the food away. Roy reminded me that I hadn't taken a picture of it yet. I had to pull things out of the fridge to document them.