Sunday Night Dinner

Late last week,
I was looking at my cookbooks and pulled out one
on my top shelf:

going solo in the kitchen

which I bought
a few years ago in Ottawa;
I bought it at the used book sale
that the public library has.
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I enjoyed looking at it
but found when I was single
that the recipes were a bit involved
and never used it,
ironically.
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So here is how I made it.
5 organic chicken legs
in two small casserole dishes.
Flour, ground mustard, paprika, salt and pepper
in a bag for a chicken shake-and-bake
with a wonderful milk gravy.
Each chicken piece in the bag with flour mixture
shook well,
first putting lemon juice on each chicken piece
and after shaking it in the flour mixture,
dusting extra flour off
and placing in pan.
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Washed organic mushrooms and baby tomatoes
smeared with butter
and a chopped small onion placed on and by the
chicken legs.
Butter dotted on each chicken.
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Baked at 425.
The author said to baste it once and that it should take
20 minutes minimum.
It took more like 45 minutes at least
and I basted with melted butter
that I put on a brush and
then slathered over the whole dish -
chicken, mushrooms and all.
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One lesson is to quickly take the casserole dishes out
instead of losing hot air of the oven
when doing this.
I did not do this at this time and
will seek to next time....
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When done I took the author's suggestion
on the milk gravy and varied it a bit:
since I had doubled the recipe already,
I doubled the gravy recipe also...
I put in about 2/3 cup of milk,
with some added cream and half-and-half
about half of the leftover bag
of flour mixture (about 2 tbs I think)
all of the wonderful fat drippings from the
chicken and stirred
until it was quite thick and creamy.


It turned out really well!
It was enough for over 2 full meals
for Mr. Husband and I. 

I got to use some of my dishes
that I had for a long time but
were stuck un-shipped in Michigan.
After Western Christmas,
my parents mailed them to us.
The salad bowl you see above
with wooden spoon and fork
that my Dad sanded
down and re-stained with a
water soluble stain that
he knew is food safe
(my Dad paints houses etc for a living
and is an expert at this sort of thing).

Here is the dish
gracing our table! 

Here's the salad bowl.
It's super cute!
It is one that is hand-washable only
as it feels like a more fragile dish.
So not to be used as often because of this.
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We used the smaller matching bowls for dessert.

 

It was a lovely meal
and gave me a great idea for a dinner party
idea God-willing in the future!
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I am looking forward to using this
cookbook again for more ideas...