food:

Tonight, I roasted a chicken – a recipe from Jamie Oliver’s first book. I’ve done this a couple times, both in the oven, and on a rotisserie. Tonight, we didn’t have any lemons (I just assumed the lemon tree would always have lemons. Oops. There are five on the tree, but none ripe.) so it was just rosemary, garlic, some lemon juice (poor substitute), salt, and pepper, with enough olive oil to turn it into a slurry, after mashing it up in a mortar & pestle. Good, but not *nearly* as good as it is with fresh lemons. Alas.

Last night, I made some mushroom & parsley stuffed chicken breasts wrapped in puff pastry, from Mr. Oliver’s third book, from which until this night, I’d cooked exactly nothing. This actually turned out quite tasty, but I botched the pastry rolling the first time, and as a result, the butter in the dough melted, and it became very hard to roll it out thin enough to cover the whole chicken breast. Ended up with exposed ends, which dried out more than I’d have liked. Still, ended up with very tender breast meat, a good mushroom stuffing, and a nice crust. I’d like to make it again, but will definitely have to be more wary about the pastry.

I’d like to cook some home-made pasta next, I think, but will wait until I can find some semolina – something none of the local grocers seem to carry – even the boutique places. Strange. Maybe make some ravioli next weekend as part of a potluck or something. Last time I tried that, it took about five hours to make the ravioli (I was still getting the hang of the pasta maker), but it turned out quite well. I suppose it ought to have, given that four people’s worth of ravioli was $40 in just the ingredients. 😛

Man, the new stove is nice. Makes a world of difference in how satisfying it is to cook. Now, if only I had more time during the week, in the evenings. Alas.