Friday, November 05, 2010

Cooking Adventures

I like to make really good dinners for my guys. All six of them. Yes, six. Four boys, a husband, and a nephew, Matt, that lives with us now (he's grown up; well that might be debate-able!). There's a lot of testosterone at our house. That's another post. This post is about dinner.

Tim has decided that he wants to lose a few pounds so he has requested more chicken. Which is funny because when we first got married that's about all I made, since it was all my mom made and it's all I knew how to do. And he got sick of it. And I got sick of it during my first pregnancy. Enter beef. I love beef.

Anywho, because I like to make my husband happy, I've been seeking out new chicken dishes. I found this recipe on Pioneer Woman for Chicken Cacciatore. But I wasn't sure I wanted to try it; I don't like to touch raw chicken, and I hate the bones and stuff. I much prefer to work with boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Alas, not so much for this recipe.

But at the store I picked up a package of chicken thighs much against my better judgement. The bones! And the skin!

I determined it was time to go for it. I gathered all the other ingredients and began my work. Braising the chicken wasn't bad at all thankfully, the worst part was holding the chicken as I salted and peppered and dredged in flour, but I made it through. Then I chopped and sliced veggies, and I do love to slice mushrooms, and even though I don't like to eat them, there's something satisfying about the smooth way the knife slides right through and clicks on the cutting board.

I had thrown in all the veggies and they were cooking when Tim and Matt came in from a long day of working outside. They about fell over it smelled so good. I was sorry to tell them dinner would still be awhile. I could have made a meal out of just the veggies. Mmmm!

Then I added the tomatoes, and put the chicken pieces back in my cast iron chicken fryer, put the lid on and popped it in the oven. When it was time to take the lid off and kick up the heat for the oven I opened the oven and took the lid off, it was so beautiful I wanted to take a picture and blog about it. However, the batteries for the camera were in the charger, so you'll just have to click over to PW to see what it looked like. At that point I started the noodles and set the table. By then Tim and Matt were about to keel over from starvation, they hadn't eaten since breakfast I think.

I did not put it all together on a fancy platter like I wanted to and PW said to--I have found when trying new recipes with the boys it's best to keep things separate so they can combine at will once it's on their plates. However, I did make up the adult plates, and Eli's, and they looked just about like PW's picture. Scrumptious!

The boys all liked it, a total hit! Tim was very pleased and Matt gave it an A+. Definitely a keeper, and next time I'll have batteries in the camera!

3 comments:

Jessica said...

I also can't stand to touch chicken on the bone. Yuk! I may have to try this recipe though. All PW's recipes look soooooo good! :)

Deanna said...

I LOVE it when a dinner plan comes together--especially a new recipe! Way to go, Mama! Those boys don't know how great they have it! :)

Dan and Peg said...

great job! I love PW's recipes. They're so easy to follow, and taste so good!